The Art of Building a Super Engaged Community

I am currently reading ​The Inner Game of Tennis​ and it’s pure genius. It was written in the 70s long before athletes or teams consider hiring a sports psychologist full time.

The author, Timothy Gallwey, noticed tennis players would talk to themselves during matches and say things like,

“Swing up you idiot!”

“Move your feet!”

When he asked many athletes who they are talking to they say, “I am just talking to myself.”

Gallwey broke down this process down into the two selves.

Self 1, the “I,” gives instructions to Self 2, “myself,” who performs the action.

In short, self 1 is an asshole and the constant berating never helps self 2 relax and perform the action of playing tennis better.

I’m only on page 24, I haven’t gotten to the solutions, but I am looooving this concept. It relates to all of life and the creator in me wants to turn every paragraph into a reel, but I’m trying to relax on the tennis content juuuuust a little (I say as I open this weeks newsletter talking about tennis).

What I want to talk about today is how this book has done such a good job of getting me geeked out, highlighter and post-it notes at the ready and dying to turn the next page.

The concepts directly relate to creating better content.

It’s what gets your audience to watch your entire video, swipe to the next slide in your carousel, or read what’s in your caption.

The page turner

Chapter fucking 1 right off the ~~bat~~ racquet, Gallwey does something genius.

You can see my highlighted check marks and post-it that says, “Genius Marketing”

I have even ​made a reel​ talking about how I play better against the ball machine (with nobody watching) compared to when I play at the clinic’s with other people.

I wondered if I was the only one who struggled so greatly to play in a match as well as I practiced. But the more people I met and played with they would agree… playing against other people in a meaningful match is way harder than practice.

I thought I was doing better, but this past weekend, I just played my first tournament since I was in my teens and my god… I was a HEAD CASE!

I hadn’t picked up this book yet, but I KNEW in order to play better I had to relax and that getting frustrated with myself and trying to analyze my swing during the match wasn’t the thing that would help. But I kept doing it. Clearly the strategies I was using weren’t helping.

This book has been on my mind and I knew it was time to go pick it up.

Then I read the 6th sentence in the first chapter and MY top complain is the FIRST one listed!!

I. FEEL. SEEN!!!!

I. AM. NOT. ALONE!!!!

Before Gallwey has taught me anything he has my full trust. He gets it.

I cannot WAIT to hear how he solves this problem. My biggest problem!

I don’t need to be convinced to turn the next page, I begging to turn the next page.

By knowing exactly what I’ve been struggling with but still haven’t found a super useful solution, I am all ears. We all have core problems in our life we wish could be solved. That’s where you want to meet your client.

Stop trying to convince your audience

Let’s recap what just happened:

• I am aware I get verbally frustrated during matches
• I am aware my self talk (inner game) is a problem, but I can’t seem to solve it
• I was aware a book called The Inner Game of Tennis existed
• I buy the book and immediately think, “YES! That is exactly my problem!!!”
• I need to turn the next page
• With every page turn I continue to think, “gahhh!! Yes that’s so true!!”

This is your number 1 job with your content.

Get your audience to think, “That’s exactly what I’ve been experiencing/doing/thinking!” BEFORE you give them any solution.

This is what it means to build that formidable “KNOW, LIKE, TRUST” everyone is always talking about (but never tells you how to do it except to say, “be vulnerable!”)

Content isn’t about telling people why they need to or should be doing something.

“You can’t reason someone out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place” – Jonathan Swift

It’s the same reason it’s futile to argue politics and religion. Nobody is actually arguing facts or reason, you are arguing beliefs. There’s nothing wrong with that. Facts aren’t better than beliefs.

You are allowed to have your beliefs and uphold your values and I’m allowed to have mine. It’s what makes this world so fun.

Instead of spending all that frustrating time trying to convince people of your beliefs, why not just build a community of people who already believe what you believe and help them achieve their goals and become more of who they want to be?

In the coming pages, Gallwey doesn’t need to convince me to implement the tactics he shares, I already want them.

But he built trust by showing me FIRST that he gets what I’ve been going through.

It’s one of the reasons storytelling and vulnerability is so powerful.

Nobody wants to be seen as a failure, weak or stupid so we keep our feelings, failures and mistakes unsaid. Because of this we think we are alone. We think we are the only one feeling and thinking these things.

