Don't Reinvent the Wheel

Yesterday, while planning what content to create next, I broke my own number one rule: Always create a simple plan.

Instead, I got swept up in the moment and decided to create a complicated plan, with bells and whistles and cherries on top.

I made a content calendar with stickers and tabs and color-coded markers.

I cooked up ideas for 6 different kinds of content (videos, reels, posts, quotes, stories, livestreams).

I worried about unnecessary details (should I do music or voiceovers with my reels?).

And within 30 minutes, I found myself so overwhelmed I was nearly in tears.

Over a content calendar.

I felt like Kim Kardashian in that episode where she loses her earring in the ocean and has a full on breakdown.

And then I remembered something really important: the wheel has already been invented.

And it works excellently. No need to create a content calendar or a social media strategy or ANYTHING.

A reminder of my simple plan that's been working for years:

1. Create valuable content.

2. Post it.

What’s your simple plan?

Show Up for the Superfans

Don't create for the person who might critique you. 

Create for the person who thinks you're a genius.

The people who don’t like what you’ve got aren’t your people. And that’s okay! 

Spend zero time thinking about them.

Just send them a big hug and let them unfollow, unsubscribe or walk away.

Because when you create from a place of “what will the neighbours think?” you curb your creativity.

Don’t create for them. Create for the superfan that loves ANYTHING you make.

Create for the people that NEED your brilliance.

Your work might not seem special to you. But to someone else, it’s life changing.

And every time you shy away out of fear of rejection, someone misses out on the magic you’ve got.

Your job is to show up for the people who adore you – even if you don’t know who or where they are.

I promise they’re here. Quietly watching.

They’re checking daily to see if you’ve put more of your goodness into the world.

They’re impacted by everything you do.

You’re the X to their “What would X do?”

YOU ARE IMPACTFUL.

Especially when you show up for the right person.

The Simple, Easy, Ugly, Random Challenge

"If it’s not complicated and difficult and pretty and consistent then I can’t post it."

I just got off the phone with a client who said this to me.

And I had to immediately write it down.

Because I think SO many people have this thought about social media.

We want eveeeerything to be perfect from the get-go.

And it PARALYSES us.

What if instead, creating content could be simple and easy and ugly and random?

If you've been avoiding posting about your project, business or passion, I challenge you to just post something simple and easy and ugly and random today.

Because it’s SO much better than posting nothing at all.

#SimpleEasyUglyRandomChallenge

Scheduling Growth

Recently I’ve been evaluating my work a lot more.

Not just coaching sessions, but consultations, marketing, admin – my whole business.

I’ve been asking: What was good about the way I did that? What would I change for next time?

AND THEN – and this bit is key – I actually schedule time into my calendar to make the changes or practice doing it differently.

Because it’s one thing to say “Next time I’ll do it differently” and it’s another to actively do it.

Selling is a Gift In Itself

I’m a coach and I sell coaching. 

It’s how I keep 99% of my content, like my blog, my videos and my Facebook group, totally free.

Selling is one of the ways I give.

• It’s helpful to the people who get their problem solved by paying me.

• It’s helpful to the people who benefit from my free content.

• It’s helpful to the people who I can buy from because I was paid.

Selling is a beautiful thing.

And yet we’ve all been conditioned to believe charging money for our gifts is too salesy and we should give our time, knowledge, services, and products away for free.

Imagine if your local supermarket closed down from fear of being too salesy.

“We bought all this food but we just felt so bad about selling stuff that we just shutdown the store.”

What? No! Sell me some food please!

Thank goodness people sell things.

Thank goodness for advertisements.

Thank goodness for our free will to choose whether we want to buy or not.

People want you to sell them the solution to their problem.

Selling is a gift in itself.

Go and give it to someone.

The Points System (aka: How to Think About Selling)

When I was at University, I participated in a lot of street activism for the environment.

I had to sell an idea.

But for every dozen people I spoke to, maybe one of them would truly seem like they were going to make a change.

I felt extremely discouraged and like the planet was doomed – until the event organizer told me about The Points System.

The Points System is the concept that as a person goes about their daily life, they accumulate “points”.

Zero points = They don’t care about the environment at all.

100 points = They make a drastic change to their life (stop buying fast fashion/cut out animal products/start biking to work).

Maybe they saw a Netflix documentary last year about the damage in our oceans, and that gave them 20 points.

Maybe they saw trash lying on the beach and it added 15 points.

Maybe they had a conversation with me at the event, and it added another 10 points.

Usually, the person would leave our event, seemingly unchanged on the outside.

But inside, the points were adding up.

I realised it wasn’t my job to give them 100 points in a single conversation.

I just had to offer them as many extra points as I could.

It’s the same with selling as a creative, artist, or entrepreneur.

It’s rare to sell something in a single conversation or social media post.

Your audience needs to connect with you over and over again to rack up 100 points.

Each time you talk with someone, you’re adding points.

Each time you make an offer, you’re adding points.

Each time you show up to add value, you’re adding points.

Entrepreneurs sometimes tell me:

• “I went to one networking event and no one was interested.”

• “I spoke on clubhouse for 10 minutes and no one even followed me.”

• “I made an offer on Instagram and all I heard was crickets!”

And they stop connecting with people and selling.

Because what's the use if no one is buying?

But someone could be on 99 points right now.

They could be ONE offer away, ONE conversation away, ONE point away from hiring you.

If you truly believed that someone was just ONE action away, how would you show up today?

Surround Yourself With People Who Are Crushing the Game

Surround yourself with people who are crushing the game.

It will take your brain from impossible > possible > probable > inevitable.

If 10k months feel impossible, surround yourself with people who are doing them.

If publishing your book feels impossible, surround yourself with people who are already publishing their 5th one.

If becoming an actor feels impossible, surround yourself with paid actors.

Seek them out.

Do whatever it takes to get in the room with the people who are where you want to be.

You will become one of them.

You Don’t Need Social Media to Run A Business

You don’t need social media to run your business.

Social media is just another way of connecting.

You can also connect offline.

The same principles apply.

Connect with people.

Add actual real value to their life.

Share how you can help them.

Don’t love social media? Totally okay!

Use the principles at a supermarket or train station instead.

Your Website Won't Make You Money

Your website is two things: a brochure and credit card processor.

It will not make you money.

Thinking it will make you money is like expecting an eftpos card machine to bring you customers.

YOU make the money. The website is an accessory.

My website was up for an entire year before I made a single dollar in my business, but I spent that entire year thinking that having a website would automatically bring success.

Once I stopped depending on external things to make me money: websites, funnels, social media, and started depending on adding value to people’s lives and solving problems, things started to change.

Create a website if you want one. Just remember that you’re the boss.

You ARE a Thought Leader

Don’t deny the world of your genius because you didn’t come up with every idea from scratch.

It’s the combination of the genius you’ve absorbed from a bunch of different people, mixed with your own life experience, that makes YOU the creator someone loves to follow.

Your brain is a SUPERBABY of all the people you’ve been influenced by.

Tony Robbins X Oprah X Stacey Boehman X Elizabeth Gilbert X my Year 12 French Teacher = my superbaby brain.

So instead of thinking I don’t have anything valuable or new to say, I'm like Y’ALL BETTER STRAP IN TIGHT BECAUSE YOU’VE NEVER HEARD IT LIKE THIS BEFORE.

It should go without saying that plagiarism is never a vibe, but you can totally credit the original creator for their rightful intellectual property that inspired your musing AND still be a thought leader.

Actually, that's how thought leaders are created – by sharing YOUR particular mixture of superbaby genius with the world.