Daily Content Machine

On September 7th, one week before the Overlap book launches, we're releasing a new documentary!

"How to Write a Book" is a film Cory McCabe has been working on for over a year. This 22-minute documentary takes you behind the scenes of writing my first book.

In today's mini sabbatical episode, I interview Cory about the making of the film. I suppose you could say it's a behind the scenes look at a behind the scenes film!

We'll be talking about Cory's thought process, how he came up with the narrative, and why it almost didn't happen.

When I say “day job” people react like I said a four-letter word!

Getting a day job is not giving up on your dream.

A lot of people feel like having a day job is holding them back. They're eager to take a leap.

But trying to monetize your passion too soon is what will kill your passion.

When you don’t protect your passion by first covering your bills with a day job, it will be crushed the first time it encounters resistance. You have to protect it.

Protecting comes in the form of a day job. You have to protect your ability to make objective decisions and your ability to say no to bad opportunities.

When you put yourself in a position where you have to make money from your passion in order to survive, you will be desperate. This desperation leads to compromise on many things—including your prices, professionalism or morals.

A day job that covers 100% of your bills is what prevents scarcity mindset. Build a solid foundation and then overlap. Overlap is a transition, not a leap.

You just want to do the work, but then some business influencer says you have to build hype before it's even ready.

That means creating content, right? Who has time to create content? It's hard enough just to do the work!

A big mantra Gary Vaynerchuk has is "Document. Don't create."

What he means is, don't get caught up in feeling the pressure of constantly having to create. Your story and your journey are both interesting—share them!

Share the process of getting where you want to go.

Share the journey as you work towards getting there.

I completely agree. And while Gary has made a video and written an article on this topic, I think it deserves an even more in-depth discussion to explore some examples of what documenting looks like.

We're going to help reduce the overwhelm you feel when it comes to creating content.

We have information coming at us from all directions: social media, videos, podcasts, leaders, influencers, peers, mentors...

Much of the advice that's shared is well-meaning.

But a lesson just learned by someone who is far ahead of you may not be relevant right now. It very well could be the right advice but for someone in a different position.

Getting the right advice at the wrong time is just as bad as getting the wrong advice.

How do you find advice that will help you where you are right now? How do you know the difference?

From a young age, we seek love, acceptance, and approval from our parents. This deep-seated conditioning extends to many other areas of life as we get older, but it's not always a good thing.

Your need for approval creates anxiety.

Ever find yourself compulsively checking social media notifications?

Approval addiction negatively affects your performance. It keeps you from focusing on the right things and making meaningful progress.

How do you stop worrying about what other people think?

Ever try to fit too much into your day?

Do you feel like you should be doing more, but at at the same time you have absolutely no capacity?

You get to the end of your day and there's still a mountain of things left to do.

Meanwhile, you haven't dedicated any time to your mental or physical health.

A new email just came in. Someone's knocking on the door. Your watch vibrates with a text message. Your computer displays a reminder of a meeting coming up in 15 minutes.

We say yes to too many things, don't think carefully about what really matters, and try to fit too much into a day.

Is it any wonder we feel overwhelmed?

Aaron Dowd joins me on today's show to talk about overcoming mental overwhelm.

I have a big idea called Overlap.

But that word doesn't mean anything to anyone else until I explain it.

While I have enough to say about my big idea to write the book on it, I also need to be able to communicate that idea in a simple manner.

That's where today's episode comes in.

I thought it would be fun to do a conversional episode with Ben about distilling down your big idea.

We also talk about how to come up with your big idea.

Hopefully you know about my book, Overlap, launching on September 14th.

You've heard me say it before: "People don't notice announcements they notice consistency."

If you want people to notice your project (this could be a book, podcast, video show, course, Kickstarter, or t-shirt collection), you can't just announce it once. You can't just mention it, you have to build up buzz and anticipation by continually talking about it.

Of course, you have to figure out a way to do that without being annoying or unnecessarily repetitive.

To get people to pay attention, you have to grab their attention.

If I want people to know about Overlap, I have to talk about it.

There's a big problem though: I'm extremely introverted.

Have you been struggling with enthusiasm or motivation for a project lately? Have you encountered multiple setbacks that have derailed your progress?

At any given time, we all have dozens of things asking for our attention. Sometime even demanding our attention.

How do you stay focused and motivated when there are so many things trying to pull you away from your main goal? What do you do when making progress feels impossible?

In the last episode, we talked about choosing one thing to focus on.

Of all the many things you COULD do, which do you choose?

In this episode, we talk about what to do once you've chosen something. Now you need to project that focus.

When I say "curate", what I mean is to selectively project a single focused thing. You want people to know what you're about.

We have a cognitive limit, us humans. Dunbar's Number refers to our ability to maintain only about 150 close relationships. Beyond those 150 people, connections are surface level.

In other words, people are forced to simplify you. They do their best in a very short amount of time to figure out what you're about.

What they do next is a bit tough to accept:

They put you in a box.

Unfortunately, this is going to happen no matter what. There's nothing you can do to avoid being put in a box by others. But what you CAN do is define the box you're already going to be put in.

How do you define the box? By curating what you share. Publishing, sharing, and speaking only about the thing you want to be known for.

Does this mean you can't be human? Does this mean there's not more to you as a person than that one thing? No, of course not.

It's a complicated topic, and there's a lot to unpack, but that's why we recorded a podcast episode about it.