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- You Have a PR Problem
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PSSSST…
You might have noticed, we’re on a shiny new platform (beehiiv). Really upping the newsletter game.
Even better, we’ve launched the Commander in Chief Community (link fixed :).
WHAT’S INSIDE?
Basically, this has all my best stuff, coaching and consulting materials, latest tools, my book split into chapters, with a whole bunch of my best trainings, workshops, writing, podcast episodes you name it.
Oh yeah, the premium stuff?
When you subscribe (and help me pay the damn bills, only fair), you’re gonna get:
1) Group coaching - career, business, life, whatevs
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a. getting promoted,
b. getting paid more,
c. building a 6-figure side business,
d. building a brilliant personal brand.
3) Special discounts for 1-on-1 coaching
You’re gonna LOVE this. Yeah, it’s pretty MASSIVE value, amigo/a.
Time to get off the sidelines.
Like, this is basically all the best stuff I’ve ever produced, with weekly updates and a ton of new stuff.
YEP, IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING!! GET EXCITE!
And NOW, I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse…
I don’t want to hear any objections. You straight up have ZERO EXCUSE, homie.
Get in there, get active, help me keep building this amazing community.
After that, it’s gonna cost you a whopping $10/month, to start.
Seriously, what are you still doing here? LOLZ.
Get in there and make some noise. Intro yourself.
Send this to 5 of your friends. NOW. Seriously. Pretty, please 🙂
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Whether it’s the first time, or if it’s just been a while, let’s connect and get to know each other (better) as humans.
If we haven’t connected yet, connect with me on LinkedIN. I post some super useful stuff there, as well :)
Put 30 minutes on my calendar to chat. No strings attached, whatsoever.
Let’s get to know each other (in many cases after not chatting for a long time) as humans, friends.
Of course, if there’s something I can help you with, just ask and I’ll do whatever I can to ask.
Don’t be a stranger, friend.
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In this issue: Your PR Problem Is Costing You… BIGLY!
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Your Massive, Hidden PR Problem
Don’t ask me why.
Everything’s coming up PR lately.
Things have been a bit slow, workwise, on the HR side lately.
So in a way, it’s a great opportunity to come back to my roots in… content.
Some would call it PR/Media.
In case you’re paying attention, I’ve REALLY stepped up the content I’m putting out on LinkedIN, especially.
Posting twice daily, on autopilot.
And of course, probably the biggest reason why I’ve given myself a lot of the best opportunities in my career has been…
You nailed it, PR/Media (content).
For better or for worse, the vast majority of my consulting and coaching clients have found me in top publications, read my newsletter, heard my podcast, saw me featured somewhere on a large platform.
I love this stuff.
Whether it’s finding hidden trends, making sense of current events, featuring amazing people doing remarkable work to help humanity, I’m all for it (and all over it :)
There’s an interesting thing about PR/Media, wherein it manages (in the right circumstances) to neatly align incentives between the people/industry/company being featured, the writer, the publication and even the PR person who connected the pipes.
But I digress.
I actually got a job doing PR for a university.
So yeah, it’ll be even more PR/Media/Content for me :)
Telling the stories of groundbreaking research and the incredible scientists and engineers and technologists behind it.
Pretty cool to contribute my voice to Startup Nation in whatever way I can.
More on that later.
Ok, back to the content and PR thing.
Forget a moment about telling the stories of startups and AI researchers.
Think about yourself a moment.
Ok, I’m not a content machine, dude.
I don’t know the first thing about PR.
Hell, I don’t even know if I care much about it.
I mean, I’m good at what I do. People know me, ya know?
Wrong.
You’re a commodity, just like I am, just like the vast majority of us.
And not a great one at that, because in our times, the noise is much greater than the substance.
Let me explain what I mean.
Look, we can argue ‘til we’re blue in the face whether or not AI will destroy jobs, create jobs or enhance jobs.
That’s not the point, at all.
Most of the daily tasks that we do, which are already so computer-centric, are relatively easily automatable, optimizable, outsourceable.
In other words, ripe for AI automation.
Ok… so?
Look, I’ve talked ad nauseum about the whole “be your own media group” concept (become a paid subscriber to get behind the paywall).
But it’s not just a “nice-to-have.”
It’s a critical necessity.
Not just in the way that social media is a peer pressure-induced “bare your soul” (and/or behind) exercise.
When you take the concept all the way to its logical conclusion of regular practice, maybe featuring people in your industry, maybe writing for top publications, doing your weekly newsletter, maybe a podcast, etc…
And ya know, maybe talk about your hiking, your philosophy, your projects, books, ideas, etc…
What happens?
Clients happen, features happen, you get known for something, you build a brand, maybe build a company, even a while new industry.
Who knows?
Look, I’m not gonna obfuscate anything.
Writers love to see their name in print.
You can write it off as vanity.
But if you do, you would be dead wrong.
It’s not some sales training at work here.
This is real life observations.
Some of the most brilliant people I know…
Sadly suck at PR.
I mean, they mostly get how it works.
But they’re not really in it to win.
These are the Meritocrats.
People who were brought up to think that just by virtue of working hard, keeping their proverbial nose clean, paying their f-ing dues, lots of facetime, a few lucky turns, and voila!, Managing Director.
Or massively valuable equity from a startup where they spend 80-hr weeks for 2 years.
Or the name recognition from… being published in top scientific journals.
These are honest, hard-working people who cognitively understand how things work, but don’t want to “stoop down to the level of the street [or business, or the vulgar/plebeian level].”
These are my people.
This is where I started my career (if you can call it that).
I grew up with all sorts of inane, arcane — basically insane — cultural rules around language, psychology, business, science, taste-making.
These were the Old World shaking its fist at the upstarts in the New World.
And because life took me through some truly insane turns of no money, no home, no life skills, no luck and no shit, Sherlock, I got the (bull)shit beat out of me.
All the old conventions, the vaguely aristocratic notions distilled by over-educated Russian Jews who aspired to something (anything!) more than second-class indentured servitude in the Soviet Union back when it looked as likely as the Exodus to Jews in Egypt before the advent of a mature Moses and Aaron.
Survival over-rides (almost) every notion, fancy, turn of phrase and aristocratic sensibility.
Certainly not taste or sense of hunger to succeed. If anything, the opposite.
To go from a broke, homeless law school graduate with $250K in debt and zero life skills to married with kids and a house in… “only” 13 years may not sound like much of an achievement.
It’s no overnight success story, for sure.
Aside from pure gratitude to G-d and my family that I survived many moments of deep despair and hopelessness, that I managed to get through all the darkness…
Is actually a deep gratitude that I did it through my main superpower, storytelling.
Convincing people to hire me for high-profile roles I had zero skills for, to pay me good money for it.
Then managing to sell 6-figure projects despite being a 1-man consulting shop.
Even if I’m far from the world’s greatest marketer, seller, funnel builder, etc.
Pretty good at the substantive work of HR, L&D, program building, coaching people, training, inspiring, advising, mentoring.
Knowing when and how to add massive value.
Not just-so-stories, but the real deal.
Creating content is basically that, just tailored for particular audiences.
Do I like to see my name in print?
Of course, as much as the next guy or gal.
Is there a measure of vanity in it?
Who would argue the obvious?
Is the content polarizing?
Listen, I’m too old to try pleasing everybody.
The truth hurts, sometimes irreparably.
But it also brings to light all sorts of injustice, imbalances, notions, fancies, buried pain and trauma.
Writing is therapy.
You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t
Once you find your voice, no repressive regime or boss or whoever else can stop you.
The bird will not go back in the cage.
Neither will the meritocratic do-gooder who’s been burned and buried and screwed over once too many times by all those psychopaths at the top.
PR isn’t some vanity play, amigo.
And it’s not even about the size of your audience (size does matter, but not always as much as you think ;)
It’s about your NEED to get a message out.
A message out of your crazy journey, your trauma, your unpopular opinions, your childhood trauma, your high school awkwardness (am I a geek or a nerd? LOL), your trauma in the workplace, your trauma from relationships.
And yeah, sure, your taste and sensibility and curation, your observations, original insights, all of the above.
We can’t live by ideas alone, people.
Those ideas need to get out to the intellectual market, to be tested, refined, revised, strengthened, codified in something more than just your head or your private journal.
Creating content in any form is therapy, yes, but also the best chance we have for self-expression.
People will first care much less than you think.
Then eventually, they’ll care a lot more than you think.
Do it long enough, bare your soul enough times, you will attract a following.
People will open up to you. They will tell you their deepest, darkest secrets, even if you haven’t talked to them in decades.
You heal yourself. You heal so many others, sometimes silently, sometimes openly.
You may never hear how much you helped other people, but you will definitely feel how much you’ve helped yourself.
Ain’t no slave master who can mess with you any more. Your soul is free, even if it’s for moments at a time, between constant disappointments from people and institutions and messy reality.
So what PR problems is it that you have?
No, it’s not about your quotability or how many “hits” in Forbes or Entrepreneur or Harvard Business Reviews you get.
All of that shit comes and goes and fades quickly (trust me on this).
Sure, to do business, you need to command attention, eyeballs, SEO, conversions, sales, revenue.
But at root, this isn’t a business thing.
If you don’t create content, all the best ideas and STORIES you have inside you, whether from your elders or your own experience, will remain buried inside you.
Bad enough for how you feel about yourself, but it’s also a massive MISSED OPPORTUNITY for your own growth, your children’s, your clients’, your audience’s growth.
Humans act when they perceive they would LOSE something through inaction, rather than because they want to gain something.
So here’s my takeaway for you…
If you want to tell your story, to help others, to help yourself, maybe even to create a movement… but first, to maintain your sanity…
Create content! Do your own PR! Get your own story out to the world.
I guarantee you will improve your own life, the lives of your family members, and the lives of untold others, simply by telling your own story.
You don’t need to be original. just motivated to retell your own stories for a new generation (your own) in your own language.
That is all.
If you need help for HOW to do it, you’re welcome to read the rest of:
1) my newsletter (yeah, you can subscribe and read the archives, if so inclined)
2) books
4) articles, etc.
5) Join the Commander-in-Chief Community (free for 30 days)
See you on the inside!
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My Offer:
Put 30 minutes on my calendar to chat. No strings attached, whatsoever.
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