Today You’ll Learn:
- How to think about your digital devices, the internet, and social media
- How to maximize your leverage using social media as a creator
- How to build a personal brand you can happily commit your life to
Before we get started…
- Join the Absolute Abundance Academy waitlist, an 8-12 week program for content creators, consultants, and infopreneurs ready to go from overwhelmed and underpaid to deeply fulfilled and richly rewarded
- Learn how to master creativity, money, and freedom inside of the Key of Wealth
- Learn how to master structure, learning, and practice inside of the Key of Time
Have you ever thought deeply about your digital devices?
What do you see when you look at your phone or computer?
Do you see a screen? A rectangular amalgamation of glass and metal?
If that’s all you see, you’re blind.
What about a tool for staying connected to your friends and family, accessing the internet, and keeping boredom at perpetual bay?
If that’s what you see, you’re not quite blind… but you’re certainly wearing blinders.
But you wouldn’t be alone, as this is what the average person with a cellphone, laptop, or PC sees when they look at their device.
They live in blissful ignorance of what it truly is, happy to use it solely for receiving a steady, algorithmically generated stream of mindless distraction and unearned dopamine.
Now, don’t get me wrong – we’re all used by these devices to some extent.
But those who understand what these devices truly are, and put that understanding to use, can afford the occasional indulgence in mindless distraction and unearned dopamine – because 7, 8, or 9 times out of 10, they’re using the device the way they ought to be using it.
But before we can talk about how your cellphone or computer ought to be used, you need to shift your perception of what these devices are and how they operate.
It’s time to open your eyes to the reality.
Your cellphone and your computer are portals – nothing less than gateways for accessing levels of education, creation, connection, and opportunity that would otherwise never be available to you.
They are windows into the vast and seemingly endless sea of humanity’s collective knowledge – everything we’ve ever discovered or come to understand available freely and near-instantly, at the tips of your fingers.
And, finally, they are reality-warping devices – they are machines that can fundamentally alter the trajectory and course of your life, for better or for worse, depending on how you choose to use them.
Your cellphone isn’t just a cellphone, your computer isn’t just a computer.
These are pocket and back-pack sized monoliths that, in most other ages in time, would have been seen as tools so imbued with magic and power that they could have only come from a force outside of our understanding and comprehension, or the very gods themselves.
And in this article, I’m going to teach you how to make full use of this power – using the complex web that lies at its center – social media.
The great attractor
I’ve had this idea for a while that social media is like this great attractor.
It’s a collective digital space that most of the world now occupies, but it’s also so much more than that.
Social media is a medium through which you’re able to not only expand your own being and sense of self by intentionally architecting your digital identity, but an interface (and in many ways, an augmentation) that grants you the ability to magnetically pull towards yourself the unique combination of circumstances and events you need to fulfill your highest potential and experience your best possible life.
You make use of this ability in four distinct ways:
- Education – leveraging the vast sea of information to gain knowledge and understanding within valuable fields, and expertise with valuable skills
- Creation – transforming the knowledge, understanding, and expertise you cultivate into value by producing content, products, and services that improve the lives of others
- Connection – developing relationships with the people who have found themselves in the same spaces online, because their very being there means they are likely of similar thought, action, and value as yourself, and are walking a similar path
- Opportunity – the possibilities and potentialities that become available to you as a result of the education you seek, the value you create, and the connections you develop
If you use social media with these four methods in mind, the doors it unlocks for you can lead you to success and fulfilment beyond your wildest imagination.
Let’s break down how to pursue and apply each one properly.
Education
First, you need to understand that everyone – including people who leverage it – uses the internet and social media to consume.
It isn’t about avoiding consumption, its about developing patterns and habits of using the internet and social media that are conducive to consuming with the proper intention.
Mindless consumption is distraction, mindful consumption is education.
Learning to use social media as a tool for education is the first step in going from it using you to you using it.
To do this properly, fill your social media feeds with:
- Content that contributes valuable information relative to your curiosities, interests, and the skills you’ve developed and/or are seeking to develop
- Creators who have a brand and business that is similar to the brand and business you want to build for yourself, so you can learn from, emulate, and reverse engineer what they do and how they do it
- Conversations, questions, and problems people have that direct you towards what you might want to spend more time learning about and what you might want to consider creating solutions (value) around
Of course, this is just as it applies to social media – it’s to say nothing of the internet and applications outside of the social networks you can use to further accelerate your education.
Books, articles, podcasts, and videos are all openly and freely available for you to find and seek out, so you can dive deeper into learning more about the fields and skills you’re interested in.
Remember – what you are seeking is also seeking you.
If you approach these tools with the right intention, you will be rewarded.
Creation
The moment you go from value consumer to value creator online is the moment you really begin to use these tools to their full potential.
Every tweet you write, post you make, or video you upload isn’t just a piece of content – it’s a seed you plant in the garden of your ideal future.
Whenever you plant a seed, you’re collapsing what I like to call the “field of pure potentiality” – you’re making a decision that opens you up to experiencing potential futures that align more closely with the vision you have for your life, and closing yourself off from potential futures that don’t.
If you’re reading this, you likely want to be or already are a content creator, so I’m going to give a few recommendations for people in both camps.
If you’re just starting…
- Get your ideas out there – prioritize experimentation and have 0 expectations. The only way to build a successful brand is to produce your first piece of content. Aim to do the best you can, but stop worrying about doing it perfectly. Just do it and learn as you go.
- Focus on emulation over nuance and originality – look at the other creators you aspire to be like and start “stealing” like an artist. Recreate their content with your own style and voice. It should go without saying that I’m not suggesting you plagiarize, but I am suggesting you heavily reference. Rewrite, recombine, and recontextualize what’s worked well for them so you can see if it works well for you. Nuance and originality will come naturally overtime.
