Mike Kim

Content marketing, at least as many of us knew it, is dead.

There was a time when just sharing your knowledge and expertise were good enough to stand out. I probably spent the first four years of my career trying to convince business owners to create content and share their message. (Some still don’t… not my problem.)

Content is par for the course now. There’s nothing that special about sharing your knowledge when an LLM can pump out a 19-point step-by-step plan of what to do.

I wrote in an earlier issue, [#05] The Economy of Meaning: Personal Branding in the Age of AI that we’ve moved from a knowledge economy to an attention economy.

I feel this everyday when I see the insanely high level of creativity required to “get attention” on social media nowadays. For a little while, I felt I’d lost my chops. I’m just not that great at getting attention.

But I’m pretty strong when it comes to creating connection.

People used to create in order to convert. The real progression is content → connect → convert. That’s not that new, but here’s what is new:

#1. The Shift From “How-To” to “How I…” Content

I shared this insight with my mastermind at our bi-annual intensive last week. I confessed that I feel my content the past three months feels… self-absorbed.

I’ve always been pretty open and vulnerable in my content, but I’ve taken things up a notch. My examples are about me. My stories are from my past. I share about my week, often without as many actionable takeaways.

Oddly enough, this kind of content is actually working better. While my numbers aren’t as wide, the responses I get are deep:

• “I never miss your newsletter.”
• “Yours is the only one I read.”
• “I love your emails.”

So why is the more self-centered, “How I…” content performing better now? I’ve been saying this next point for a few years behind closed doors, but feel confident to share it now:

#2. The Messenger is More Important Than the Message

AI slop is resulting in heaps of “how to” content. It’s noisy, and with that noise comes a desire to find signal.

But more than signal, people are looking for who they can trust. Not just for their content, but who they are as people. They want connection. “How I” creates more connection.

But even “connection” is a lazy term that should more accurately be called “relatability.” Relatability and connection are not the same.

Connection, Community, Containers (Ugh)

“Community” is also a buzzword, but it’s also a lazy term. I’ve never once said to myself, “Today would be a great day to join a community.” (Ugh.) Seth Godin used the word “tribes” in his seminal book, but that can sound insensitive. Though I understand his point, I’m not a chieftain or tribal leader.

I’ve seen others use the word “container” to describe these spaces. Connection, community, containers… all of these fall short. What are we, cargo to be shipped from Port Elizabeth?

When I first started my mastermind in 2015, people joined because of access to me, my expertise, and my network. But that’s not why they stay, especially for that long.

The obvious, predictable answer is that they stay because of connection, or because “they found their people.” But what does that mean? We all have black hair? We all like tacos? We all have the same business? We have the same vision for life? Nope.

#3. Wisdom Worth Sharing

I think what keeps them together, whether they realize it or not, is that people in that group have wisdom that only comes from lived experience. They live lives they respect.

I don’t just mean getting smarter together. There are many more smart people in the world than there are wise people. I’m interested in the latter.

To me, wisdom isn’t just intellect or strategy or expertise. It’s understanding how things play out in the longer run as well as seeing second and third-order effects.

Everybody in my group has business insights to share. We have 7-figure business owners, people who have bought and sold companies, bestselling authors, doctors, lawyers, marketers, non-profit leaders, and more.

We also have people who have lost loved ones, been through crushing divorces, survived major health scares, and gone through betrayals like you wouldn’t believe.

They are the same people.

Sure, they celebrate each other’s milestones and hangout when they happen to be in each others’ cities. This isn’t about how everyone is best friends with each other. I actually don’t think anyone has a best friend from within our group.

But they’re wise people. They’re incredibly resilient and growth-minded. They are learners, doers, unpretentious, confident yet humble. You probably are, too.

Double down on sharing your wisdom rather than just information. Share info, that’s fine. Just double up on the wisdom.

***

People used to come to me to learn how to market themselves to grow their business. Now, the pre-cursor to that is whether I am someone who has a deeper life beyond what I teach.

At the risk of talking about myself even more, a few real questions people in my mastermind ask me when the cameras are off or we’re riding in an Uber together (from this week alone):

• Wait, you started your book… like right when your divorce started? How did you do that?
• Was cutting alcohol really hard?
• Are you scared that you dropped your retainer clients?
• Do you ever feel lonely doing all this work by yourself?
• How tiring is it doing all these mastermind groups and hosting these retreats?
• What do you to unwind after these crazy events and stuff?
• Is it hard to pour out yourself in these settings and then not have a partner?

Gosh, just recounting those questions makes me feel melancholy. But I’d like you to see what they’re really looking for in those questions:

Not information. Wisdom. 

Not perfect wisdom. Not sterilized wisdom. Not sanitized wisdom. Hard-won wisdom. The kind you earn from having the crap kicked out of you and your soul torn up… and getting back up again.

So here’s what I ask myself now before I write anything:

• How did you learn that?
• How do you make that happen for yourself?

Try them for yourself. What’s the real story? What did you learn that you can’t read in a book? If you read books, don’t just tell me which books, tell me… why those books?

What kind of people do you learn from? What kind of people do you hang out with? Who do you not hang out with?

Expertise isn’t enough. A great message is no longer that big of a differentiator (I can ChatGPT a hundred slogans better than yours.)

But your wisdom: the stuff you learned from burying a loved one, or learning to walk again after your accident, or how you re-built your life after your ex emptied your bank account, or how you raised your business back from the dead?

More of that, please.

Don’t try to out-create people twenty years younger than you who grew up with Instagram and TikTok, who just know their way around it. Stop trying to compete with them on what they know how to do better than any of us will.

Share your wisdom. That’s the one thing you’ve earned.

If you hate social media… don’t create content. Share wisdom. Go hard on sharing it. Share the good, the bad, the ugly. The pain and the triumph. That’s what will set you apart.

Then I just might listen to what you have to say about building a stupid funnel, growing leads, setting goals, or landing gigs.

Raise your standards, for yourself and who you choose to learn from.

The trend I see coming: people will buy from messengers they believe, not messages they understand. The messenger is more important than the message. Be a messenger worth hearing because you carry wisdom worth sharing.

***

• Private 1:1 Advisory: Join the waitlist for 2026. This is a 1:1 arrangement for 6-7 figure business owners with a few in-person meetups: mikekim.com/advisory
• You Are the Brand Academy: My membership for solopreneurs looking to break through the first and second six-figure barrier. Get on the waitlist: youarethebrandacademy.com