Thought Leadership is Robbing You of Success

It’s Wednesday, August 30th, and today we’re looking at examples of how the experts we know and love “contradict” each other, and why it’s killing your momentum.

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Thought leadership is robbing you of success

While community does make an appearance in today’s newsletter, you’re going to find a little deviation in the name of making an important point:

We are becoming far too reliant on thought leaders, and it’s killing progress.

When we need more information, whether it’s in support of a business idea or a desired skillset, we seek out the experts and get to learning. Seeking wisdom is good, but I would argue that we do it:

• For far too long

• From too many people

• With too little critical thinking

The number of people who jump from idea to idea, framework to framework, and never build anything of significance is staggering. More information is not the solution. More action is.

In fact, there is a tipping point where the more info you seek, the further behind you’re falling, because you’ll start to find conflicting information, undermining the very clarity you need.

Tim Ferriss and Dickie Bush contradict each other.

Gary Vaynerchuk and Justin Welsh contradict each other.

Richard Millington and April Maclean contract each other.

Here’s how, and what to do about it.

Historically, I've had a real information consumption problem. Over the last few decades, I've had too many seasons where I gorged on information, getting fat on the number of podcasts, courses, and books at my fingertips. Adding more and more information made me feel like I was moving forward, but I never did anything with that information. In fact, I was an information couch potato.

All of that gorging was starting to make me feel ill. I was getting grumpy over posts about new frameworks. Rolling my eyes when reading taglines for new books, and scoffing over webinars selling courses. These reactions were the symptom, but I was the problem. I was outsourcing my progress to people who couldn’t (and shouldn’t) do the work for me.

In 2018, I took an information sabbatical. No podcasts, courses, or books. I was allowed to re-read something only if I was going to put it into immediate practice. Over the next few years, I realized how absurd the world of thought leadership had become; not in its existence, but in its use cases.

So many successful people gave conflicting advice. And why shouldn't they? They were simply sharing what worked in the context of their interests and goals. It was I who somehow interpreted this as doctrine instead of taking away only the pieces that served my specific needs.

Here are three examples:

Money: Tim Ferriss vs. Dickie Bush

Pricing is a beast, particularly if there aren't a lot of similar offerings to yours. Trying to guess what the market will bear and how people will perceive the value of what you do is, in my opinion, one of the hardest parts of business. Both Tim Ferriss and Dickie Bush have broken down the way they think about pricing:

In Tools of the Titans, Tim writes:

In contrast, Dickie Bush and Nicolas Cole break down the entire Ship30for30 funnel strategy in this video. They take the buying curve approach, offering a free product, a $150 product, a $800 product, and are likely to develop a $1500 product.

Tim Ferriss has built a reputation as someone who enjoys running his own experiments (across a variety of categories), mostly solo, and sharing those results—all while having interesting conversations with people he respects along the way. Ship30for30 is a practitioner's course. If you want to develop a strong writing habit, it's the defacto choice.

Each pricing model calls to a different content play and operational approach, and each is specific to Tim’s, Dickie’s, and Nicolas’s personality and goals.

Scale: Gary Vaynerchuk vs. Justin Welsh

Say what you want about Gary Vee, but the guy is a machine, having built a portfolio of successes including:

• Wine Libary

• VaynerMedia

• VaynerX

• Early investments in Twitter, Facebook, Venmo and Uber

…and a crap ton more.

If you land on his website, you’ll find submenus that take you to his podcast, YouTube channel, media brands, wallpapers, blogs, press kits, etc.

There is no way one man can run an empire like this without a massive focus on scale, which he’s talked about many times. Gary doesn’t love routine or mundane and has been open about the fact that he likes to stay on the forefront of trends in tech and culture, which means that in order to build a fulfilling business, he’s got to rid himself of every responsibility and task that gets in the way of his position as a tastemaker. He’s optimizing for ideation and trends.

In another category, you have Justin Welsh, whose website is quite simply his newsletter and two courses. (I've taken both, and they're very good). What's most notable is the headline:

Justin has carved out a reputation for himself as advocating for the simple freedom of solopreneurship. He sums it up quite nicely on his homepage:

It's likely that if Gary and Justin swapped lives, real misery would ensue. Yet, they have a crossover of followers, and you'll often find people in the comments living out a sort of scale purgatory: unsure whether they want to run a team or go it alone. They’re listening to advice instead of paying attention to their own DNA.

Community: Richard Millington vs. Yours Truly

Richard Millington runs Feverbee, a community consultancy. This may sound like a competitor to my own company, Wondry, but the approaches and philosophies we use are so different that they cannot be compared.

If you’re considering launching a community for your business and doing a little preliminary research, you may come across Feverbee’s community launch timeline:

It’s a detailed and thorough 6+ month planning document that I am sure many have found incredibly useful.

My take on a timeline is quite different. 90 days + 9 key decisions. That’s it. Richard’s approach is not for me. Mine is not for him. Both are valid and work within the context of a company's goals, resources, and stakeholder requirements. If you’re looking for advice on building a community, these two approaches are at odds with each other, but each suits our respective perspectives on what should be prioritized and when.

So what?

IMO, clarity is the most energizing feeling. Particularly when the stakes are high, it is invigorating to have The Answer. Anytime I’ve gotten clarity on a big business question, a season of excitement follows. I build, I model, I tinker, I launch, and it feels terrific.

Listening to five different people will not get you that clarity, but a little foundational wisdom is necessary, so when we do know when to stop learning and start doing?

The answer is so mundane I can practically hear you roll your eyes: what’s the goal? 

You first need to understand your parameters:

• Do you enjoy running a team?

• What will the ideal life cost you?

• Are you a technician? A visionary?

• What’s your risk tolerance?

• Where are you exceptional?

• Where are you weakest?

• What energizes?

• What fills you with dread?

Your questions may vary, but when I’m embarking on a new project, I take a four-step approach to avoiding the black hole of thought leadership:

1. Decide what my parameters are

2. Find a few people (thought leaders, if you will) who have both proven success and align with my parameters

3. Spend no more than a few weeks studying their content

4. Drawing a hard line on diving into any more learnings until I put the most applicable pieces into practice

Justin Welsh recently posted the perfect closer to this newsletter:

Marinade

A few things I’ve read this week that are worth soaking in:

• David Spinks on how he Reduced Scheduled Meetings by 90% (FWIW, I don’t take more than 2 meetings a week, and this was a huge catalyst for me setting those boundaries)

• If you are grappling with what to focus on (in your career, life, etc.) Josh Spector suggests thinking about these five questions

• Speaking of Tim Ferriss, he shares how he tests the impossible with these 17 Questions That Changed [His] Life

Onward,

April

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