Social media automation tools like Buffer and HootSuite are getting really popular. Today I say why I've stopped using them.

Using automated tools for social media CAN be good when used right.

Buffer / HootSuite / MeetEdgar

They’ll force you to make a schedule and think of stuff in advance to put on your social media feeds.

However, that’s where its usefulness stops.

It stops you from being present

It stops you from being current

It makes you think too far into the future rather than things that are happening right now in your life. You might miss tweeting about a key thing

It stops you from thinking about being off-the-cuff

Interesting Conversations episode 2 is out now!

---

Enjoyed this? Signup to The Daily Email, follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Today I'm talking about being human in your marketing and how powerful it can be.

Back in Episode 29 I spoke about the idea of being human, and about how we need to remember to be normal and interact with people as our interactions get increasingly more digital.

Today, I want to apply a similar concept to marketing.

As I’ve been getting more and more into content marketing and personal branding, I’ve noticed a lot of patterns and the same ways that people do a lot of things.

Some of them work, some of them are incredibly fake and still work, and some just don’t.

The biggest thing content marketing and personal branding does when combined though, it forces you to either be yourself or invent another self to present to others.

I don’t recommend inventing another self. I tried that and it didn’t work.

I’m listening to an audiobook at the minute and it talks about storytelling, particularly in Hollywood films. 

It talks about how they all follow a very simple story structure, and the book calls it the Hero’s 2 journeys.

Every story needs a hero. And that hero goes on 2 journeys: 

The obvious external journey. Going somewhere, escaping from something, winning something, etc.

The internal journey: how the hero develops and changes and ultimately transforms as they go along the journey.

This trope is followed in every film ever. We can all think of a film where the hero desperately tries to win something throughout the entire film, gets to the end of the film, and gives it all up because they’re now a different person.

It’s the same with marketing. Every piece of marketing needs an obvious external journey. It’s selling a story, an idea, showing people how to do something, whatever.

But where the REAL marketing is done is the internal journey: connecting the person with your marketing message. This can only be done properly when you reveal yourself and be human.

It’s hard to do this, because every marketing and business book on the planet talks about professionalism and business and being a normal person as if they’re separate things. They’re not, and they can’t be if you want to become the best at marketing yourself as you possibly can be.

Interesting Conversations episode 2 is out now!

---

Enjoyed this? Signup to The Daily Email, follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Today I talk about MacBooks, the next episode of Interesting Conversations and a little bit about something called Self Authoring.

Problems with my MacBook in the last week...

Interesting Conversations episode 3 lands imminently

Who am I?

I’ve been asking people this

Future authoring

It’s a product by Jordan Peterson

selfauthoring.com

Interesting Conversations episode 2 is out now!

---

Enjoyed this? Signup to The Daily Email, follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

I'm seeing lots of people bash improvement on Medium. Today I talk about that.

To be fair, Medium is quite a hot-bed for lots of annoying success style blogging, but I’m seeing a lot of anti-success stuff too

They’re always very negative and always very nasty, especially towards self improvement

I see this attitude a lot from quite a few people, who actually think wanting to improve yourself is a dirty word.

You shouldn’t be embarrassed for wanting to improve yourself, or wanting to be better

However, being happy with what you’ve got and grateful is important too

Ed Latimore said it well on Twitter when I asked him this very question: how do you balance being grateful with what you’ve got vs always improving.

“Gratitude reminds you it could be worse. Ambition makes you desire more. They balance each other out: gratitude against greed, ambition and lethargy.

Interesting Conversations episode 2 is out now!

---

Enjoyed this? Signup to The Daily Email, follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Developing confidence not just as a creative but just in life is really important. I share a bit of a rant and some tips.

 

Way back in Episode 24 I spoke about developing creative confidence

After the last two episodes about the practices of a creative, I want to touch upon something that’s been bugging me in a wider sense.

Confidence. So many people lack it and don’t seem to want to become more confident, or don’t have the capacity to realise they aren’t currently confident.

Or maybe they don’t know how?

Why should you want to be more confident? Get more done, get more lucky, earn more money, do better things. 

