31. How to find your people: Part 3. Put creativity before strategy

In the third episode of our 3-part series on finding your people, we explore why marketing is actually an art form, not just a business strategy — and why this shift  might change everything about how you attract the right people to your work.

In this episode, you'll learn about:

• Why memorable marketing comes from creative vision -- and how to let your artistry lead your strategy
• Four paradigm shifts that move you away from chasing followers 
• How to work with (not against) your unique communication style, timing, and creative seasons
• Why building your own "one-in-8-billion blueprint" is the most pragmatic path to sustainable business relationships

Let me show you why you don't need to figure out something new to be more magnetic -- you just need to stop hiding who you actually are.

Transcript

Hello everyone. You are listening to Liberatory Business. I'm Simone Seol, your host, and this is part three of our three-part series about how to find your people.

Now, over the past two weeks, we've covered sharing more about you than just your work and focusing on leaving at least one person better off than you found them, which is the decolonized definition of what it means to give value. And today we're diving into the third piece—and I really think this is the one that changes everything—which is talking about why marketing is actually an art form, not just a business strategy.

I wanna walk you through four specific paradigm shifts that are going to move you from asking "So how do I get people to follow me? How do I get people to pay attention? How do I magnetize people?" to the questions that actually create magnetism.

Why everything you've been taught about marketing is backwards

Let's start by talking about why so much of what you've been taught about marketing is actually asked backwards. And here's what I think is a really widespread misconception, which is that marketing is just a business strategy that you execute.

And to be sure, marketing is a business strategy. But it is also an art form. And the moment that you treat it only as a business strategy, I think you are already really behind—you are lost—because let me show you the difference.

Business strategy asks: How do I get more customers?

Art asks: How do I move people? What's my unique perspective, even if it goes against the grain? What truth am I here to champion that no one else is telling?

Marketing that treats itself as only strategy creates customers who might leave any second for a better deal. Marketing that embraces itself as an art form creates devotees who are not going anywhere and are gonna stick with you wherever you go. And guess what? Which one builds lasting businesses?

The marketing you actually remember

And let me show you some support for my argument. Think about the marketing that you actually remember, right? And I'm gonna go with the most mainstream, even clichéd examples 'cause these are the ones that we all probably recognize and remember.

You know, the Nike campaigns that make you like "oh, I'm working out, I'm gonna push myself harder," right? Or the Apple ads that made everybody see technology in a completely different way from before. Or the brands that don't just sell products but shape how people think about themselves and the world in a totally different way.

None of that came from asking "what's our customer acquisition strategy?" It came from artists—creative minds—asking "what story needs to be told here? What is the perspective that needs to be heard? What's the culture that wants to be built?"

Every piece of marketing that actually broke through the noise and landed with people and stayed in the conversation was created by a creative brain that understood that they weren't just out there trying to optimize funnels—they were creating culture.

The problem with treating marketing as purely technical

But somehow we've all been told a different narrative. The conventional marketing world has somehow convinced us that marketing is just about metrics and funnels and conversion rates. That it's just a technical problem to be solved rather than a creative challenge.

But how can they explain the fact that memorable campaigns can't start with a spreadsheet? Like, show me one brand that you love that happened because they had the best funnel optimization system or whatever, right? Show me one piece of marketing that changed your life because someone A/B tested the perfect subject line. It doesn't exist because marketing that actually moves people, that actually builds businesses that are worth having around, combines strategy with art.

But most people focus only on the strategy part.

Let your artistry lead your strategy

So you gotta admit that yes, there's strategy involved, but you gotta let the artistry lead. You gotta let your creativity lead. You have to think of your business as an art project, and you have to think of yourself as a creative director.

And that's especially why you can't copy someone else's marketing strategy and expect it to work for you—because their strategy, if it worked for them, was built around their creativity, not yours.

My example: working with my ADHD creative brain

And let me give you an example of what it means to have your artistry lead your strategy, not the other way around. It's not trying to cram your creativity to fit the strategy. You have to see what the creativity is first and then work out a strategy that's gonna support that creativity, right?

So take me, for example. I have the vast, expansive, associative mind of an ADHD person and a quadruple Pisces. If you are into astrology like I am, you know I play multiple musical instruments and I'm also a visual artist. I have wide-ranging interests, ranging from Christian theology to botany to reality TV gossip to politics. And I think of my business not just as my business, but I think of it as my ministry, my art project.

