Newsletter I’ve been reading: Send & Grow

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Now onto today’s piece…

I used to think all content creators were shallow, toxic, and unhappy.

“Surely anybody who has to post on social media every day for a living must be miserable,” I thought.

I became the anti-social media guy — belittling people for posting online and accusing them of playing superficial status games.

All of this is quite ironic now, considering I now:

1. Make a living from social media

2. View an audience as one of the most valuable assets you can own

3. See content creation as one of the smartest career moves you can make

Today, I’d like to walk you through why my beliefs about social media did a complete 180.

Over the past year, my experiences have led me to believe the following:

Creating content on the internet is the best opportunity to achieve your highest potential in the modern world.

This is a big claim.

So allow me explain myself…

Reaching The Top of the Pyramid

In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow released his famous “Hierarchy of Needs” to the public.

His theory depicts a five-tier pyramid of human desires. Basic requirements like food and shelter occupy the lowest level, while achieving your highest potential occupies the highest level.

Each level must be fulfilled before moving onto the next.

According to Maslow, the vast majority of people are too preoccupied with the lower-level psychological & physiological needs to ever reach that elusive top triangle on the pyramid:

Self-actualization.

In my eyes, creative internet entrepreneurship is your best ticket to the top. It satisfies every level of the hierarchy (with flying colors). And it’s one of the only careers I can think of that does so.

Let’s break down each level:

Physiological Needs

I won’t go into too much detail here (because it’s pretty obvious), but becoming an internet creator pays you everything you need to survive.

Of course, you won’t be making much at the start. But that’s why you work on it part-time until you can quit your job and make it your full-time hustle.

And the beautiful advantage of internet entrepreneurship is you can geo-arbitrage by working from wherever you want in the world.

For example, I’ve been living in Buenos Aires, Argentina for the past few months. 2 lbs of delicious steak costs $4 USD at my local butchery here. So even if you don’t make much from your creator business in the beginning, you can move to a low cost of living country and satisfy all your food, water, and shelter needs quite easily.

Not only do you save financially — you also gain culturally. Read Rolf Potts’ Vagabonding (one of my all-time favorite books) for more on the immense benefits of long-term foreign travel.

Safety Needs

After your basic survival needs are met, next you look for safety.

Here’s my contrarian take:

Building your own creator business is a more secure path than working for a company.

As an employee, you might:

• Get fired and all of a sudden have 0 income

• Work hard for years just to get a 10% salary raise

• Decide to switch careers and have to start from scratch

If you work for a company, you’re completely reliant on a single entity to provide for you. Economic downturns, company restructures, and an overly emotional boss can leave you without a job in the blink of an eye. You have a single point of failure. You’re highly vulnerable.

But as a creator, you can:

• Develop dozens of diversified income streams (reducing risk)

• Scale your income by up to 100%+ on a month-to-month basis (depending on how smart and hard you work)

• Decide to switch business models and still have a loyal audience ready to support your next endeavor

The switch from employee to creator is a switch from company-reliant to self-reliant. Personally, I feel more secure having control over my own income and destiny.

Love and Belonging Needs

Once you have your survival needs and financial security taken care of, next you’ll desire connection to others through relationships — both intimate and non-intimate.

Now, I’m not gonna be delusional and say you’ll find marriage by creating on the internet (although I’ve seen it happen).

But in terms of developing friendships, creating on the internet has a ridiculously high ROI. Social media algorithms work by showing your content to others interested in your ideas, which puts you in touch with incredibly like-minded people from all over the world.

Within just a couple months of starting, I formed an amazing tribe of close friends through:

• Writing on Twitter

• Joining communities

• Paying for coaching cohorts

The people you’ll find in your corner of the internet inherently share similar beliefs, values, and interests — otherwise you wouldn’t find them there.These commonalities lead to deep conversations, real-life meetups, business partnerships, and more.

I’ve met some of my favorite humans in the world all within the last 7 months of writing online.

And the odds of meeting these people in real life are as close to 0 as it gets. The internet is the ultimate network. Take advantage and enter the arena.

Esteem Needs

Once you build up your audience and income to a certain level, you’ll start to earn respect and recognition within your corner of the internet. I’m currently in the early stages of this, which is exciting but also dangerous.

It’s exciting because humans are social creatures, so it feels great that my hard work, creativity, and persistence is starting to pay off and garner more attention.

It’s dangerous because I’ve seen many people reach this level and let their egos get out of check. Don’t be the cocky (and secretly self-conscious) dude flexing lambos and watches.

But as long as you remain humble, the recognition and respect you can earn from your creative work is one of the most rewarding feelings out there. Strive for niche fame, as David Perell articulated so well.

This is the level that you could call “successful” — as you’ll likely have achieved financial, time, and geographic freedom by now.

Reaching this stage through internet entrepreneurship will give you a healthy boost of self-worth, confidence, and sense of accomplishment — all necessary prerequisites for our ultimate goal: self-actualization.

Self-Actualization

In order to become a successful internet creator, you’re required to:

• Mature

• Learn new skills

• Get out of your comfort zone

You must persist through agonizing periods of:

• Anxiety

• Self-doubt

• 0 tangible results

It’s far from easy, but the personal growth you experience as a result is tremendous. And it’s precisely the reason why internet entrepreneurship is the perfect vehicle for achieving self-actualization.

Growing your creator business forces you to grow as a person. Growing as a person, in turn, propels your creator business to new heights. It’s the most beautiful self-fulfilling feedback loop on the planet.

You alone are solely responsible for the fate of your business. You have to be self-aware. You have to self-improve. You have to be self-reliant. You have to self-determine.

And over a long enough period of time, you’ll self-actualize.

Because you’ll have achieved the ultimate feat:

Building a life of fulfillment and freedom by doing what you love.

Matt’s Discoveries

My 3 favorite finds this week:

Self Improvers Are Creating Their Own Careers (The New Economy). This was an epic watch on the future of the creator economy, especially since I got featured (at 15:06).

Two of my favorite authors — Tim Ferriss and Derek Sivers — hosted an amazing podcast together.

I’ve been enjoying Airchat — Naval Ravikant’s new conversational social media app.

Thanks for reading.

Go have yourself a killer week.

Matt Mic

P.S. For those of you who want to take this full-time creator thing seriously…

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I’ll see you next Monday. In the meantime, catch me over on Twitter.