Lesson 7: Content Spectrum
Lesson of the Week:
The Content Spectrum
Last week, we introduced the idea of The Medium Spectrum. To recap, the Medium Spectrum is your comfort level across various social platforms. Most people are more willing to be open and vulnerable depending on where they share content.
For Chris, his newsletter is the safest, Twitter is more out of his comfort zone, and LinkedIn is Danger! Chris doesn't post anything on LinkedIn because former coworkers populate it.
Similarly, for Louie, sharing ideas on LinkedIn seems to produce the most anxiety. Something about what those former colleagues may think and how they may judge his content and ideas. Of course, that's all just in Louie's head because his former colleagues aren’t thinking about him at all. But, no amount of reassurance can fix this for Louie. This is what he is feeling; to him, it is very real.
The only thing that fixed that for Louie was sharing gradually in safer spaces and gaining the courage to put himself "out there" more with his ideas.
A related concept to the Medium Spectrum is The Content Spectrum. That's a lot of spectrums, I know, but bear with us.
To clarify the Content Spectrum, I'd like to dig into how we meet people. We can talk about sports and the weather with anyone; it's called small talk. Many people hate small talk because it's boring, but it's how we humans gradually build up relationships and trust before we can think about sharing something deeper.
But nobody had their life changed or unlocked real opportunities by just talking about the weather. At some point, we have to try to dig deeper.
Small talk is just how we find commonalities: the more commonalities, the more comfortable. Small talk helps us build courage. You can start with the weather, move to sports, hobbies, job, and then finally, your world-changing idea. The comfort level you've built up finding commonalities in your hobbies and job makes the gambit of revealing your idealism possible. You're less afraid of ridicule.
You can't meet someone for the first time and tell them your radical ideas; they'll think you're crazy! (Ask Bitcoin Maximalists!) It's also not comfortable for anyone to do that. Nobody wants to talk to people that seem crazy.
But over time, you can gradually build up this courage to share more meaningful ideas with a small group of people in a relatively private space, the newsletter. You go up the content spectrum to the deeper stuff that matters and can change your life.
That's how Louie and Chris started Newsletter Launchpad. If one of us had mentioned this idea the first day we met, we probably would never have talked again. At the time, it would've seemed crazy.
Newsletter of the Week:
You can see the evolution of Nat Eliason’s Content Spectrum. He originally had a newsletter called the Monday Medley. This was a fun newsletter where he shared various essays and media that he found interesting. It was fairly surface level, you got a sense of his life, but not his thinking. Two months ago, he re-branded his newsletter to Infinite Play.
I’ve always felt pulled between what performs and what feels most interesting or challenging to write about. "How to" and SEO-optimized posts bring me plenty of traffic and social shares, but they just don't feel as good. I feel the best when I'm working on the harder topics, the more challenging writing that's usually aimed at trying to answer some deeper question I've been struggling with.
Infinite Play is my attempt to take my writing more seriously. Not seriously from a financial perspective, but from a quality perspective. To push myself to improve, explore challenging topics, and write more of the topics that frighten me.
What will I cover? Happiness, fear, anxiety, love, parenting, death, time, beauty, meaning. You know, light stuff.
Content Spectrum expansion in real-time.
Tip of the Week:
Keep a running log of content that fits in your newsletter. The last thing you want to do when you’re trying to publish is finding the perfect essay or YouTube video. Chris keeps a running list of essays that explores unknown unknowns, and Louie has a file of motivational essays and memes that he comes across.
If your newsletter has a theme for each issue, this really comes in handy. It’s easier to find a common theme out of your backlog rather than coming up with a theme and then finding three essays that fit.
Thank you for reading. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with a friend or two.
Louie & Chris
P.S. you can respond directly to this email. We read every reply. We'd love to hear from you.
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