People are tired of this

I really don’t care.

This is what I thought when watching a podcast recently about the problem of social media and its distracting and harmful effects on our mental health.

Now, it’s not that I don’t care about this problem.

I just don’t care for how the solutions are being presented.

A podcast discussion is just a couple of people intellectualising the problem.

Around and around.

To me, this is just circling an itch and never really scratching it.

People watch this stuff to validate their own opinions, not to be changed, not to jolt them out of bad habits. For the most part.

I think about this a lot as a writer and producer of content.

How to really influence, help and contribute in a way that is not condescending or a plain waste of time?

I think about it in terms of what I want to see more of, and it’s mainly this:

I want to see people actually living the solution.

Even if the solution is imperfect.

Perhaps, especially so.

I don’t want to hear more about mental health problems.

I want to see people growing plants on a homestead they built from scratch.

I don’t want to hear any more about the problems with the dating landscape.

I want to see people talking about how they are making it work, or single people thriving in solitude.

Right now, my problem is that I want to write more fiction, but it seems like a challenging environment to succeed in.

So, rather than talking about how hard it is to make money writing fiction…

I am showing you what I’m doing, what I’m learning, and where I am seeing little successes.

People, I am seeing, are hungry for a humbler approach to sharing content.

People want to see people living the solutions they espouse, and making mistakes along the way.

They are not looking for experts.

They are looking for people who remind them of themselves and their own perceived inadequacies, actually making it work.

Step by bloody step.

What could you start building and sharing the honest process of?

That’s your brand or online presence or USP or whatever you want to call it.

And if you want to write about what you’re building in a way that makes people actually follow the journey, learn more about my Online Writing Alchemy course here.

Alex, your man in Bulgaria, Mathers