“A single question can be more influential than a thousand statements.” — Bo Bennett
I’ve shared more than 1,000 ideas through this newsletter.
I’m proud of that, but I also realize I’m not doing a great job at surfacing the value of all those archived ideas.
So, starting in this issue, I’ve added a new “Related” section below each new idea featured in the newsletter.
That section will feature a link to another valuable idea on a similar topic from my archive.
I hope you find it helpful, and remember you can also browse through every previous newsletter issue here.
Now, on to this week’s ideas…
1. EVERYBODY’S AN INFLUENCER, SO TREAT THEM LIKE ONE
“When creators care as much about the person with 100 followers as they do the one with 100,000, incredible things happen.”
The obsession with “influencers” that consumes so many creators and marketers has led to a problem — too often the influence of the average person is overlooked.
In this post I explain why everybody’s an influencer and suggest the key to audience growth is found not in the influential few, but in the influence of the many.
RELATED: My ultimate guide to growing your audience.
2. THIS IS WHAT THE INTERNET LOOKS LIKE IN 2018
“Lifelong learning educational content usage is ramping very fast. YouTube has more than a billion views of daily learning videos. 70% of users use the platform to help solve work, school, or hobby problems.”
If you want to know everything happening with the internet and how it impacts the world in about 30 minutes, this one’s for you.
Recode shares video of Mary Meeker’s newest Internet Trends report presentation and posts all 294 slides she walks through in it.
It’s a crash course in internet trends including that for the first time ever this year smartphone unit shipments didn’t grow, the average American adult now spends 5.9 hours a day online (up from 5.6 a year ago), and 28% of all ecommerce business now runs through Amazon.
RELATED: A must-read for anybody who uses the internet.
3. HOW TO GET BACK ON TRACK WHEN YOU’RE HAVING AN UNPRODUCTIVE DAY
“There are lots of ways to recover your time that don’t involve punishing yourself for being less focused than usual. Instead, these strategies take the reality of the situation into account–you’re tired, distracted, overwhelmed, bored, or a combination of all of the above–and change the tone for the better.”
Some days just don’t start the way you’d like them too. But that doesn’t mean you have to write them off.
Fast Company suggests five ways to get back on track when you’re having an unproductive day including to create a productive ambience, limit distractions, and change your scenery.
RELATED: How to organize your schedule for a productive week.
4. HOW TO GET RICH WITHOUT GETTING LUCKY
“Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.”
At 1:23 am a couple days ago, Naval Ravikant fired off a tweetstorm that’s gone viral and for good reason.
In it, he breaks down how to get rich without getting lucky including observations such as that if you learn to sell AND learn to build you will be unstoppable, the value of specific knowledge, and that there’s no skill called “business” so you should avoid business magazines and business classes.
RELATED: The two things you need to get rich.
5. GARY VAYNERCHUK ON THE VALUE OF EACH SOCIAL PLATFORM
“Right now the medium is so visual that I think a lot of people are pressured into thinking it’s about the camera world, and I think there’s an incredible upside in written word and audio.”
Gary Vaynerchuk recently visited Tyra Banks’ Stanford grad school class on personal branding (seriously, that’s a thing) and this 90-minute video showcases the advice he had for the class.
He discusses the value of each social platform as well as a slew of other topics related to marketing, personal brands, and social media while answering questions from Tyra and the class.
RELATED: Gary Vaynerchuk on the secret to success.
6. HOW TO MAKE A LIVING AS A WRITER
“ Once you start putting out work, particularly through your blogs, you start finding out what your fans look like. And I don’t just mean age and gender. If you really want to take this seriously, you must get hyper-focused on who’s reading your stuff. Are they women between the ages of 35–50 who are mothers that tend to be liberal and enjoy travelling? Yeah, that kind of focus.”
No matter what kind of writing career you hope to develop, this post will help you get there.
Kern Carter shares everything he knows about how to make a living as a writer including tips about energy, your portfolio, putting yourself out there, building a fan base, and getting paid.
RELATED: Why you need to stalk your audience on Facebook.
7. 14 THINGS A STANFORD PROFESSOR BELIEVES ARE THE KEYS TO GOOD MANAGEMENT
“Sometimes the best management is no management at all — first do no harm!”
For a decade now, Stanford professor Bob Sutton (who studies organizations) has been updating his list of things he believes about management.
His most recent edition includes explanations of his beliefs that big teams suck, hierarchy is good and essential, and indifference is as important as passion.
RELATED: A manager’s pledge.
8. HOW TO CREATE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND IN 14 STEPS
“Effective personal branding is owning the online space at the crossroads between when you’re doing something important and when someone that matters looks you up.”
For all the talk about personal branding, there aren’t a lot of step-by-step instructions on how to create or improve your own.
But Richie Norton has put together a personal brand checklist to help you check all the boxes. It includes ways to think about how your social media, vision, values, and audience reflect the brand you hope to build.
RELATED: Building a successful personal brand requires vulnerability.
9. A RECOMMENDED NEWSLETTER FOR PEOPLE WHO WORK IN STARTUPS
“Get the latest tools and resources that will really help your startup.”
Jói Sigurðsson is a For The Interested subscriber (and member of our FTI Facebook group) who also runs his own newsletter though which he shares helpful tools and resources for startups.
You can subscribe to the Startup Resources newsletter here or check out the latest issue here.
RELATED: Eight lessons you can learn from Google’s founders.
10. NINE THINGS I’VE LEARNED ABOUT CONFIDENCE
“Everybody fears things. Gets uncomfortable. Feels unsure. Confident people feel as much fear as everybody else. But they don’t allow fear to prevent them from action.”
People tell me I’m confident and I certainly have my moments, but I really just think I have a different understanding of what confidence is and how it operates.
In this post, I break down nine things I’ve learned about confidence including that it’s not the absence of fear, it’s fueled as much by failure as success, and a long-term mindset makes it easier to be confident.
RELATED: The most confident phrase you can say in a presentation.
WHERE I FOUND THIS STUFF
I discovered some of this week’s ideas from the newsletters of Brian Medavoy and Postanly — they’re awesome and worth your time.