So the way I do my marketing has to honor the reality of how my creative brain works. Which means it cannot be linear. It has to make room for the non-linear, paradoxical, all-encompassing, cyclical nature of how my creative mind actually works. It has to accommodate for the fact that my interests are so varied and my passions move from one thing to another, sometimes very fast. I never do the same thing twice because I never know in advance what interest, what passion is going to move me.

And yes, I am a marketing teacher and I consistently have been, but people who've been following me for a long time know that even as I talk about marketing, I'm sometimes weaving in theology, political ideas, inspirational insights from the plant world, observations from reality TV dynamics, right? And these are not distractions from my marketing teaching. It's what makes my marketing teaching distinctive. It's what gives what I do flavor—the Simone flavor, right?

And that's the content of what I do. So when I think about strategy, I ask myself "how do I create a marketing structure and strategy that supports the way my brain naturally operates?" Instead of compartmentalizing "this is my business content, this is my personal interest content," the strategy has to be integrated. People might start following me for my marketing insights, but they stay because they never know what I'm gonna connect my marketing principles to next, right? It's interesting. It's always unexpected.

That's the value of having your strategy flow naturally downstream from your creativity, from your creative vision of thinking of yourself as a creative director first and then a strategist. Because genuine creativity—when you are someone who honors your own genuine creativity—there's a quality about that that cuts through the noise in a way that purely strategic content, free of artistry, simply can't.

And when someone is creating from a place of authentic expression rather than trying to manufacture engagement, people—I promise you—can feel the difference.

Four paradigm shifts from strategy to radical trust

So how do you put this into practice? There are actually four shifts that I took notes on that I wanna share with you, and each one is about replacing the whole preoccupation with "how do I attract people? How do I get more followers? How do I find more people?" with what I'm gonna call radical trust.

And radical trust is about trusting in something far deeper and more expansive than what your logical mind can grasp or try to orchestrate. Trusting that there's an intelligence, a deeper wisdom at work far beyond your ability to strategize or try to control—forces and connections and timing that operate beyond what your rational mind can comprehend.

And when you pay attention and you align with that intelligence rather than try to fight against it, when you surrender to the possibility that there's something larger at work that wants to be expressed through you and unfolding in ways that you could have never planned or strategized your way into, that's powerful. Because it frees you from the exhausting work of trying to control and manufacture every single outcome. And instead, it lets you tap into a powerful flow of creativity and genius and insight and serendipity that is infinitely more generative and intelligent than any strategy you could devise in advance.

Shift 1: What you create daily

Here's the first shift, and it concerns daily creation—what you decide to create and how you share it.

You know that feeling when you sit down to try to write something or create something and you're like "okay, how is this gonna get people to pay attention?" This is your brain trying to reverse-engineer compellingness. But what you actually do when you ask that question is disconnect from what already wants to be expressed through you.

Think about what we established earlier in this series. In the first episode, we talked about how who you are as a human being, your natural way of speaking, the way you see the world, your beliefs—they're already inherently valuable. In the second episode, we talked about how sharing from genuine care naturally leaves people in a better place than you found them without you having to manufacture quote-unquote "value."

So the way to naturally channel what we're talking about from those two episodes is to ask: If I radically trusted in the value of the contents of my brain exactly as they are right now, what would I share today?

Let me give you some examples of what this might look like:

Maybe you find yourself wondering why everybody says "follow your passion" when that makes no sense to you 'cause your passion changes every three weeks or every two months. And you're tired of feeling broken, like there's something wrong with you 'cause you can't just pick one consistent passion. And talking about that.

Maybe it's noticing that for some weird reason, you feel more creative after you clean your house, even though you hate cleaning your house, but you never talk about it because it seems silly. It seems too mundane. Like who would care about that? Maybe it's not that earth-shattering of an insight. Maybe it doesn't even make sense.

Maybe you have had this thought from time to time that everybody talks about the importance of networking and "go to networking events," whatever. But you have this thought that maybe networking events are kind of performative garbage and no one is real, and real connections happen in places like grocery store checkout lines. But you've never voiced that out loud because you don't wanna offend people who go to networking events, right?

This is what I mean when I say, what would you share if you radically trusted that whatever's in your brain, if you radically trusted that the contents of your brain exactly as they are right now, are valuable to someone out there? What would you share?

And look, I'm not gonna lie, this is terrifying. Sometimes there are days—to this day, and I teach this shit—there are days when I share something from this place and immediately think "oh my God, what did I just do? That was a horrible idea. I'm gonna get canceled."

But what I have noticed time and time and time again is that those are almost always the posts that get the most heartfelt responses. When you're not trying to be all perfectly composed and cool and professional and engagement-worthy, and when you feel the opposite—you feel naked and exposed and vulnerable—ironically, that's when you end up being the most magnetic.

When you radically trust that whatever the contents of your brain is right now, whatever it's about, has value—I want you to really sit with that, please.

Shift 2: Choice of medium

The second shift is about the choice of marketing medium. Because you know, we get told plenty of times that you need to be everywhere. You gotta be on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, you gotta do newsletters, you gotta do podcasts, you gotta do YouTube. "Oh my God, how do I grow an audience across all these platforms?" You get FOMO.

But what if you stop trying to be everywhere and instead asked: If I radically trusted that doing whatever comes easily to me is the best thing for my business, what would I do? Where would I spend my creative energy?

And let me be very clear: doing what comes easily doesn't mean the same thing as being lazy. I'm not talking about taking the path of least resistance. I'm not talking about avoiding challenges. I'm not talking about avoiding growth. I'm talking about working with your natural communication style rather than against it. Yes, you can lean into challenges. Yes, you can grow, but you can grow with your natural communication style.

So for example, maybe you are somebody who thinks in stories and metaphors, and forcing yourself into bullet-point style tips feels like trying to translate poetry into spreadsheets and it makes you want to tear your hair out.

Or maybe you're the opposite and you're naturally very concise and direct, and poetry gives you a headache. And trying to stretch your thoughts into long-form meandering content feels like a different kind of "tear my hair out" moment, right? You don't wanna tear your hair out. That would be bad.

And maybe you're the kind of person who thinks out loud—you process through speaking and you don't feel necessarily comfortable writing, but you don't mind speaking on video.

When I say do the thing that comes easily to you, that's what I mean. Do the thing that comes easily to you. Pick the medium that comes easily to you and stick with that.

Because what we've been taught is "you gotta meet people where they are. If everybody's watching reels, you gotta do reels." And yes, there is wisdom in meeting people where they are. But the thing is, that message has been twisted into telling people to abandon who you are and abandon where you are.

So stop exhausting yourself trying to master short-form video when you are a writer. Don't force yourself into 15-second viral clips with hooks and blah, blah, blah when your thoughts need space to breathe. And don't try to force yourself to learn new features and new tricks that allow you to stay on top of the algorithm every single week just to stay relevant, just to stay on top of people's feeds on every platform, when that feels nothing like how you naturally share and naturally communicate.

When you do this, something changes. You stop being in the mode of trying to chase people and you start attracting them. You really do. And when you really commit to this long-term, you develop a voice that's so distinctly yours that people can spot your work in a crowd. And people don't just follow you. They seek you out. They recommend you. They defend your work in conversations that you're not even part of.

And that is the kind of magnetism that you can't manufacture by trying to be on top of every trend, every platform, every medium.

Shift 3: Frequency and timing

Now, the third shift is about frequency and timing. And you probably have been there, right? Thinking "oh gosh, I probably need to post today, or people are gonna forget about me. People are gonna forget about my offer. How do I stay top of mind?" And you force something out because "consistency equals magnetism," right?

But what if, instead of asking "how often should I post?" you asked: If I radically trusted the relationship between me, my creativity, and my people, how would I post?

This goes against so many marketing rules. You've probably been taught about consistency and optimizing for the algorithm, but here's what I see again and again about people who try to force themselves to post on a schedule: It disconnects them from their natural creative rhythms.

Honoring your creative seasons

'Cause some seasons you're bursting with ideas and insights. You're processing new experiences, learning fast, making connections. Other seasons, not so much. You're integrating, reflecting, you're going deeper, not wider.

So when you force yourself to produce content on schedule during integration seasons, you end up sharing half-baked thoughts or recycling old ideas just to fill the calendar. And I promise you, your people can feel the difference between content that's really alive in the moment and ripe and ready to be shared versus something that's just been cranked out just to fill up space on schedule.

And I tell you this based on data I've gathered over years observing not just my own business, but the examples of hundreds, if not thousands, of entrepreneurs: being relentlessly top of mind has never been required for meaningful business relationships.

And I'm not saying don't show up. Of course you need to show up. You can't just pop up every once in a while when you feel like it and hide and expect to build strong business relationships. You do need to show up. But that's not the same thing as grinding it out to force yourself to show up according to an artificial schedule, right?

Because the thing is, when you honor your own rhythms, the right people don't forget you. When you've been quiet for a week or even a month, they appreciate when you return with something that clearly came from a real place. They trust that when you show up, you'll have something worth saying.

