By Ryan Richardson · Published 8 October 2026
Most people with real experience carry one sentence they've learned not to say out loud. One worked example: 'nobody has the insight, including me,' a sentence that irritates people who sell judgement for a living, which describes most of the category it sits in.
The test isn't whether the sentence sounds smart. It's whether saying it costs something real, and whether a credible opponent exists who would push back on it to your face.
Write three pieces of advice you give privately that you'd never publish. Write each in one line, then write the strongest honest case against it, in the words a real opponent would actually use, not a strawman version that's easy to beat.
A strong case you still believe through, after hearing it stated well, is a spine. A strong case that leaves you quietly softening the original sentence is a preference, and preferences don't survive a sceptical reader for long. A weak case against your sentence is a warning sign rather than a comfort: if nobody could argue the other side with a straight face, you've picked something nobody disputes, which is safe and useless at the same time.
You can name a real person who would object to your sentence, and you've written their strongest honest case against it in their own words, not a version weak enough to flatter your side. The sentence survives that case intact, or it gets replaced before any drafting starts.
| Claim | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Matrix difficulty/coverage for this step | Hard / Almost nobody does this | The Sixty Steps matrix |
| Number of private pieces of advice to write down as spine candidates | 3 | The Sixty Steps manuscript |