🌱 Matt Allyn's Newsletter

Become a masterful storyteller and build deep connections with anyone

⏱️ Read Time: 10 min 17 secs

🎧 Hey Reader, this newsletter is a beast and I really think you're going to love it. However, since it's so long, I decided to make it a podcast too. If you'd like to listen to this email instead, click here!​

Reader, I’m going to completely own 2 things right now.

1. I’m really fucking intelligent
2. I’m scared as hell
3. And by the end of this email, I’m going to show you exactly how to stand out and become a thought leader even though you’re scared… just like me.
4. ​

1. You want me to elaborate on how smart I am??

Aww, I’d looove to thanks so much.

In case you can’t catch my tone, let me be clear… I’m being very serious right now

(no, seriously stop. I’m not saying any of this sarcastically).

Is this confronting to hear me say this?

How fucking wild is it that we get shamed for being proud of who we have become?

Do you think that not being able to own your intelligence is holding you back… even subconsciously?

I do.

I’ve seen it play out a few too many times.

Since Sunday, I got 2 emails from some creators telling me, essentially, “fuck niching down.”

1️⃣ From Jay Clouse who said

2️⃣ And another from Dan Koe with the email subject line, “the anti-niche”

and for good measure, we must have a third sign from the universe…

3️⃣ I just read a Substack “Be a Category Creator or Regre it Later. I did” by Mike Marcellus where he talks about being a ‘category creator.’ Not niching down to a person, but ultimately solving a problem the consumer didn’t’ know they had.

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Any long time follower of mine would know I’ve been saying this for almost 2 years now, before I heard anyone else saying ‘fuck niching down.’

I promise you, this will be the new wave of how people teach marketing. It’s so awesome because it’s super useful… and I’ve been doing it for 2 years.

🧠 So yeah. I’m fucking intelligent.

I’ve always been good at noticing patterns.

Like in 4th grade when Ace Ventura came on the scene and I starting wearing Hawaiian shirts to elementary school… then a few months later everybody was wearing them.

Pattern recognition is an area I only recently started to take more pride in and own.

Check it out…

I changed my brand color to this shade of green about a year ago. Kinda got a little blue tint in it. I knew this was a poppin color.

Then Google Maps updates a few weeks ago and went from this

to…. look at this beautiful green.

And Amazon did it too!!

From this dark grey-ish maybe blue

too this beautiful green

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I don’t think I’m that special.

🫵 I know you can do this too.

In Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act, he talks about how any of this creative work (which is literally anything you as an entrepreneur put out in the world) is ultimately bound to happen. If you don’t create it, someone else will. Things just end up getting manifested in the physical world because they are ready to be manifested.

If the Beatles didn’t make the music they made, another band would have. The world was ready for a musical revolution. In fact, it’s likely there were other bands in bars or garages trying this new music out… the Beatles just happen to do it so well, they got discovered and they nurtured it.

Rick goes on to say that we can all do this if we learn tune our antenna to the broadcast of the world around us AND our unique perspective and interpretation of it.

💔 Sadly, as humans we love to feel safe and belong and we cling to that safety, which inevitably sets us out of tune with our antenna.

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I once clung to the safety of a life I was supposed to love. Go to college, get a good degree and become an engineer in NYC. I did what was normal and I fit into the mold.

It was very safe here.

Until the fear of safety got so big I had to leave.

I couldn’t stand being a civil engineer in NYC building someone else’s dream (Henry Turner of Turner Construction ain’t even alive anymore!!)

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So I ventured out to entrepreneurship…

… and after 5 years of it…

… here I am stuck in a new mold…

… and I’d like to scream…

GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF THE SAFETY OF THE MOLD!!!

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2. But, I’m afraid

Last fall (let’s call it 14 months ago) I had an idea.

I’m only gonna post stories on Instagram. No matter what the post is about, it’s gotta be a story.

I tried that for maybe one week. And let go of the idea.

Why?

Because I was scared.

This wasn’t the mold I grew accustomed to.

Us online coaches… we gotta post educational content. We gotta talk about our offers. We can’t just tell stories all day… We gotta build authority! We gotta teach shit!

