My guest today is Will Mannon 马晓伟. Will is the Course Director of Write of Passage and passionate about online education. In his free time, Will enjoys exploring language, literature, history, and philosophy. He lived in China for six months and is a comfortable Mandarin speaker.

We discussed:

1. The motivation behind learning Chinese and how to learn a foreign language in adult year


2. The difference between the Chinese and American education system


3. What's the uncommon fire that motivates you to keep going?


4. A brief introduction of Write of Passage and how writing online can accelerate personal and career development?


5. What's the future of online learning? Three advantages of building up the cohort-based online course


6. Four common traits and challenges from online writing


7. How to find your online writing process?


8. How to navigate in the age of information abundance?


9. How to form a reading habit and some book recommendations?


10. How does reading biography permit us to pursue our bliss?


11. Chat about Fernando Pessoa and Ralph Waldo Emerson


12. What is the wisdom you learned from your favourite writers?

Books and links mentioned in this episode:

• Will Learns Chinese


• The National College Entrance Examination (Gaokao, 高考)


• itakie: 1-on-1 lessons in more than 150 languages


• An Uncommon Fire


• Mimetic theory by René Girard


• Write of Passage – An online course by David Perell


• Building a Second Brain


• Paul Graham


• The Man with 73 Masks


• The Social Dilemma


• Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan


• Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson


• I. Asimov: A Memoir by Isaac Asimov


• Founders Podcast


• Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke


• The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa


• 读书会分享 | 葡萄牙作家费尔南多·佩索阿


• Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre


• The The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus


• The Stranger by Albert Camus


• Flowism: My Philosophy of Living

Follow Will Mannon on Twitter and check out his website