I can't stress how important it is to have confidence in yourself. Leverage your skills – for they are many, and manifest in legion different ways.
Think personal: your friends. Your friends, how they love you. You probably help them with their relationships, take them to pubs and root out the big issues of the day and nail them to the hypothetical cross. You give them freely of your time. You make yourself available any time of the day, whenever they need you. Think business: Bet you're there when it comes to bringing ideas to the meeting, right? You think laterally – if someone's suggesting we launch x product, you're asking them why they hadn't considered the customer's needs before their own. You go back to basics, when everyone else is absurdly obsessed with scratching around for the next big thing. Your boss worships you, admittedly in silence, for the way you drive your team forward in motivation and ethical values. You're one of the most important people on earth. Why wouldn't you succeed at everything you do? You have the fuel of inspiration and creativity inside you. So go and pour fuel over everyone you meet. Metaphorically. Get out there, right now, and grow your niche. Start with community. Because community is everything, all we have and you're their inspiration. Here's how to be niche: Give everything. I have to disagree with those who say you can overshare. You can't. I've been of Buddhist tendencies too long to dismiss the idea that you are what everyone else is. We're all in this for the race. I own nothing. You own nothing. So if you don't own your ideas, why keep them to yourself? Excite YOURSELF. Here's your drill for the next week (unless you do it already, in which case, you're even more remarkable than you think you are. Go straight to the top of the class.): Rise at 6.45am. Walk for an hour. Home, shower/breakfast (what's your schedule? If time's tight, do both, only shower in asses milk and eat cornflakes) and on your way to work, figure out how you want to change the world. Change the world. You can. Remember Einstein? He didn't have a fraction of the awe you do. He was a hell of a self publicist. Why aren't YOU working on your brand? Think about your core message. What is it you stand for? Are you a Jesus fan? Do you love pies? Are you authoritative on cream and food preparation? Everyone has something they'd die for. What's yours? Now, live for it. Love your posse. Compliment them (thanks, Dave). Focus on their every whim. Excite their minds. Delight their senses. Care. Care. Care. Look at Leo Laporte – feel his warmth. Every guest on his The Tech Guy show gets his unmitigated attention. He's an instant friend. He's the uncle. He's The Man. Damn, I've never even called him up but every piece of advice about 'anything with a chip in it' feels like I should go the hell out and go buy the kit under discussion so I can feel the pain points and remedy them. Do your folks empathise with you? Do you empathise with them? Understand how you can take what you have now, and make it into something phenomenal. Don't work on the minutiae – work on you. Feel like you need something to take you to the next level? Go grab it by the scruff. Once you have it in your hands, or in your mind, you can give of yourself unconditionally, and your folks will love and feed on every last scrap of your everything. Feel whole? Reach for the stars. Optimise everything you do with everything that's out there. The universe is a pretty big place but it's a fraction of what you can give. So make it yours. Reach out and seize the day, every day. Eventually it'll all make sense. Until then, tell them what you know. In any way you can. That's niche marketing. Be gratis. that ebook you've been labouring over for so long you can't remember the last time you weren't working on it. give it for free. Why sell everything? Leave that to the supermarkets. When was the last time a supermarket enjoyed the warmth and compassion of a friend? When was the last time Home Depot was valued by one of its customers? If you can build relationships through the power of what you know, through the words that Miss QWERTY dances for you, you've attained master of niche status. Be proud and keep styling your craft. Build that tribe. Christopher S Penn is one of the best proponents of this genre. Every day he slaves over a post with meaning. Every day he grows his disciples – in number and in strength. The critical mass here is unique information. You have this information oozing out your pores. The key is how to channel it. Focus on your people. What do they know? What do they need to know? Mean it. Whatever you write isn't just laced with intent – it's practically smothered with it. When you love what you do, you don't work, you just serve your purpose. There are thousands, millions of people out there fulfilling their life's goal. Don't believe the BS that work is a responsibility of life. That's for people who don't dream. When you dream, and you commit to that dream every waking minute of your day, you live it. And the rewards will follow. So be true to yourself, be true to your constituents. Every word has to carry honesty and integrity. Are you on that wavelength? Research what they want. C'mon how hard can it be to go out there and influence and research stuff that people on your subscriber list want to know about. It's not the science of rockets, it's simply the fact of life. People love to learn. Can you teach? Emasculate. Stop being so alpha male. There is, I swear, no subject in the world that belongs to a sex. Guys love getting ready to go out. Women love gadgets, especially pink ones that shake like an epileptic. And don't forget the lure of the feminists. Research I just conducted from the pit of my mind suggests that suffragettes are once again in a resurgent phase. You cannot at any point in the evolution of your niche disenfranchise yourself from asexuality. Be atypical. Be available to anyone, come midget, come woman, come man. Community, you remember? It's everything we got. Now be there for them. What are your tips for understanding how to find your niche, and make it work for you?