The Sweet Spot of Differentiation

Last week we spoke about: What it takes to be widely remembered and loved. We are seeking to deeply resonate with our audience by being bold and different.

This week we will dive into how you can find the sweet spot of differentiate so you can stand out, innovate and create change.

Next week we will wrap up this mini-series going over a storytelling framework so that you can effectively communicate your change to the world.

Personally, I have consistently felt trapped by my work. Whether that was in corporate as an engineer or as I sought freedom as an entrepreneur. It seems to be centered around one core idea.

Work is separate from life.

Corporate

When I was an engineer, the only things that were fostered were engineering related activities. It was 40 hours a week of “get your work done.” That’s why, when I would get my work in the first 5 hours of the day, I would spend the rest of my work day hiding my computer screen as I devoured things I was more interested in. I would read every article on bodybuilding.com to become a fitter version of myself and watch YouTube videos to understand the inner workings of my fancy DSLR camera.

I couldn’t wait to leave for the day so I could go to CrossFit or wander around the streets of New York taking photos.

The corporate energy I spent my early 20s in was “don’t take your work home with you” and try to find “work-life balance.”

You keep your work at work and your home life at home.

There was no space for Fitness Matt or Photographer Matt in engineering.

Which meant there was no space to bring all of me to my work. Just a small piece.

Entrepreneurship

When the pandemic struck and I started my online business, I wanted to help anyone build a brand. I believed you could fall back in love with life by spending more of your time doing what you loved. But helping everyone build a brand went against what every business coach taught.

I wasn’t niched down.

I had to niche down.

It must be the first rule of building a business that EVERYONE screams in your face. The riches are in the niches. So I became a business coach for personal trainers because I was a personal trainer. Niching down also meant NEVER talk about anything else in your marketing. I was told nobody cares about my puppy. Nobody cares about my photography. Just be a personal trainer’s business coach.

Once again, no room for all of me in my work. Just a piece of me.

Problem #1: Separation

This model for life makes no sense for coaches and leaders who are trying to create massive impact in the world. When we look at the people who are loved and remembered for changing the world, there wasn’t separation between who they were and the change that sought to create.

• Martin Luther King didn’t walk away from his lectern preaching equal rights for black people and then go home to watch President Lyndon B Johnson give a speech on the TV and turn to his wife and say, “No comment Coretta! I’m off the clock!”
• You think Gandhi spent 8 hours a day fighting for India’s independence through peace and nonviolence and then went home and tried to “turn it off.”

There is no separation between who you are and your work. You are the work.

The change which you seek to make in this world requires all of you, not a portion of you.

Problem #2: Lack of innovation

After Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, he went to work at Pixar where he learned all about storytelling. When he came back to Apple he revolutionized the way they created products and marketed them. His love for computers, design and storytelling allowed him to revolutionize an industry and think beyond the status quo.

Did you know the post-it note was created by accident? 3M, the company who makes the post-it note, have a 15% corporate policy that requires employees to spend 15% of their time working on passion projects. Through play and experiment, the post-it note was born. According to multiple sources, the post-it and sticky note market size is estimated to be worth $2285.3 million.

Did you know every year Bill Gates does a Think Week. One week where he completely disconnects from his usual source of information like email, news and social media to spend time reading books, writing, and focusing on big ideas.

Innovation doesn’t come from the focus on doing one thing over and over. Innovation comes from differentiation.

Problem #3: Where is the love?

First of all, life would be miserable if we did one thing all the time. We love life because of all its nuances. Friends, hobbies, work, love, snow, sunsets, puppies, an ice cold beer and your pick up truck. (I think I just broke out into a country song. Oh yeah, add music to the list).

Second, I don’t love my best friend because he is the best life coach. I love them because last Saturday we head banged to Chumbawamba on our way to the mountain AND they held me in their arms when my wife and I got divorced. I love my friends because they are more than the work they do.

Life is fucking incredible when we get to experience all of it together. Why should work be any different?

A new model

Of course a model like niching down works, you can create change here and grow a great business. Lots of people do and that’s why it is taught. Personally, it’s always left me dissatisfied and lacking personal evolution and lasting fulfillment.

I believe there is a massive opportunity to become fully immersed in work. Work gets to be one of the best things I do in my life because my work will change the world.

What I would like to offer, is a model of work that doesn’t ask me to separate the different aspects of my life that make me me and instead I get to play with them.

Differentiation Sweet Spot

Dr Seuss wrote the best selling children’s books, The Cat in the Hat in 1957. It was complete with 1,626 words but only 236 different words. His editor bet him he couldn’t write a book with only 50 different words. Not only did he write Green Eggs and Ham with only 50 words, but in 1960 it became a better selling book than The Cat in the Hat.

