SUBJ: How to build your authority in under 10 minutes/day
“Don’t you have work to do?” asks Marius, seeing that I’m still in bed, watching a video on my phone.
It was half past 8 in the morning, which is when I usually start working.
And I knew dang well I was supposed to get my butt on that chair and optimize a bunch of emails.
But I couldn’t do it.
Not yet, at least. Because a video of Daniel Throssell being interviewed by Sean Ferres was the thing playing on my screen.
“Yeah. I’m almost done,” I wave him off.
Arching a brow, he snatches the phone right out of my hands, too fast for me to react. “Who’s this?”
“How do you not know that by now? We live together,” I sigh. “It’s Daniel Throssell.”
“Ah. But don’t you already know everything about him? Why are you watching this?”
He wasn’t wrong.
I’ve already bought several of Daniel’s products. And listened to a bunch of his interviews in the past.
But it’s precisely because he’s always dropped value bombs that I wanted to watch this particular one as well.
Or parts of it.
Fast forward 10 minutes later and Daniel says this:
“If you haven’t made it [in business], it’s probably because you’re not very good and the world doesn’t need to hear what you have to say. Harsh, but it’s true …”
And I kid you not …
The mere possibility that the world might not need to hear what I have to say … struck me. Like an invisible punch in the gut.
Because here’s the thing.
How many people do you see on your LinkedIn feed, regurgitating the same ideas everyone else is talking about?
I’ll tell you: too many. They might get the likes. And might get comments.
But that’s not how you build authority.
That’s not how you become the go-to expert in your industry.
You become that by putting some effort into at least trying to come up with something new in your industry.
Don’t believe me.
Although I have made some waves this past year (like being published on DigitalMarketer & Copyhackers & speaking at my first international conference) …
… I’m nowhere near where I want to be yet.
So believe the ones who have already done it:
- Joanna Wiebe, who invented the phrase “conversion copywriting”
- Daniel Throssell, who invented his Parallel Welcome Sequence & new prince-anchoring model
- Bree Weber, who put her own spin on “The Rule of One” in cold pitching
- Justin Blackman, who invented The Headline Project
- Andy Frisella who invented the 75Hard Challenge
And many others.
I’m not saying that’s all they did to build their authority.
But having one unique idea to your name gets you to the top of the list a hell of a lot faster than just regurgitating the same ideas everyone talks about ALL. THE. TIME.
The question is … how do you invent something out of thin air?
Easy: you don’t.
Every new idea is a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas. There’s nothing new under the sun.
The solution? Something a cool guy I follow (Tom Bilyeu) calls “thinkitation”.
Which, in a nutshell, means sitting down and brainstorming non-obvious solutions to obvious problems for 10 minutes every single day.
I did that today. And I came up with this …
The obvious problem: I’m recognizing that many people talk about storytelling on social media, but there isn’t one central resource on the topic anywhere online.
My non-obvious solution: creating a mega blog post including every single storytelling formula on the face of the Internet. So that whenever people google storytelling, they see MY article first. And recognize me as an expert on the topic.
Will this work? Heck, I don’t know. I hope so. 😛 But this is just ONE idea.
If you did this every single day … what would you come up with?
That thought alone should excite you. And put fire in your veins.
I know that’s how I feel.
Emilia Tanase