Water.

Healthy.

Pure.

Necessary for a good life.

And if you’re smart, you can turn into a product that makes $70M in sales.

Or well…you can’t because that would be plagiarism…

But this guy can.

Meet Mike Cessario.

How Did Mike Make $70M Selling Canned Water

Upfront note: This isn’t any cross-promotion.

Mike is very different from what most creators in this space are doing and I’m not in touch with him anyhow, but I believe that his crazy success story holds 1 lesson every creator should internalize.

To reveal it to you…let me tell you a quick story:

Mike - besides being a marketing genius - was a rock band player, and once, when he was attending a concert, he noticed that although almost every band is sponsored by Monster (the energy drink company), most of them prefer to drink water for better performance.

And that sparked a few thoughts in him:

Why do only those fuzzy, unhealthy drinks have such fun, cool & colorful branding?

And don’t healthy things (like pure water) don’t have any?

Can you see what came next?

Yeah. His unique product called Liquid Death.

The product wasn’t any special.

But Mike’s marketing strategy was.

Now I won’t go into much detail here, because we’re not here to talk about marketing.

I want to paint a whole different picture for you instead.

The Secret To Being Original

If you want to be perceived as “original”, you don’t need to waste time inventing brand-new ideas.

You just have to package the “already popular” ideas in a brand new way.

Even James Clear once said that…

“Convincing people that you have the best idea is much harder than convincing people that you have the best book or product on an idea they already care about.”

And that’s exactly what Mike did:

Water was something people always cared about… (okay now I’m not sure whether this isn’t getting a bit politically incorrect but nevermind)

And Mike was able to turn it into something novel, unexpected, and surprising.

When you create something that is familiar yet has some elements of novelty in it, you create something the human mind absolutely loves.

Because the human mind strives for novelty yet hates the discomfort of the unknown.

But when you’re able to create something with a novel spin to a familiar thing (or ‘Most Advanced Yet Acceptable’ as somebody else would call it)...that’s when you create a real banger.

How To Take Advantage Of This As A Writer

I believe that if you’re here, you’re in one of the markets/niches that are very popular indeed (such as online business, fitness, writing, mental health, etc.)

But these are also the niches where it is almost impossible to come up with a unique idea.

But as we’ve learned already, new ideas aren’t what we want.

We want new spins to old ideas.

In this issue, I’m going to show you 4 ways you can do this:

1) Search for unique inspiration

Your input determines the output.

Consume different to think different.

You know all that jazz.

When you only consume things about business and then you go to write about business, you’ll end up sounding like everyone else writing about business.

When you only consume things about biology and then you go write about biology, you’ll end up sounding like every other high-school professor.

But what would happen if you’d read about biology & then went to write about business? Or the other way around?

You can have the same topic to talk about as everyone else…you just need to choose a different source of inspiration.

Your mind is a powerful engine: When you set a clear intention, it’s gonna do anything to fill it up.

Here’s an example:

I’m super obsessed with writing & storytelling.

When I went to the movie Puss In The Boots 2 with my friends…I couldn’t just focus on the movie.

I was looking for every single storytelling hack I could possibly use in my writing and left the cinema with a lot of takeaways.

In other words:

When you’re obsessed, your brain is gonna find a way to relate anything you see, read or observe to that very obsession.

Soo…

Pick a goal to reach or a skill to learn.

Consume & observe everything.

Connect the dots.

Write.

2) Talk about the topic from a different lens

This one’s hitting on a bit similar note as the previous tip:

The point is to talk about your topic from a lens most people aren’t used to.

My favorite example of this is Dan Koe.

We all know that Dan Koe talks about business and self-improvement…but from the lens of philosophy and spirituality, and see…

A lot of people (including me at times) try to copy him.

But he’s forever going to be the one who has invented this idea. He owns his category of “Actualizing Human Potential Through Online Business.”

My question for you:

What is your personal interest you explore for fun? How can you combine it with the topic you talk about on social media?

3) Find your “red pill”

Another question for you:

What is something that you’re thinking nobody’s saying out loud?

Or another one:

What is the one word you might potentially own in the creator economy that nobody else can?

Your red pill is the ultimate secret that helps people get to the goal you’re leading them towards.

For every single creator, this is different.

Examples:

Are you catching what I’m throwing?

Of course, what your red pill is might be refined over time.

But it won’t just come to you out of the blank. You need to actively go out & try different things.

Put out good stuff. Listen for feedback. Iterate.

4) Share personal stories

I bet you’ve probably heard this:

The messenger is more important than the message itself.

And consequentially…the story behind the message is more important than the message itself.

As my friend Jay (who has really good stuff on StoryWriting btw) once said:

A takeaway without a story is just cliché.

And I bet you see it on the timeline all the time

Boring platitudes.

LIfe advices that the accounts that tweet it don’t even follow.

Copying and pasting tweets from bigger accounts.

But everything changes once a creator shares their own story.

I’m going to take George Ten as an example here again because he’s exceptionally good at incorporating his life stories into talking about business.

Like this one:

He could have just tweeted “Don’t use templates, they make you a bad writer.”

But instead…he tweeted this:

Everyone can have the same takeaway.

But for 1,000 different people, there are gonna be 1,000 different stories behind it.

And that’s what will make you stand out.

So don’t share what did you learn. Share how did you learn it.

Alrighty my friend, that was it for today.

See you next Sunday,

— Claudia “On A Search For My Red Pill” Stellner

P.S.: Don’t forget to catch some sunlight today ;)