Ironicity

Published by Matt Church – Founder on 26 October 2023

The irony of your expertise might be the place to locate your point of difference.

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Commercially smart thought leaders stand out from the crowd. It makes sense that if you become a category of one, you will become someone who delivers extraordinary value by the undeniable fact that we can’t get what you offer anywhere else. This truth, or perhaps the pursuit of it, can paralyse us before we have even begun. In an attempt to find what it is you provide that is unique, you may not take the necessary action to put yourself out in the world. The pursuit of uniqueness may stop you being commercially smart. AND when you have your unique offer, price is no longer a problem. 

OK so you need to offer something unique, just not straight away. 

In our School for experts, we teach via our Curriculum that the commercially successful path requires you to first be relevant to a market, then thorough, then elegant before you start to focus on being unique.

“But when it does come time to think about your unique angle it might be worth looking in the dark, not the light. Rather than focusing on your strengths and building a unique case through them, you might like to look at your dark bits. Often, these are soaked in shame”

For me, I have always had an abiding apathy for doing much. A friend of mine Grant once used the phrase ‘Stinks of effort’ and I laughed out loud. That has been my inner dialogue most of my life. My shame is that very little motivates me, or ever has. 

And right there, buried in my dirty little secret, my ‘hope they don’t discover’ inner dialogue is why I have been able to figure out: My very lack of motivation is what makes me one of the world’s most recognised motivational speakers. This is why everything I teach has hacks and workflow breakdowns. It must work with the minimum amount of effort. Turns out that helps everyone!

This Ironicity also explains why I am obsessed with the life by design benefits of running a commercially smart thought leaders practice. Maximum impact with minimum effort. This also explains our Curriculum heuristic that one should focus as much as possible on doing work you like with people you like in a way you want. If you are going to labour away, might as well be a labour of love.

The irony of your expertise (Ironicity) might be the place to locate your point of difference.

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