And you know what else? Honoring your natural creative rhythm, your creative seasons, is actually the only sustainable path. When you trust that your creative energy compounds, it grows over time rather than depletes. And when people are constantly fighting against themselves to try to come up with things to say, that tells me one thing, which is that they're ignoring their natural creative rhythms and seasons.

Shift 4: Strategy and systems

So the fourth and final shift that I wanna share with you is about strategy and systems. Instead of asking "what's the proven way to magnetize people and build a bigger following?" or "what's the launch strategy that's gonna capture the most attention and sales?" I encourage you to ask yourself: If I radically trusted that I am building my own totally unique blueprint—what I'm gonna call a one-in-8-billion blueprint 'cause that's literally how many people are on this planet and there's only one of you, and no one has figured out how to do business in exactly the way that you would do it—and you are creating your own one-in-8-billion blueprint, one step at a time, what would you try next?

And I'm gonna guess that if you're listening to my podcast, you are a creative person. And if you're a creative person, I guarantee you there is no business template, formula, blueprint out there that is going to fit you perfectly. You're gonna have to create your own.

That's both a blessing and—I have to admit, sometimes as a creative person—it feels like a curse sometimes. I get it. But here's the thing: you are forging your own path. Yes, you, as a creative person, you are by nature a pioneer.

But this question isn't asking you to have your entire unique approach figured out in the beginning. That does not exist. It's not real. It just asks: What would you try next? One step, one experiment. You follow one breadcrumb of curiosity at a time. One small thing that you're gonna try that feels true to you, that feels interesting to do right now.

You're not trying to predict your entire future trajectory, please. The surest way to make yourself miserable and feel inadequate is to do that—and ask me how I know. You're just asking "what feels like the next right step for me?"

And I'm not gonna lie to you, this isn't easy, really. I speak from firsthand experience and there are moments when I'd be like "I fucking hate this. Someone please, please, I want the future me to time travel and come back to me and hand me the template," right?

The human brain loves and craves nothing more than certainty and predictability above all else. Every fiber of your being is going to rebel against the "next one small step." And it's gonna say "but I wanna know the whole plan. Where's this leading? Give me some assurance, give me some certainty. What if I'm wasting time on the wrong path?"

But the annoying truth is the blueprint really only does reveal itself in retrospect. And if you look at some of the more interesting accomplishments in your own life, some of the ways you've grown in which you're most proud of yourself, you'll find that this is true.

And you know, I hate to bring up Steve Jobs because God, what a clichéd bro business example of a human being to bring up. But I mean, he did talk about this. He said "you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect the dots looking backward." And whatever you think about the guy, you gotta admit he knew a thing or two about creativity in business, and he is right.

Your unique approach, your signature method, your distinctive way of doing business—none of that could be designed in advance. It only gets discovered through a series of small trust-based experiments.

This is the most pragmatic path

So I gotta tell you, when I talk about this, I sometimes get accused of being too idealistic, right? Or too fluffy, not pragmatic enough for people who actually need to sell things and make money. But I want to tell you: no, this is the most pragmatic path.

This isn't not pragmatic just because it's not the douchey, extractive, manipulative version of marketing that you've been taught elsewhere. This approach works. Not because it's idealistic, but because what's practical is not hating your business. What's practical is looking forward to creating content to share with people. What's practical is having people who are in your world because they're actually invested in your brain and your energy and what you're gonna do next.

What's practical is having people who aren't gonna be gone 'cause you're taking a week off or a month off or a whole season off. What's practical is creating clients who are going to hire you again and again, and refer you to their clients, and are going to champion your work and the causes you care about in the world—not a hundred thousand random followers who you're gonna capture in your funnel, who then you have to constantly convince and reconvince, who need endless fucking nurturing sequences and sales tactics to convert, and who you're always at risk of losing because they never really connected with you in the first place.

You don't need to figure out how to be more magnetic

Look, you don't need to figure out how to be more magnetic. You don't need a better strategy or a clearer message or more consistent branding. You just need to stop hiding who you actually are when you create and share your work.

People who will become your biggest fans and your best clients aren't looking for some perfect version of you, a more polished or consistent version of you. They're looking for someone whose way of looking at the world, whose way of thinking and feeling resonates with theirs. Someone whose perspective helps them see things differently.

That's already happening in your work. You just need to let more of it show.

I hope that was helpful, and thank you so much for listening. This was Liberatory Business and I'll talk to you next time. Bye.