Feeling alone is terrible. It’s the most unsafe place to be as a human.

Knowing you belong to a tribe that has your back is the safest place for humans.

When you safe, you are free to relax, be yourself and take aligned action.

And you can offer this to your audience by going first and sharing:

1. The mistakes you’ve made and
2. How you think and feel as a result of those mistakes

The more specific you get, the harder they will nod their head and think, “wow, that’s exactly it.”

This is what gets people to share your work and express their feelings and ideas in the comments.

Let’s break it down.

How to write better content

Step 1 – Hook

All a hook is is getting your audience to relate to the problem they have, or the thing they want, or if you know your audience wants your solution then you can tell them you’re going to give that to them.

• If Gallwey knows his audience is looking for the solution he offer’s (like me) his hook can be, “3 ways to master the inner game of tennis”
• If Gallwey doesn’t think his audience is looking for help on their inner game, he can speak directly to the pain point, “Here’s how to play better in your tennis matches than you do during practice”
• Gallwey can also speak directly to the goal, “Here’s how to stop hitting your forehand in the net that nobody is talking about.”

*I would say all these hooks are worth testing. You don’t even need to change the rest of the content. Just see which hooks do better over time then use more of that language.

Step 2 – The Head Nod

No matter which hook I go with, I won’t jump to the answer right away. I want to get my audience to relate by sharing my experience and/or feelings.

The crucial part of getting your audience to know, like and trust you is to get them to nod their head and say “YES EXACTLY!! Matt gets it!!”

The rest of the content would look a bit like the first page in chapter 1.

You can speak in first or second person, though I prefer telling my experiencing and allow my audience to relate to it, so I usually go with first person.

I know that I’m not dropping my racquet below the ball to create better top spin and I’ll remind myself after I hit one long, “low to high, Matt. Low to high!!” but then I do it 5 more times on the next 5 shots. Then I really start freaking the fuck out.

At this point, I’d. hope any tennis player would be like, “YUP!”

Not only that, this is what will get them to share it with their friends. My brother and I do this all the time with tennis content.

We’ll share a reel and say, “this is what I was just telling you yesterday!”

Step 3 – Give the tangible value

They are either nodding along or they’ve moved on.

If they’re nodding along, we’re building trust and they are itching to “turn the page” and get the solution.

If they’ve moved on, good. We don’t need to waste time convincing people to listen to us.

Don’t worry about needing to solve ALL the problems at this point.

It’s not possible to do this in short form (or even longer form) content.

If you can solve one problem for your client or change their perspective, they will trust you even more and come back for more content and eventually buy your thing.

If you try to solve 10 problems, they will be overwhelmed and do nothing. Then they’ll associate you with that overwhelm and lack of progress.

I see value in a few ways.

1. You’ve given them value in step 2 by making them feel seen (this is the intangible value). That’s probably the most valuable thing to any human being. To feel like they are safe and belong. Do this as much as you can.
2. Another form of value is offering a change in perspective. Gallwey could finish this post by telling you about Self 1 and Self 2. In a short form piece of content, he may not have time to break down how to begin changing that relationship, but if you now have the awareness that Self 1 is being a dick to Self 2 and it’s causing Self 2 to tighten his grip on the racquet and therefore keep hitting in the net, that awareness is extremely valuable and your audience will come back for more.
3. The final piece of value is what most of us are familiar with is the education. How to actually change the relationship to Self 1 and Self 2. Gallwey could do this by introducing the concept of being present to get more relaxed and teach 2 ways to become more present. (knowing that this is the solution, you may change your hook. I usually write my hooks at the end once my idea is flushed out and I know what the one core point is).

I hope you enjoyed this write up today!

(I almost wrote, “I hope the constant tennis content isn’t annoying,” but I wont’ apologize for that. I love it and it makes my content creation process infinitely more fun and effortless and that’s what I want for you.)

In fact, I’ll be hosting a free training soon all about how to make content more fun and effective soon, so stay tuned!!

Matt

Next read: As I mentioned above, in The Inner Game of Tennis the author breaks down that Self 1 gives instructions to Self 2, who performs the action. But the way Self 1 communicates isn’t very effective in getting Self 2 to relax and perform better. If you find that you have a similar relationship with your content creation process—one that is filled with frustrated and annoyance—you will love this next read, 2 ways to release the fear of posting your most authentic content.