Mindset

Internal work is often the label given to the process of refining our mindset. That might involve exploring past trauma, boundary setting, forgiveness, identifying limiting beliefs and various other pattern recognition efforts. Yet if this important journey is left in the mind it will have little effect on our lives.

Transformation and growth of ourselves as the whole person needs to pivot from looking backward, to a new vision of the future. And here is the generally accepted process to accomplish that.

We must define a new reality of who we want to be with words and visions. These are best started very broadly and refined to specifics only over time. The greatest challenge to making the new ideas stick is the tendency to switch back to old patterns of thinking. There are plenty of reasons for why this happens, but the single most effective stop gap for that is pretty simple.

Repetition and expression.

The revisitation of a new a way of thinking needs to happen no less than once a day, but more frequently is better.

The way to take this inspiration is to diligently integrate it into our lives. Post-it notes on the bathroom mirror, white boards in the kitchen and daily journaling. I have added the goal I’m focused on for my own growth oriented thinking to the lock-screen/wallpaper of my iPhone.

Be inspired to create a new reality for yourself and find ways to express it.

Marketing

Last week I shared a so-called equation for developing content. That’s likely overselling, I’ve always been more of an artist and sometimes a kitchen worker, so calling it a recipe might be more accurate.

Let’s recap the “equation”

Digital Media Quality = Budget x (Inspiration + detention) / time

Budget: This can mean money spent with creative teams, but it also represents doing the work of research, posting, and evaluation. Increasingly the algorithms of many larger social media channels reward you for taking active behavior before and after your own posting. That can include, giving likes, sharing posts, leaving comments, sending dms— anything besides just scrolling. Budget therefore works like a multiplier.

Inspiration: Obviously the fun part. It’s the lightening bolt moments. Being mesmerized by natural beauty and recording it. Documenting these ideas in the note app on your phone is probably one of the best ways to keep track of what you thought. Just trying to remember it later… never going to happen.

Detention: If you’re like me you probably learned about that in middle school. It was like a time out where you were supposed to do something. Either way you were going to sit there for an hour so you might as well get some homework done. That’s the best way to make your inspiration into something. Put yourself in detention and try to get something done.

Time: This is the denominator. What does that mean? All the stuff up on the top of the equation gets divided by time. The first 3 seconds to stop the scroll. The pace and movement to maintain attention. The upload limits given by the platform. Almost everything about our modern digital content requires squeezing it shorter.

Recommended

Gary V is widely recognized as a marketing and social media expert of our time. There’s certain elements to his style that I’m not particularly fond of. But there are a few things he repeats that really make sense. Gratitude, work ethic, and the idea of facing reality the way it is. This is an artist who has taken recordings of Gary V and over laid them with musical components. It’s like songifying marketing talks.

It’s also part of our growing Spotify playlist

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