Deciding what was valuable enough to teach...

This is the second in a series of posts about transitioning from a newsletter writer to an educational creator.

Yesterday, I wrote about feeling like an imposter

I’d become convinced that writing solely as a newsletter writer—especially under Substack’s limited monetization model—wouldn’t meet my revenue goals.

I wanted a more robust creation cycle and portfolio.

An educational creator writes and rounds out his services to meet readers, customers, and clients where they are.

Yet, I still remained uncertain about what specific knowledge I possessed that would be valuable enough to teach others.

What was an authority topic (AT) others would be willing to pay me to teach?

I inventoried my everyday skills

What everyday skills did I take for granted that others might be interested in?

I listed my unconscious competencies (stuff I did without thinking), such as:

• Sitting zazen (silent Zen meditation)
• Walking Kona, the WonderDoodle
• Brushing my teeth (oh yeah, that’s a bestseller waiting the happen 🙄)
• Reading about my ATs
  • Writing and selling mini-books
  • Writing and selling mini-courses

Aha! I’d happened on the ATs that I knew others were interested in and I was excited about.

These two topics made the shortlist.

I examined the intersection of my ATs

Authority topics often overlap and their boundaries become fuzzy, and that’s OK.

When combined, the two sub-topics a over (mini-books and mini-courses) opened a new category of possibility; they could both be included under the umbrella of an educational creator.

Finally, I investigated problems I’d already solved

Problems I’d personally solved seemed perfect candidates for courses others would value.

• Bullet Journal (and later, my own system - Zen Journal)
  • A number of years ago, I was a user of the Bullet Journal system. I was active in Bullet Journal creator Ryder Carroll’s forum of users and rapidly became an authority. I created modifications (mods) that expanded the system’s function and effectiveness. After a while, I packaged what I knew into a series of Special Reports and sold over $5,000 worth to others using the system. [After Carroll threatened to sue me (I still can't understand why when all I did was increase his brand awareness and boosted his sales), I stopped selling the reports.]
• Zen - See ZEN-ish on Substack​
  • I underwent meditation teacher training with Lodro Rinzler and Adreanna Limbach, a husband and wife team that writes The Laundry on Substack.
• I'd written and publish a mini-book, The Practical Buddhist: Buddhism Without the Robes & Ritual, and numerous mini-courses.
  • These I knew were easy to leverage when structure correctly.

In hindsight, the answers were always within

I just needed to delve into my history and uncover them.

The topics that ultimately proved most beneficial to students, customers, clients, and clients were a combination of digital products (Ebooks, mini-books, reports), coaching (meditation and online business topics), and Done-For-You /Done-With-You services.

Following these three straightforward guidelines, I created a path that involved several newsletters, websites, and services.

...

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the difficulty I experienced structuring my expertise into teachable lessons and the system I devised to overcome it.

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