As I said last week:

• If you don’t differentiate, you become the status quo and blend in
• If you are too different, you will be on an island alone

While we are multi-passionate people and our friends love us for all of who we are, when we talk about marketing, it won’t do us any good to talk about everything all of the time. We still need a strategy. We need to find the sweet spot of differentiation and a few limitations can offer us much more creativity than total freedom.

Below I break down a strategy to stand out and get known for something while being fully yourself.

It looks like this:

Identity #1

You will notice identity #1 is larger than the other two. This is your core identity and inside this identity contains the vehicle to create the change you wish to see in the world. This will make up 70% of your content (i.e. every 7/10 posts should be about this).

I also call this your money making identity. As Chris Harder says, “when good people make good money, they can do great things.”

My core identity is an artist. I play guitar, tell stories, take photos, make videos, paint, write poetry, and solve puzzles. When I was a kid my dad bought my brother and I a new basketball hoop, but it was completely disassembled. To this day I believe half the gift was letting me put it together. I’ve always been an artist. (I will refrain from telling 10 more stories about this).

As an artist, my vehicle for change has become storytelling. Storytelling is how I change the world and how I will make money. This is 70% of my content.

Identity #2 & #3

The other two identities represent the rest of who you are. It’s probably how your friends would describe you. Who are you, that if you took these identities away, you wouldn’t be you anymore? These identities will make up the other 30% of your content (every 3/10 posts can be about these topics).

My second identity is an athlete. I’ve been an athlete all my life. Playing sports is probably the thing I’ve spent the most hours doing in my life and I still do it today via baseball, tennis, golf, snowboarding, trailing and lifting.

Finally, my third identity is a philosopher. I am constantly studying and trying to understand the fundamental questions on purpose, knowledge, value, the mind, language and personal growth.

Without these two identities, I think I’d seize to exist.

The Center

At the center lies the sweet spot. This is your unique brand that allows you to stand out.

A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.

Marty Neumeier

If you are bold enough to go all in on your differentiation, you can create a strong positive gut feeling. We would call this strong positive gut feeling Resonance.

Resonance is what we’re after. As a reminder, here is the graph form last week.

In a world where there are thousands of storytelling coaches, by sharing my love for sports and deep thinking, I give my audience a chance to fall in love with me just like my best friends. You will relate to me because you are an athlete too. You also may struggle meeting the part of you who shames yourself for not being more successful. This allows me to be seen as real person just like you who seeks to change in the world, not just the company or an organization who wants to sell something.

Your content is an ecosystem. One post does not exist on it’s own, but rather, each post builds upon one another to create your unique brand. Over time, post after post, your audience finds themselves resonating with all of you.

Here’s a look at how that works in practice.

70/30 in Practice

Creating content in this model is not hard. This is me. This is how I move through life.

I am a storytelling, philosophical athlete.

I don’t have to think so hard about what to post.

• I look at life through the lens of a storyteller. Everything is a story.
• I play lots of sports. It’s natural a lot of my stories will be about sports.
• I also journal and write a lot. In that writing I am constantly thinking about life, my (and our) existence and how to “live better.”

You see, this is just who I am.

• Some days I will just tell a story (70%)
• I could teach you about storytelling (70%)
• I can also break your beliefs on stories and storytelling (70%)
• The extra fun part is in the center when I do it all at once by telling philosophical story about tennis (70%)

Other times…

• I just share about being an athlete (30%)
• I post a philosophical idea about getting a mullet (30%)
• I can even share a philosophical idea about baseball (30%)

This is how I can become known as a storyteller while being fully myself and not drowning myself out.

If you want deeper support in identifying your identities and turning them into endless content, check out The Brand Framework.

Being Bold

If you simply pursue becoming the best therapist, then it’s likely you’ll read all the same books every therapist has read. But if you play tennis, you may end up reading The Inner Game of Tennis and Andre Agassi‘s bibliography. Now you will begin to see things through a new lens. And when you add a third component to that, you add a third layer for innovation.

Last week I spoke about being bold enough to truly own your beliefs. If you want to truly innovate, you must be bold enough to go pursue greatness in your 3 categories of differentiation.

Being bold means to go all in on these identities. Going all in on what you love. To pursue becoming the top 10% in each category.

A top 10% storyteller.

A top 10% athlete.

A top 10% philosopher.

By allowing yourself to love what you love and go all in on being the best, you will innovate. It will be impossible not to see things different. Not to mention, won’t life be incredible when you unapologetically do the things you love and do them the best?

Promoting Change

We all have something great to say, but it seems saying it effectively can be one of the hardest things to do. All great leaders were effective communicators great storytellers. It is the most effective tool to connect, teach and inspire.

Come back next week for a storytelling framework that will help you turn your vision for change into endless stories.

I hope you’re excited to show up fully you in your work.

With love,

Matt