How to Become a Creator and Beat the System

The 9-5 is dying. The system is breaking. Here's how to maximise the opportunity.

July 15, 2021

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5 min read

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What the system teaches you:

Get a job you hate

Trade your time for money

Trade your money for stuff you don’t need to impress people you don’t like

Spend 45 years dreaming of retiring when your body is old and your mind is expiring

Live a life of quiet desperation

Die with regrets and unfulfilled potential

What you should do:

Start a blog/ podcast/ newsletter/ YouTube channel

Build an audience and become an expert in your niche

Build a personal brand and get bigger paying clients

Use that money to create courses and memberships that serve your audience

Trade your knowledge for money

Never trade time for money again

Fulfill your potential

Live a life of purpose

Strengths vs weaknesses

If you want to beat the system you need to make money.

You need to use your knowledge to solve your audience’s problems.

But first, you must get noticed. And then remembered.

You need to stand out in crowded markets and build trust.

Stop worrying about your weakness, focus on your strengths.

Spend 80% of your time making your strengths stronger.

What are your strengths?

What problems do they solve?

Your strengths are a combination of your natural talents blended with your learned experiences and your personality.

This creates your niche of one.

Your weaknesses? Pay experts to fill in your gaps. You can’t do everything.

Confidence

Confidence is a key indicator. But what is confidence?

It is your perceived ability to complete a task successfully.

Most people base their confidence on results.

When they are successful they feel confident, when they are not their self-esteem crashes. This is an incredibly poor strategy.

Why?

Because success is out of your control. And therefore so is your confidence.

Whatever your goal is you can break it down into smaller daily chunks.

These are your process goals (or lead metrics) by completing these metrics you will achieve the results (lag metrics)

You are in control of process goals. Do them every day and you will build your confidence.

Your confidence is then tied to your ability to show up and do the work.

Work that is in your control.

Confidence is one of the key predictors of success in any field. Control your confidence to control your success.

Do this by controlling your process and the results will take care of themselves.

Thought leadership

You will not stand out by saying the same things as everyone else.

Following the crowd is going to blend you in.

Your voice will get lost in the seas of mediocrity.

What is the status quo in your niche? Where is the bullshit?

Every niche has over-complicated, unnecessary filler often used to leverage a higher price or increase the pain point of the consumer.

Identify it in your niche and then stand against it. Call it out.

You will stand out and build trust.

Simplify the process. Make it easier for your audience.

Networks

One of the best things about writing is the connections you make. I’ve had made scores of connections with cool creators who are innovators.

When you regularly post content it connects with people and they will reach out.

Start conversations with them. I occasionally jump on zoom calls to chat with interesting people.

Only last night I had a great chat with an entrepreneur from Belarus.

Publishing content creates new connections.

Developing a strong network takes time but let it happen organically. Let people connect with your creativity.

Jump on zoom calls. See if you have mutual interests. Perhaps you can do something small that will have a big impact on them.

Perhaps they can do the same for you one day. Or maybe your conversations can inspire some new content.

Future possibilities

The system has three phases in life

Education — Work — Retirement

To beat the system you need to crush the fundamentals that form the foundations.

You need to leverage your expertise into education products or communities that serve your audience so you’re not trading time for money.

Your audience will age with you. With education products and memberships, you can produce income way beyond the standard retirement ages, while still have a purpose within helping others.

Compound opportunity interest

Publishing content is the best way to build anything, and the only way to build a personal brand.

Your personal brand will compound year after year. Just look at some of the more established creators who started a decade ago.

Building a creative portfolio career takes time but as it grows it will compound over time.

Once you have established yourself as an expert in your niche you will get more inbound leads than you can cope with.

You can develop your brand and go into new areas and niches.

The end game?

To live a life of purpose.

And avoid living in quiet desperation and dying with regrets

Summary + tips

Don’t quit your job, start your creative outlet as a side hustle

There is no such thing as job security. The security is in your email list + connecting deeply with your audience.

Use your strengths to solve other people’s weaknesses.

Build process goals that are in your control to build your confidence.

Talent is a poor predictor of success. Confidence and consistency are far better indicators.

Publishing regular quality content that will help your network

Start new creative outlets e.g podcasts

Your personal brand will be compounded by the amount of content you publish over the years.

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A bit about me

I’m an ex- multi-platinum artist manager. I created strategies and built audiences for artists who sold millions. I’ve challenged myself to write 50 articles in 50 working days. 45 down, 5 to go.

You can read more in the archives here. Find out more information on my website or connect on my LinkedIn

Interested in 1:1 Creative Business/ Personal Branding Strategy?

I help creators and solopreneurs become famous in their niches. I specialise in: