TIL: the two problems

If you are an influencer or have a brand, you need to solve two fundamental problems.

How to grow your digital presence.

How to monetize your digital presence.

If you are like me, you probably want to do things right the first time.

Even though most times I fail, I get decent conclusions every time.

That is why you want to reform those two questions into something a little bit more impactful and meaningful.

There are several ways to do this, my way was to simply ask

How to grow in a way that snowballs?

How to monetize in a way that is scalable?

It’d be cool if we jumped straight to those two problems and help you solve them,

but I know firsthand that you would probably fail miserably.

At least that is what I did.

I failed because I didn’t go through the first step. 

In theory, everything sounds easy, the details of every plan are what make or break the whole thing.

That is the reason why before we start solving those two problems, we need to get our mindset right.

We will strategically need to attack every piece to make it to our goal.

What’s the goal? Scalable monetization.

AKA monetize in a way that doesn’t depend on our time (and it also funds our goals and dreams).

To get to a place where you’ll be able to monetize in a way that is scalable you will need to solve a set of problems that most people cannot.

The good news? I’ve gone through this process several times in the past and I’m going to share some of the things that made this journey easier.

Discovery

For many years I was trying to make a significant change in the world but no matter how hard I tried, I could not accomplish what I had in mind but I still gained experience from these efforts. With every single effort, I filled my inner world with emotions and beautiful moments while my external world remained the same. It was as if my attempts did not have any effect. On the one hand, I could not complain about any of my failures because each one equipped me with powerful lessons I still use in my daily life. On the other hand, I could have progressed much faster in life if I had realized where to start sooner. 

Since I was a child, I have been using other people’s achievements as a source of inspiration. From my grandfather’s accomplishments to the medals won by great athletes or even to the impact made by entrepreneurs who managed to change certain aspects of our society for the better. I remember learning about these types of stories during my first years in school and immersing myself in the variety of opportunities that I could pursue. Every few months, I decided to seek a new adventure which only lasted for a couple of months in the best scenario. Every time after a short period of time, I was deviating from my path and I ended up starting new adventures. Every adventure regardless of whether it was artistic, athletic, business-related, or emotional ended up with me not being able to achieve what I had in mind. The disappointment of failure did not affect me because I was enjoying every time I made an effort. However, every adventure still ended without any result but many positive memories.

Unfortunately, this apathy towards failure did not last long. As I was growing up, I started to notice the pattern I just described. By studying this pattern in depth, I realized that all this time I was just doing only what I wanted to do, and hence the final result did not matter to me. The journey was my only interest. If I did not feel like doing something specific I was just not doing it. At first, it was hard for me to accept this reality but after some time I decided to change this attitude. I began to prioritize the things I “must” do versus the ones that I “want” to do (at least some of the time). Thus, every new adventure lasted for a bit longer compared to the ones before although this time the disappointment of failure affected me, at times very deeply.

Contrary to the initial adventures, the new adventures were much harder and included rules that constrained me more and more every day. On each day of the adventure, I was feeling the pressure accumulating inside me. The day failure was coming was the day my disappointment and negative feelings took over the good side of me and generated emotions that I am frightened to relive to this day.

Since these (emotional) failures, years have passed, and looking back I can now clearly see what was going wrong. One of my great realizations was, that my adventures were starting from the wrong place. I was focusing on the external victories of the people I admired without paying the required attention to the inner victories they had to achieve in the first place that allowed them to achieve the outer victories I wanted.

The internal victories or defeats include all of the battles we face daily, which nobody else apart from us can see. They take place in our mind consciously, unconsciously, or subconsciously, and as soon as they conclude, they alter or change our identity one battle at a time. With the term “identity”, I refer to the perception we have about ourselves. Smokers or non-smokers, loyal or disloyal partners, honest or dishonest content creators. I think you got the idea. These battles have the power to change who we are.

The degree to which we can define our identity greatly depends on our level of self-knowledge. At various points in Ancient Greek history, the phrase “know thyself” [“γνῶθι σαυτόν” From the Greek words: γιγνώσκω(to know) + ἑαυτός (self)] appears. There is a lot of discussion around the origins of this phrase but as Socrates mentioned: “Self-knowledge is a key word for humanism as it assigns man the duty of knowing his own measure.”

Today, the term “self-knowledge” has evolved and encompasses a much wider range of the “self”. It is most commonly referred to as “self-awareness.” Gary Vaynerchuk also known as Gary Vee is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, as well as someone who has helped thousands of influencers globally see the bigger picture and achieve their craziest goals. By looking at the hundreds (if not thousands) of pieces of content that have been shared by Gary, it is quite easy to realize the importance the concept of self-awareness holds for him. In 2021, Gary published his last book titled “Twelve and a Half.” In this book, he mentions 13 characteristics he deems necessary for success. He states: 

“I think self-awareness is about knowing your strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, the things you’re great at, the things you suck at…Ultimately, it comes down to knowing who you are and how you operate. All 13 of the traits mentioned in my book are important variables in being successful, but I think self-awareness is one of the main ingredients.”

The conclusion I reached is that for a person to manage to bring any big change in the world we live in, they need to first comprehend their inner world. Socrates’s phrase is not just a subtle word connotation but rather an unwritten rule widely neglected in our days. In other words, the comprehension of our inner world is a vital ingredient for any type of success, especially in a world where everyone is focusing on the outcome. If you have high levels of self-awareness, you gain the most important and long-lasting competitive advantage.

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