Imagine You Change the Lives of 1000 People

Kevin Kelly suggests you need just 1000 true fans to support you to be a successful creator.

To make a living in a creative career (such as photographer, musician, author, designer, dancer etc.), you need 1000 (or a few thousand) supporters who will support you by buying whatever you create (such as products, ebooks, knowledge, art, or music). Your true fans will buy all your creations, subscribe to your newsletter, click on all your lines, read all your work, and share your work with others. They will enthusiastically spread your story.

You need to focus on these true fans.

If you start a journey towards getting your own 1000 true fans, you can be independent as a creator.

For the first time in history, you have the tools of crowdfunding (such as Kickstarter or Patreon) available to you — your supporters will fund your projects or your salary. This means you can live as an independent creator earning money by doing what you love.

So, you do not need to be a bestseller, celebrity, or household name to be a success. You can still be successful if you reach and build a direct relationship with your 1000 true fans.

The cornerstones of a rich and meaningful life are value creation and contribution. You want to establish your own game (as an entrepreneur, writer, scientist, or artist) and you want to make a measurable impact in the world in your field. You will share what you learn as a means of being of service to others. You will help and inspire other people to raise up their own games. Your sense of purpose and meaning comes from your desire to help other people. And all of this will make your life rich and meaningful.

In order to make progress on the path of value creation and contribution, you need to be absolutely committed to improving yourself, learning, and creating assets every day. How do you achieve this?

I think we all need to aspire to create a positive spiral of flow, momentum, and asset creation. This can be done by amplifying four interconnected areas in our lives:

(Creativity+Imagination)*100

(Curiosity+Learning)*100

(Play+Experimentation)*100

(Innovation+Entrepreneurial Action)*100

Our goal should be amplifying our efforts, capabilities, and skills in each of these areas.

This game plan involves elevating ourselves through upward spirals building on these four areas (cornerstones).

Imagine that we create a multiplier effect of 100 in each area. We can achieve this through small actions, and consistent and continuous improvement. The idea is to amplify momentum and progress in each area building on our natural strengths.

In order to achieve this, you need to have the correct mindsets; some of which are below:

• You will carve out time for strategic reflection and asset creation. You will focus on the big picture and how you will create breakthrough value.
• You will be patient and play your game in decades. Asset creation is a long term game that is built on discipline, consistency, hard work, imagination and compounding over a long period of time.
• You will always prioritize self-learning and make your skills and knowledge more valuable each day. You will schedule lifelong learning to stay relevant and adaptable. You will choose learning topics that bring out the best in yourself.
• You will have a beginner’s mind: You are never finished learning and improving. You will never be perfect and you will never stop learning.
• You will find your own tribe and connect with people who will elevate, mentor, and inspire you. You will tap into the power of positive relationships and connections. You will build mutually supportive and authentic relationships and grow each other.
• You will share what you know and teach others through social media, speaking, blogging, vlogging, books, articles, or podcasting.
• You will set up a system to share all your knowledge and gifts with the world. You do not wait for your ideas and contributions to be fully completed or polished to start sharing. It is better to share your journey — the process with all its messiness. You will share and teach whatever you learn.
• You will invest your time and energy in building the future version of yourself. Never underestimate your future potential. Have enormous respect and confidence for your future self. Your job is to move towards this ideal vision one day at a time.
• You will not settle for conformity and mediocrity. You will always think independently and strive for better. When you see something negative, you will try to the root of the issue and solve that problem.
• You will try to elevate yourself beyond mediocrity by making something great. You will build things that are so great that your work will get noticed.
• You will be open to criticisms and embrace critique. You will use challenges and negative feedback as opportunities for growth. You know that you will emerge stronger and more resilient when you overcome adversities.
• You allow yourself to be playful and to improvise. You do have an open mindset to see, learn, and experience new things during your journey.
• You will help other people achieve their full potentials. You will inspire, delight, excite, and amaze yourself first, and then others.
• You will tolerate ambiguity, uncertainty, and messiness when you are pursuing creative ideas.
• You will seek out surprising and unexpected insights. You will be flexible and use diverse perspectives and mental models to interpret complex phenomena.
• You will allow yourself a lot of opportunities for experimentation and failure — especially if you are trying out new ways of doing new things.
• You will not get disheartened when things get hard. You will never lose hope and enthusiasm. When you fail, you will try again. You will fail better each time.
• You will ask questions and be curious. You will learn from multiple fields and disciplines. You will go beyond borders and combine insights from unlikely domains. You will read and learn a lot.
• You will plan your big projects for three months at a time. You will iterate and re-evaluate your goals and projects every three months. Looking at the big picture, you will keep your options open and flexible, yet still ambitious.
• You will continue creating every day. You will make things and aim for progress every day. Do not break the chain. Ship something every day.

Exercise: Imagine you can change the lives of 1000 people

Here is an exercise for you to imagine the multiple ways in which you can contribute and add value to the lives of your 1000 true fans.

How will you create breakthrough value for them?

How will you create a positive change in their lives? Which problem will you try to solve? How will you contribute?

What message will you give to these people? How will you inspire them? You might want to think about all the creative assets (such as books, blogs, artwork, products, brands, articles, designs, music, YouTube channel, podcast, social media accounts, videos, patents, web sites, portfolio of work, etc.) you will create for your fans in the next 20 years.

Think about the big picture of all your creations and contributions. All the fresh and exciting things you will bring to the world. Create a master plan.

Brainstorm and write down all your ideas below.

We have limited time in this world.

We need to think deeply about the contribution and the legacy we want to leave behind us.

A great way to do it is to focus on the positive change and contribution you envision for your 1000 true fans.

How will you make a positive change in their lives?

Towards an impactful life,

Sincerely;

Fahri

Fahri Karakas is the author of Self-making Studio.

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