How do you go deep while managing the day-to-day?

A friend recently asked:

"How do you go deep on content while managing the day-to-day? Lotto ticket? It's hard to burn the midnight oil with kids."

I have an answer to that question, but first, let’s acknowledge that the Undisputed Authorities we aspire to emulate are masters of their craft.

Masters of any craft make what they do seem effortless, but that seemingly effortless skill isn't born through natural-born talent or luck

It comes as a result of playing the long game.

Blair Enns, Dorie Clark, and Billy Broas were elite operators in their subject matter before they started publishing. When they started writing, it took them years to first master this new craft of writing (or speaking) to subsequently create a Hit piece of content (in their case, a book). Along the way, they were publishing in relative obscurity.

Dorie Clark has spent more than 15 years building a one-person business that generates circa $2 million in revenue. She makes thought leadership seem simple.

Her results are extraordinary, and…

Extraordinary results follow extraordinary behaviours

“It took me probably between two and three years of very regular writing to start having inbound inquiries, for consulting, for speaking, for coaching… A little less than two years after, I sort of hit this realisation that I needed to start blogging to build my platform. 2011 was when I signed my contract for my first book… And then it took another couple years for the book to come out. So what I've discovered is that if you're taking the right steps, you will see progress. Eventually, you will get there. But it always takes longer than you want it to.” - Dorie Clark

Dorie’s success is built on years of consistent publishing and refining her voice. Every blog post and speaking engagement helped her inch closer to her ‘Hits’ and subsequent $2 million ARR business.

You don't need to create and publish deep insights to grow a profitable consulting firm

Many people are running multiple six figures, and you've never heard of them. People the next level up, though, those attracting extra-extraordinary levels of income (beyond six figures, which are extraordinary themself) do produce a constant stream of insight, which at some point are packaged and woven together as a coherent body of work (a Hit book, talk, video series, etc.)

There’s no easy way to run a marathon. You'll have to eat clean, train before work, and get up early on weekends. Then, when it comes to race day, at some point, you're going to have to run through the wall when your mind is using every trick in the book to convince you it's time to quit.

Before you lace up your trainers on day one, you've got to ask yourself, "What does it take to run a marathon? How much do I want this? And what am I prepared to give up to achieve it?”

The same is true for thought leadership…

Thought Leadership is the long game

There may be outliers but thought leaders (not influencers) generally take years to build their profiles and master this new craft (outside their subject matter expertise) of publishing interesting ideas. And those ideas don’t immediately lead to business opportunities.

In the meantime, while you're looking closely at a problem, researching it, or maybe writing a book, what do you publish?

I think this is what my friend was really getting at.

How do you work on high-quality, long-form content in the background while frequently publishing short-form content to build an audience and remind the market that you exist?

As Jack Butcher puts it, you turn the byproduct of solving the problem into content.

You share the sawdust

Austin Kleon talks about a similar concept. Here’s what he was sharing during the process of writing the manuscript for the Steal Like an Artist Journal:

I was looking at other people’s notebooks, and I was tweeting and tumbling out that stuff… fiction writers will come to me, and they’ll be like, should I put drafts out of my storyline? And I’m like, no, don’t put drafts out of your stories online. Save your drafts for your really close readers, and for your writing group or your wife, or whoever. What you should be doing is… write about the books you’re reading. Or talk about a writing tool that you found really helpful. Or talk about the structure in a Hemingway story that you’re reading… that process-y stuff that you think no one cares about.” - Austin Kleon

That’s kind of what I do with these newsletters.

I'm working on something bigger, but I'm saving and sharing notes and research in the process. I'm not invisible, you're seeing me show up every week, but it's with the offcuts from the larger body of work, the Hit I’m 100% focused on and striving to develop.

Give us your offcuts.