I don’t know all the answers here, but I do know what worked for me to become more confident, so I’m going to share it today.

Give presentations. See episode 25.

Do videos, teach online, podcast or blog.

Get good at something. It instantly makes you more confident.

Know yourself and become comfortable in your own skin. Whether becoming comfortable is part of becoming confident, I’m not sure.

Repeat these things over and over and never think you’ve become the best you can be at them.

Interesting Conversations episode 2 is out now!

---

Enjoyed this? Signup to The Daily Email, follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Today I try and contemplate the most effective practices of a creative. Part Two.

You must never be satisfied with your work. Not in a bad way, just in a pursuit of improvement way.

You must appreciate other people’s work, get to know these people, and don’t become jealous. 

You must be comfortable enough to develop your own style and way of doing things. Stop trying to be somebody else. 

You must be open and honest and share your work and practices. 

Teach as soon as you can in your career. 

Interesting Conversations episode 2 is out now!

---

Enjoyed this? Signup to The Daily Email, follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Today I try and contemplate the most effective practices of a creative.

Interesting Conversations episode 2 is out now!

You must be curious about everything. Anything you see you must want to know more about. Any word, concept or thing you discover, you must want to find out what it is. 

You must have a practice and methodology for creating new ideas. 

You must be fearless in all pursuits. Any challenge you’re faced with, you face with a smile and a can do attitude. 

You must write to understand yourself and your craft. 

You must always be trying to improve and be curious about improving.

---

Enjoyed this? Signup to The Daily Email, follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

There’s a universal law in life: you get more of what you’re currently doing.

Interesting Conversations episode 2 is out now!

There’s a universal law in life: you get more of what you’re currently doing. If you’re currently making loads of websites, people will ask you to make more websites.

You either consciously know this or you don’t.

If you don’t want to do something anymore, you need to just stop doing it. If it’s possible, go cold turkey. Say no.

You then need to work out what you WANT to do. This is where we start to work out who we want to be in life, what legacy we want to leave behind.

Most people don’t consciously craft their legacy. They let their legacy be crafted for them.

You need to match what you want to do with what you want to be known for. The only way you do that is by doing MORE of the thing you want to do.

---

Enjoyed this? Signup to The Daily Email, follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

I want to offer you something free, if you'll help me out with something.

Today's episode is really short and simple. I want to increase my podcast reach, and to do that I want to increase my podcast reviews. To incentivise people like you to do it, I'm offering 30 minutes of my time for free.

Claim your free 30 minute coaching.

---

Enjoyed this? Signup to The Daily Email, follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Today I introduce my concept for getting more done: Extreme Production.

Interesting Conversations episode 2 is out now!

Yesterday in episode 35 I spoke a lot about the power of doing stuff, and how often just doing something is better than endlessly planning it.

I’ve had a few people asking me whether I meant that planning was pointless. No, I didn’t mean that: I was talking about excessive planning.

And also, if it’s a binary choice between planning or doing, you should just do.

I like to ask myself a question when I get stuck in inaction-hell: “how would I do this if I had to start it tomorrow?”. It really refines down that perfect plan you’ve spent 4 months creating.

I think taking action—no matter how small—is a quicker way to success, and a quicker way to failure. Both are just as valuable. 

The quicker you find out through EXPERIENCE whether something is good or bad, the better. You’ve got your learning, and you can move on.

Today I want to introduce my version of doing: Extreme Production.

Extreme Production is my method for improving and learning things FAST.

We can achieve things quicker, learn new things faster and turn our lives around sooner than we think, if we challenge ourselves.

Extreme Production as a methodology is doing a small chunk of something every day, non-stop and no excuses. I’ve used it to become a better designer, a better photographer, a better illustrator, a better logo designer, a better podcaster and a better writer.

It’s the only method that’s ever consistently worked for me to automatically improve at something.

Because you’re just making something every day, that thing can be anything, big or small. You’ll automatically start to become better in as little as 30 days with momentum and then compound progression.

---

Enjoyed this? Signup to The Daily Email, follow me on Facebook and Twitter.