In fact, this is what I teach my clients to do as well.

Posting different 'types' of content most effectively build know, like and trust with our audience so they buy our stuff.

Now, I am more than willing to admit when I am wrong (and I’m not saying I am because I have no proof in doing content a different way right now), but there is so much safety in doing what I’ve always done and what everyone else continues to do.

There is no telling what’s in store for my business if I sit over here all day and just tell stories.

If I did content different.

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While being different sounds like a risk, I pride myself on taking risks, but maybe they aren’t the right type of risks.

I sat with myself and wanted to understand what am I really afraid of?

This is where I met a 10 year old version of Matt. We can call him Sick Matt.

🥺 Sick Matt would get the flu at 10 years old and be coddled by his loving mom. She would take such amazing care of him. Feed him soup, put on his favorite movie, and be reminded, “Don’t worry about school, you can stay here with mom and get better.”

🥺 Sick Matt would also get in trouble at school. Sometimes be a class clown. Get in fights. But it’s okay, his parents had his back. Always. It was never Matthew's Fault.

🥺 Sick Matt had nothing to do on a Saturday so his older brother would bring him to his playdates and be fully accepted into the group. He wasn’t just Adam’s little brother, he was an equal. One of the guys.

It’s not that I was always sick. It’s the version of me who loved to be taken care of.

It dawned on me that, while I do receive love in my successes, I receive THE MOST love as Sick Matt.

As he lives inside me, he believes his greatest access to the most love is when he is being taken care of. Not when he is most successful.

So it was time to change that.

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😌 I closed my eyes and sat next to Sick Matt. I let him know that no matter what, I love him more than anything, and if he’s willing, we could go on a walk together and experience what love can look like as the most successful version of ourselves.

He agreed.

So I picked him up in my arms and we took a walk in my new city of Bend, OR.

✨ We stepped into our dream home with it’s wide open floor plan that overlooks the lake at Discovery Park.

✨We peaked outside at our brand new Custom Ford Bronco in the driveway.

✨I flew my parents, brother and sister-in-law in for the week to stay, all in their own guest room.

❤️ Natalie, Sick Matt and I sat around the backyard patio surround by perfect lush green grass and imagined how much love my family would pour into me. More love than Sick Matt ever received or knew was possible.

❤️ We imagined the words they said and the questions they asked.

❤️ We imagined feeling more deeply connected than Sick Matt ever did.

❤️ We imagined how safe it is to be massively successful.

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Sick Matt doesn’t fully trust it, yet.

But he can see the possibilities.

This practice isn’t complete, yet.

But in this practice I saw the source of what might be holding me back from going FULL SEND on what I've deep down already known for years now.

In fact I knew it when I was writing my blogs on my bike ride across America.

I knew it in high school when I won a creative writing competition.

I knew it when I wrote my college essay.

I knew it when I got to write about a quote I loved in Religion 201 in College.

My truth has been inside me.

Waiting to be unleashed when I was ready to be unleashed.

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Maybe you’ve found yourself in this story.

And if so, I hope you explore cultivating a relationship with that part of yourself that doesn’t feel safe in their success.

Because I want to share with you my plan for 2024 but in order to fully lean in, it’s going to take a lot of trust, safety and love for all parts of you.

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3. The 2024 ‘Let’s Send it to the Fucking Moon’ Game Plan

Full disclosure. Usually my advice is backed by experience. This is not. But I’ll explain all that.

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Anyone in the spiritual community will agree, there are no coincidences. It is simply your greater embodiment manifesting.

In a way then, there are coincidences… but random, they are not.

These coincidences are offerings from the universe to lend you a hand into boldly grasping what it is you truly want.

You can notice them.

Act on them.

Seize them.

…or you can choose to ignore them or maybe not even see them at all.

The choice is entirely up to you. The universe can only do so much.

In part 1 of this email I reference 2 emails and a Substack all reminding us to not niche down. But more specifically about those texts, here’s what I learned and in a way… always knew (again, I was just too scared to go for it).

I have been teaching a mixture of this advice.

