Unmask Your Villain: Define and Defeat It!

It’s not a person, but an ideology or fear that you stand against. This clarifies your message and unites your audience.

Knowing what you are and what you oppose simplifies your process.

It helps you focus on producing content, sharing ideas that people buy into and filtering out what doesn’t fit. This clarity is crucial for maintaining a consistent presence.

When people understand what you fight against, it creates a dedicated group of supporters. This clarity is crucial for engagement and sustaining conversations.

The YATM villain is irrelevance.

When your work elicits no response, it’s a sign that people don’t care. No attention means no conversation.

No one wants to be forgotten, overlooked, ignored, or unwanted. It means you become further away from the people you want to be with.

We want to be known and trusted. When you become known and trusted you have more leverage.

A lot of the work I share has a villain connected to the overall message.

I believe in achieving self-sufficiency, empowering you to market yourself and your business, and grow your audience without relying heavily on algorithms and paid media. Much of my work is centered around:

– Building your own audience

– Community growth

– Content creation

– Confidence/self-belief and stepping up

– Testing out ideas linked to bringing people together (being innovative)

– Identifying what you fight against makes your message stronger.

For instance, the villain of building your own audience might be social media as the only place people see you and your constant battle to be seen and heard. Over time this can make you irrelevant.

When it comes to content creation, you might spend hours or even days crafting content only for a few people to notice your work. It’s essential to determine your message and target audience; otherwise, your ideas may lose direction, . This makes you irrelevant.

It could be that every task is now driven by Ai. Articles start to become even more vague and generic with the ChatGPT stamp and the race is to the bottom. This makes you irrelevant.

It could be due to the pace of life and learning that you might feel overwhelmed and out of touch with what’s happening around you. Sharing a pool of knowledge and ideas helps to combat this. The worst position to be in is to feel distant from what is happening around you. The more you stick to the way you have always done it, the increasing chance you become irrelevant.

Perhaps the absence of a community could be the reason. Without anyone to share ideas with, speak up, or feel like a part of a larger community to enjoy the company of others and receive support. When you take the connection away, it can make you irrelevant.

You create work that people can see themselves in.

YATM fights against irrelevance. We don’t want to be forgotten about, so the battle combats this by fostering a community that values participation, continuous learning and innovation. 

Initiatives such as the YATM Creator Lab help young adults bridge the gap between education and the commercial world, ensuring they remain competitive.

The YATM Creator Day helps bring people together so we can all join in and get to know each other better. The theme for next year’s event (May 15th) is ‘relevance.’ What we’re doing is turning our everyday experiences where we are supportive of each other and turn them into assets that help fight the villain.

Your goal is to connect your actions to your beliefs, defining what you stand for and against.

Here’s how to find your villain and understand your role for others, creating common ground and forming strong alliances.

Many people claim to be committed, professional, creative, and passionate or use the overused B2B cliche of being ‘customer-focused’. However, these claims often lead to self-promotion rather than creating genuine connections. Instead of focusing on easy wins such as fighting against ‘dull content’ or ‘banishing boring business’, the goal should be to emotionally engage people to stand with you.

People relate better when they can see themselves in the picture. They recognise you are willing to fight for it. It could be industry complacency, excess, corner-cutting, or wastefulness. It is stronger for people to make an attachment to what you bleed for, rather than the glory of who you think you are.

Understanding what makes you angry, frustrated, alarmed, or scared makes it easier to express those feelings. It’s better to create from the heart rather than conform to industry norms. For me, becoming irrelevant means that your work serves no purpose to anybody. We have to find ways to combat that and find a better way.

You need to understand the longevity of your conflict. For me, it was in 2013 when I spent money on a cupcake campaign and personally handed to potential clients, the conversation just didn’t happen. The campaign was more about giving people free food, to them I was irrelevant. I highlight here, it was one of the drivers for YATM starting.

It’s important to acknowledge the challenges rather than boasting about victory. Pointing out the problems is not about claiming universal wisdom, but about recognising your independent thinking and encouraging others to see the same values and commitment.

There has to be a place to create from genuine emotion, rather than commercial gratification. The worst thing you can do is become self-centred and hold the mirror up to yourself, rather than the world that is in front of you. It’s about sharing people what the battle is against and worth fighting against.

There must be a better way to keep the villain at a distance by exposing what is wrong and providing a consistent and valuable alternative. People need to see what it looks and feels like. For instance, that’s one of the reasons why YATM has live events to bring people together, so they get to know one another as well as a theme for the occasions. The more you are in tune with your industry and have support around you, the more relevant you become. The allegiances made help strengthen in victory.

Choosing your villain means choosing your future. 

Clearly stating what you oppose gives heart to your efforts.

Acknowledging the villain and rallying people together leads to stronger bonds and collaborations with those who understand your mission.

Defining what you are not and recognising the challenges ahead provides the clarity needed to stand out from those who choose the easier path.

Rally against your adversary. Embrace the fear, grasp its influence, and guide your audience by presenting a sincere, unwavering alternative. Keep fighting, keep connecting, and with others around you, build an engaged and resilient space.