An engineer recently reached out to me, cold. I wasn’t sure how I got on his radar, so I asked. He’s an avid learner who’s trying to round out his business skills to be a better entrepreneur. He shared that he’d read one of my blog post series about a biography I’d read and decided to reach out to me. This engineer is sharp, so I’m glad we connected.

I thought about that conversation more today, and I have a few takeaways:

• This engineer has a portfolio of side projects and cool things he’s building. Seeing them made me curious to learn more about them and him. They showed me that he isn’t just a talker. He’s executing, which gave him credibility.
• Whenever I hear from a reader that my posts helped them, it fires me up. That kind of feedback motivates me.
• In the last year, every person who reached out after reading my blog mentioned a post about a biography adding value to them and triggering them to reach out. I need to write more in-depth posts about biographies.
• Sharing my learnings about biographies has led to my meeting smart and interesting entrepreneurs across the country whom I’d never have met otherwise.
• The posts about biographies are helping me create magnetic luck (see here).
• Posts about entrepreneur biographies have filtered the type of people who reach out. It’s been entrepreneurs who are serious about reading to learn.
• I want to connect with more entrepreneurs who get value from my posts about biographies. I need to figure out how to let those readers know I want to hear from them.  
• I need to turn the old posts about biographies in these posts (and future posts) into a newsletter.
• Cold outreach works. More people should do it more often (in the right way). There’s zero to lose and lots to gain.

I never would have thought it, but writing about what I’m reading adds value to others and is a good way to connect with entrepreneurs who love to learn (my kind of people).