I’m the son of a librarian 📚.
As a child, there were always books scattered around our house.
It wasn’t until I was an adult, that I realized 👀
Those books were always *slightly* above my reading level.
One day, I asked my father if it was intentional.
He smiled and said, “of course.”
He put out a wide array of topics — so I always had a choice.
He wanted me to fall in love with reading.
But he didn’t want reading to be a chore.
He wanted to:
🎈encourage my curiosity
🍽 develop my appetite for knowledge
☝boost my reading skills
❤ create a life-long love of reading
He created opportunities for me to seek out ideas and learn.
And so, in his own way, my librarian father had a marketing and content strategy.
📗He wasn’t prescriptive.
📗He never asked how many books I read.
📗He made each book feel like it was my own choice.
📗He asked if I was done with a certain book, so he could return it.
Nowadays, I work with thought leadership practitioners.
And I encourage them to apply this same approach.
You can’t force people to engage with your idea.
“You must read this whitepaper” never excited anyone.
It’s about creating opportunities.
Put your idea out in places where your audience will run into it.
Let them pick it up on their own.
And if they don’t engage with your idea, don’t despair.
Keep putting the idea out into the world in different forms.
That’s one lesson that I learned from my father.
Which I apply in my work today.
How are you creating opportunities for others to encounter your ideas?