The thesis of this email is this—

As your expertise (and the sophistication of your approach) in your industry grows, your demand for a higher ROI from your publishing grows as well. And there are certain publishing projects you can assign yourself that will offer that radical ROI (meaning: return on investment). I’ll share those projects with you and explain this diagram in just a second.

But, the tl;dr of it all is—I’m hosting a free workshop this week on 4 publishing projects that can offer you a radical ROI on your time investment as a thought leader in your industry. You can read all about it and RSVP for free at the link above.

Or, we can chat for a bit below about how social media might be a bit below your pay grade.

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If you care deeply about spreading your helpful ideas to as many people as they can help, then prioritizing daily social media is probably below your pay grade.

Let me explain.

When you first start learning about something, you know next to nothing. And you’re aware of that. But, as a little time progresses, if you’re still “into” that same something, you begin to get really excited and almost/actually evangelical about it.

Think of *that* friend of yours who started preaching veganism on Day 15 of trying it. Or the coworker who is too hype about crypto or real estate investing after watching 1 free class, reading 1 book, listening to 17 podcast episodes, and spending 12 hours on realtor[dot]com.

They’re a month or two into their journey but you can’t tell by how confidently they share ideas and terms and strategies. It’s part of the process; I’m not making fun. Our excitement or love for something far far far outweighs our knowledge and experience at first.

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About Beginners & Artificial Experts

Your coworker/friend is at the brown dot (in the diagram above) on their journey. They’re a beginner, and their desire to tell people about crypto/CrossFit/veganism/daytrading (represented by the top, yellow line) is much greater than their deep knowledge or experience in the topic.

If their willingness/ability to learn, test, experience, suck, and then learn, test, and experience some more stops there, or it progresses very, very slowly (because they have a real life to run in the meantime and/or the topic gets hard), they will remain a beginner . . . or worse, an artificial expert.

We probably all know some AEs across many different topics and industries.

But let’s move on.

Again, that yellow line that is on top of our diagram actually represents your desire to share better, and better, and healthier, and more helpful ideas in your topic.

If that desire continues to grow, then it demands that you learn and experience more.

This is where you might choose to:

• Self-study the topic with books, courses, etc.
• Study the topic in school
• Get a job in the industry to gain experience
• Start testing or acting on it by staying up late at night or waking up early
• Seek out people who are better at it than you are now and learn as much as possible from them
• Etc.

Moving Into Influencership

Your expertise grows over months and months (or a year+) and pretty soon, you find yourself in the place where you can be an “influencer” on the topic. Your influence might extend to nearby friends, family, and coworkers, or it might exist online on a small platform (social media, a YouTube channel, etc.).

But this is another common stopping point (the green dot in the graph below). Another place where it’s common for people to stop growing their experience & knowledge. Why?

Because you now know enough about the thing to be decent at it. You can talk about something somewhat intelligently and people will tune in. So, some people stay at or around this green dot and line of expertise, because they turn their focus to growing their audience. When that’s their focus, they can just talk about something more often, or with prettier backdrops/outfits, etc., to meet their audience goals over time. Which, typically means they only make marginal advancements in knowledge and much larger advancements in growing an audience.

Becoming a Real Expert

But, if someone’s yellow line keeps growing (again: it’s that desire to share better & better ideas with people in your topic, that desire to be more helpful, to add more useful and unique layers to your industry), then you will respond by testing, learning, failing, and growing even more.

There’s a really pivotal hump that influencers would hit if they kept prioritizing experiential growth & knowledge growth the way true experts do.

You’d get to this place where your topic/passion becomes difficult. You often have to fight mental, emotional, and/or physical battles to keep growing. I’m sure you’ve been here.

But, if you have the resources to fight (and not everyone does, at no fault of their own), you make a big leap in expertise. You’re at the point where you’re a true expert in a topic (the pink dots and lines in the diagram). Far beyond the average person and far beyond someone who stopped at AE or influencer status.

Keep in mind, you can still *be* an influencer when you have expert level knowledge. This is not an email to take shots at influencers.

Your expertise can exist at many levels, and it can continue to grow to any of the pink dots/lines.

Why? Because as you exist and function in expert land, you’re not okay with just posting some pretty pics, or quotes, or widely-known stats. You’re seeking ways to be more helpful with what you publish and share, right?

So, what do most experts do?

They start teaching in the topic. Or coach-teaching. Or consult-teaching. And sometimes, they get stuck in this land. Building more and more lessons. Bigger and bigger courses or programs. Etc.

There’s nothing wrong with this . . . except if your desire to share better & better ideas won’t let you stop there.

Moving Toward Shaping the Industry as a Thought Leader

If you get to the point where you actually want to shape your industry, to guide the conversation in new directions, to add meaningful layers of change to a topic you’re passionate about, you’ll continue to grow your expertise.

And your desire to be of service (typically due to some inequity that harms a specific community) will demand that you publish your ideas in ways that offer you a bigger return on investment than collecting likes on IG or TikTok for the first hour/day you post something.

Basically, as that yellow line grows for you, the blue line, your thought leadership or industry shapership (new-ish word; it works; we’re leaving it) chases it.

And industry shapership doesn’t only mean that you continue to prioritize learning and experience, industry shapership requires high-quality and high-ROI publishing.

You can’t shape an industry if you’re not sharing the best ideas.

And you can’t share the best ideas in lasting ways by spending all your publishing time on social media. The content simply doesn’t last.

You’re a yellow-impact-liner if you’re still reading at this point.

Let’s be honest: you think constantly about how to help people . . . sometimes to your detriment. You’re committed.

I'm here to propose that social media is below your pay grade at this point. Rather, prioritizing social media (and not publishing your useful ideas in more impactful and longer lasting formats) is below your pay grade.

There’s another way we can go about things.

Join me on Thursday, September 19 (at 7p ET) or Sunday, September 29 (at 1p ET) for a free workshop:

​Radical ROI Publishing for Thought Leaders​
Discover 4 Capstone Assets You Can Publish Over the Next 5–8 Weeks

Note: the two dates are the same workshop at two different times. And, it’s a true workshop; we will do one activity per capstone publishing asset we’re talking about.

I describe those assets in detail on the signup page so you can make an informed decision about attending.

See you soon,
​Regina out.

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