👉 Step #1: Your niche is the problem you solve

👉 Step #2: Uncover your Zone of Genius (you solve the problem in your specific and unique way)

👉 Step #Forever: Your marketing exists (70% of the time) to prove that your zone of genius is the only and obvious solution to this problem.

The mixture I teach will allow you to sell people what they think they want AND show them, through language patterns, there’s better ways to reach their goal (aka. give them what they want AND show them what they need).

​

Maybe it’s time to stop being so afraid of appeasing my followers and pull out some major Steve Jobs energy and show them exactly what they need.

2 emails, a Substack, a few Threads I haven't mentioned...

As well as constant nudges over the last year on how much people love my storytelling....

I am not one (when I can help it) to ignore the coincidences being offered to me.

I want to sieze them.

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👑 So this is my 2024 Game Plan.

It’s time to boldly, unapologetically step into what I know to be true and to stop fitting the mold.

It’s time to realign my antenna to MY truth.

It’s time to show Sick Matt how much love is available to him when he doesn’t need saving.

It’s time to own my intelligence create a brand new category.

And this category is called….

🥁

🥁

🥁

🥁

Personal Development Marketing.

I’ll share more on this later, but basically I want you to become a thought leader in your space who has unlimited confidence in yourself and your work. The version of you who doesn't shy away from anything in the online space and beyond.

Become the Hormozi.

Become the Gary Vee

Become the Mel Robbins.

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Let's break down the idea of creating a new category so you can implement this for yourself.

🦄 In the referenced Substack, Mike talks about being a Category Creator.

“Apple didn’t invent the cell phone.” he says, “But Apple did create it’s own category with the iPhone.”

🦄 In Jay’s email he talks about cross referencing 2 premises. Two examples he gives are:

Don’t make a podcast about hip hop - make it about the business of hip hop (Trapital)

Don’t do celebrity interviews - Make celebrity interviews that get more intense as they eat hotter and hotter chicken wings (Hot Ones)

This is what Mike would call, being a category creator.

​

Coming up with my own category was rather simple and I think you can do it too.

1. It’s everything that was always in front of me.
   🌱 I already teach that content is the #1 personal development tool.
   🌱 I released this podcast episode about it and this reel breaking it down.
   🌱 I already have a love for Growth (eh-hem the name of my membership) personally and professionally.
   🌱 I love pursuing skills in becoming a more powerful leader (the name of my podcast is Powerful Online Leadership)
   ​
2. By simply naming it I can own it
   (1) Giving it a name gives me greater direction and specificity in my content. I know with certain what content to create and, more importantly, not to create.
   (2) A name gives me an opportunity to stand alone in the crowded category that is ‘content creation’ or ‘marketing’

I want to be talked about like…

🤩 The iphone. A brand new category of phones.

🤩 LinkedIn. A brand new way to network professionally.

🤩 Ted Lasso. A TV show that is personal development AND comedy AND wins all the Emmy’s.

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👉 So, what’s your game plan?

What do you ALREADY talk about and can't shut up about?

What is your unique perspective on the work you do?

Can you give it a unique name and create your OWN category?

Can you give yourself the opportunity to boldly stand out and do things differently?

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If you can’t think of one yet. That’s okay too!

I’m planting the seed in your head.

This takes time, intentionality and most importantly, TRUSTING YOURSELF.

Learning to trust yourself to speak your truth online is the beginning of uncovering your path as a thought leader.

It’s something we spend time on inside of my membership, Growth, because I don’t want you blending in and doing what everyone else is doing.

I don’t want you falling back into a mold.

I don’t want that for myself.

I know you don’t want that either.

We all want to create something magical, memorable and that changes the lives of millions.

We don’t get there by being average.

We get there by becoming thought leaders.

But you will always be average if you never learn to listen to and trust yourself.

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If your ears have perked. Then this is the work. What I’m doing right now. Writing this email.

Stating my intentions boldly and loudly.

I would challenge you to do the same.

Make a post, send a text to your best friend. Tell the world. Especially when it's not perfect.

Own it.

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So....

Will you go boldly into 2024 doing what you’ve always done?

What THEY have already done?

Or will you join me and create a new category that the world will fall in love with?

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Until next time,

Cheers to our continued Growth.

Matt 🌱

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