Hi – hope this week is treating you well already.

I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. Made my first ever batch of home made hot sauce with last year's crop of “7 Pot” chillies. Turned out brilliantly (apart from the fact that we couldn't go into the kitchen without goggles and breathing masks for a few hours :)

Anyway, more seriously, I've been taking my own medicine and looking at how I can enhance my own market leadership this year (check out my video series on market leadership here if you haven't seen it yet).

One of the things that's become increasingly clear to me in the last couple of years is that most standard advice about becoming a leader or go-to-expert in your field just doesn't work.

The advice is always about the mechanics. The “necessary-but-not-critical” step of writing articles or doing videos or emails or speaking on stage or any one of a myriad of methods for getting your message out there.

The trouble is that most people don't have a message that's worth getting out.

So they publish books that add little or nothing to the body of knowledge in their field – merely regurgitating what people already know. They write blogs with the same old trite “7 tips to grow your business” advice that all their competitors have on their site.

Sure, you have to “publish” to become known as an expert. But it's what you publish that makes the difference. Not the mechanics of the channel you're using.

Michael Porter isn't known as the leading expert on corporate strategy because he published a bunch of books on the topic. Thousands of others have published books on strategy and never been heard of again.

Porter's known as the leading expert in strategy because of what was in his books. The new ideas, theories and models he introduced or popularised.

If you want to become known as a thought leader in your field you can't just spend your time publishing. You have to think. Deeply. There's a clue in the name “thought leader” ;)

You have to publish ideas that resonate with your audience. That simplify and clarify the world for them. That help them make sense of tricky situations. That give them new ideas and hope. That trigger lightbulb moments.

Writing, making videos and audios. Presenting. It's all easy compared to the real work of creating that inspiring idea in the first place.

Now I'm not saying lock yourself in a darkened room until you emerge with an earth shattering idea. That's not how creativity normally works. It normally strikes when you least expect it after getting really engaged with a problem.

But what I am saying is don't be satistfied with publishing the mediocre, the average, the merely good.

Keep striving to create something brilliant that will make a real difference to your clients.

That's what REAL thought leadership is about. 

That's what makes real authorities and go-to-experts.

And when you have that something, then get out and publish and promote the heck out of it.