#94: Inconvenient Truth: Normal doesn’t work in 2024

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Read time: 3 minutes

#94 – 01 Mar 2024

Welcome!

Are you a thought leader?

Or do you desire to be seen as a thought leader?

Here’s a line to disrupt your world:

Normal doesn’t work in 2024 and beyond.

My creative friend and marketer, Aleana Kali, said that to me.

She continued:

There is no more space to do boring marketing anymore.

It’s not that people aren’t interested. It’s that creativity has to be through the roof!

You have to be a trendsetter.

And the trick is, you have to set trends without even trying to set trends!

BOOM!

That really hit me.

And I’m not a “marketer.”

But I am a leader—a thought leader who is trying to show up authentically in 2024 and beyond.

And I am sure you are, too.

But this is scary. We like to play it safe and follow the frameworks of those a few steps ahead of us.

What if these frameworks no longer work?

This is happening now. Everyone is whinging about how their “same-old” methods no longer work. The market has become more sophisticated. Everything is becoming more algorithm-driven, and you can’t keep up. Let’s pause:

You can’t be out trying to copy the trends of other people already out there. You will forever be behind.

So what can you do?

You need to be a trendsetter.

I saw a great LinkedIn post from Jay Clouse on this topic with his “pendulum” concept:

Everything that becomes popular was pioneered by someone before it was popular. And everything that becomes popular eventually becomes stale and unpopular, too.

Trends are like a pendulum. The pendulum itself represents the culture’s collective attention and it swings from one extreme to another. As it swings closer to one end of the spectrum, it picks up speed and momentum – but it has a limit.

At some point, the pendulum swings in the opposite direction. What was cool becomes uncool, and what was uncool becomes cool (and back and forth and back and forth).

Jay pointed out that you want to be just ahead of that pendulum with a different approach. Which is obviously easier said than done. But if you are ahead of that next swing, you will reap the rewards of that pendulum momentum.

So how do you do this?

You need to lead with courage and INNOVATE.

If you stop innovating, you become boring and die.

But innovating is hard.

Innovating is coupled with FAILURE.

Yep… Most of your innovations will probably fail.

But you need to keep experimenting on some level.

You can only get ahead of the pendulum by innovating. You have to experiment with new styles and approaches – which may fall flat.

— Jay Clouse

And here comes the next trap. You want to shortcut your innovation. So you start copying others in the hope this will speed things up. You hope to strike gold.

But here’s the thing:

By copying others, you will always be behind.

On a subconscious level, you know that you need to be ahead of the trend to reap the benefits. But most of us are risk-averse. So instead of innovating, we try and identify what others are doing that is “working” and emulate them.

But catching a trend may be more difficult than starting one – because catching a trend requires precise timing.

Most creators are stuck behind the pendulum. They’re constantly following trends and by the time they’re able to execute well, the pendulum has already swung back.

— Jay Clouse

And so you’re forever playing catch up. You always feel behind. And that sucks. You feel inauthentic, and you feel like a failure.

So, how can you get out of this?

Start innovating.

But do it from that authentic place.

You are an individual with unique interests, gifts and powers.

Start using them.

It might feel weird at first, and no one may care.

If might not work, but at least you are showing up as YOU. And that’s your best bet over the long run.

Over time, you’ll establish yourself as someone different. Someone interesting. Someone worth caring about.

Innovation happens far away from the pendulum. When you’re truly innovating, you don’t know if it will work out. All you know is that the thing you’re currently doing is NOT the current “hot” thing.

But when you’re innovating long before the pendulum swings in your direction, you have the opportunity to get GOOD at the format (better than everyone else).

— Jay Clouse

When you are being yourself, you have the ultimate advantage.

What is your advantage?
What are your gifts or strengths?
What unique angle do you bring? What interests you? What is fascinating to you?
What’s weird about you?

Start exploring there. Lead with what you find.

Would you like some help with that?

Cheers,

Matt

P.S.

There’s a video of Rick Rubin, which has been doing the rounds.

He talks about how the audience comes LAST — contrarian take, I know.

But I love his thinking.

Here’s Rick:

It’s something I say in the book is that the audience comes last.

And I believe that I am not. I’m not making it for them or making it for me.

And it turns out that when you make something truly for yourself, you’re doing the best thing you possibly can for the audience.

So much of why if you go to the movies, so many big movies are just not good.

It’s because they’re, they’re not being made by a person who cares about it. They’re being made by people are trying to make something that they think someone else is going to like.

And that’s not how art works. Art doesn’t. That’s something else.

It’s not art. That’s commerce.

What’s your view here?

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The Meaning Path