- Stick to a single platform – each platform is like a plant. If you don’t know how to care properly for one, trying to care for multiple will just make each one of them suffer. Learn how to get one to thrive first, and then consider repurposing your content to grow your presence on other platforms.
If you’re already creating…
- Develop your authority – really zero-in on what you want to stand for and be known for online. How can you produce ideas so good, in such a way, that people automatically associate the ideas with having learned them from you? Don’t be afraid to push boundaries, because that’s exactly what’s necessary for building authority and standing out as a creator.
- Focus on nuance and originality – When I say originality, I don’t mean brand new ideas. I mean uniquely presenting concepts (both obscure and well known) in unique and fresh ways. Take some of my work, for example; the fractal based content system I wrote about last week, social media as a great attractor this week, etc. I’m not writing about anything that hasn’t been explored before, I’m just attempting to explore the ideas from angles that get people thinking about them in ways they haven’t before.
- Become ecosystem minded – you can undoubtedly thrive as a content creator on a single platform. But if you’re someone who wants to create a real impact and elevate your brand and business to new heights, you should begin branching out. There has never been a time in our digital history where a single piece of content can be so easily repurposed for another platform, and not only succeed on multiple platforms at once, but exponentially increase collective awareness of who you are, what you do, and what you offer.
Regardless of what stage you’re in on your journey, creating online is undoubtedly one of the best possible things you can do in the modern world.
The present favors the polymath, the multi-faceted and multi-capable person, but the future will depend on them.
Connection
Having a strong network full of genuine connections with like-minded people all aiming towards similar goals and walking similar paths is half the battle to succeeding online.
There is no getting to where you’re going alone, and this is especially true when it comes to building on social media.
It’s called social media for a reason – the creators who focus solely on the media aspect create content that struggles to ignite reach and growth, the creators who focus solely on the social aspect aren’t consistent enough with the content they create to sustain reach and growth.
It’s the creators that manage to do both successfully that go the distance.
If you have a network, spend time cultivating it. If you don’t have a network, prioritize building one.
Seek out other creators that are at a similar place in their journey as you, a step or two behind you, or a step or two in front of you.
Never be afraid to send a DM but ALWAYS lead with sincerity and value.
Here are some openers you can try, but ONLY use them when the opportunity to use them genuinely presents itself:
- “Hey NAME, just wanted to say I really appreciate you and your content. What you put out really resonates with me and I can tell we’re on similar wavelengths. What got you started on your journey?”
- “Hey NAME, this (THREAD/IG POST/LINKEDIN POST) was absolutely killer – shared it to my audience/network because of how valuable I thought it was. What was your inspiration for creating it?”
- “Damn, I thought I was the only one who thought of (IDEA/CONCEPT THEY PRESENTED IN THEIR CONTENT) like this. Happy to see I’m not the only one. How did you come to that conclusion/develop that idea/reach that perspective?”
Once you’ve built some rapport, offer your platform to those you want to grow with. Tell THEM you’d love to share THEIR content – use the law of reciprocity, offer to give instead of asking to take.
If you’ve done it right, it’s likely they’ll be willing to do the same for you.
You need to be intentional with this, as every endorsement you give (in the form of retweets, story shares, comments, etc) is tied to your name just as much as it is the name of the person you’re endorsing, and it goes both ways.
Make sure if you’re asking someone to share your work, it honors their name and brand by merit of being high quality and valuable to and for their audience.
Above all else, seek out connections with the potential for long-term, genuine relationships at the forefront of your mind.
Building meaningful relationships online is just like building them in real life – you won’t be able to do it successfully with everybody, you won’t be able to force it, and you simply need to allow it to happen naturally.
But once you’ve done this successfully, you won’t just have a network of people who can mutually benefit each other – you’ll have a global collective of genuine friends who are committed to succeeding together and alongside you.
Opportunity
Don’t think the opportunities that come your way need to look a certain way.
Opportunities can manifest in a variety of ways, and often times in ways you wouldn’t expect.
Open your senses, listen and watch for where you might be able to provide value.
You never know when or how jumping onto a speaker on a Twitter space, or doing an Instagram live or Q&A with your audience, or co-creating something with someone else will pay off for you.
Opportunity expands in direct proportion to the value you provide – I genuinely believe this to be a fundamental law of the Universe.
The more you give of yourself, the more you will be given.
All being said, you can’t just wait for opportunity to fall out of the sky.
The whole point of leveraging the internet and social media to educate, create, and connect is to put yourself in the way of luck and opportunity:
- Use education to stand in the way of luck and opportunity through application of the expertise and skills you develop.
- Use creation to stand in the way of luck and opportunity by providing solutions to problems others have and enriching their lives with value.
- Use connection to stand in the way of luck and opportunity by being someone the people in your network feel fortunate to know, and who they want to see win and succeed.
And above all else, stay consistent and operate on longer time horizons.
On a micro-level, approach this as a sprint – try to move with speed on a day-to-day basis.
But on a macro-level, approach this as a marathon – your personal brand and online business is an extension and reflection of you, and you will change, grow, and expand until the day you die.
See your brand and business the same way, and you’ll experience greater success in the short term and greater fulfilment over the long term.
Other ways I can help you:
- Join the Absolute Abundance Academy waitlist, an 8-12 week program for content creators, consultants, and infopreneurs ready to go from overwhelmed and underpaid to deeply fulfilled and richly rewarded
- Learn how to master creativity, money, and freedom inside of the Key of Wealth
- Learn how to master structure, learning, and practice inside of the Key of Time
Much love and, as always, thank you for reading.
– JCS
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