Welcome to the Creativity Business, a newsletter about earning attention and differentiating yourself as a marketer or content creator. If you’re not a subscriber, sign up and get content & differentiation strategy delivered to your inbox, for free.
The ol’ Creativity Business newsletter has been quiet for the last few months. That’s because I’ve been really busy on my other newsletter with a new project called The Midlife Field Guide.
Like a lot of Gen Xers, my friend Geoff Siskind and I found ourselves asking the same big midlife questions: What’s next? What matters? Is this all there is?
So we decided to run some experiments—on ourselves. The Midlife Field Guide is a year-long series of real-life tests to see if we can shake up our lives, challenge assumptions, and build a better second half.
So far, it’s been an absolute blast, and the reaction has been amazing. I’ve been documenting:
🍺 6-months alcohol-free (and counting)
🧔🏽♂️ Growing my first beard (More interesting that it sounds, I swear! 🤪)
🏃🏻♂️ Training for my first ever running race (post dropping this weekend)
🎤 Taking a standup comedy course with my daughter. (Vancouverites: come see me bomb gloriously! October 15th standup showcase!)
Geoff and his wife, Suzanne, are mounting an original, one-night-only production of Fiddler on the Roof for their 25th anniversary, and also did a weekend of ketamine couples therapy.
There is a lot more to come.
There is one experiment that is more appropriate to write about here—the attention strategy for The Midlife Field Guide. It’s putting everything I’ve written in The Creativity Business and Earn It to the test.
This spring, I went on a bit of a tirade writing about video strategy for podcasters. The gist of my thinking is that if you put the audience first, you should define yourself by your unique area of expertise and you should not define yourself by a single platform, like podcasting.
That means you shouldn’t treat other platforms like promotional billboards marketing your primary platform. (i.e. “Please leave this screen-based short-form social media platform and go listen to my podcast ASAP.”)
The Midlife Field Guide is an opportunity to practice what I’ve been preaching.
Yes, we’re publishing on Substack. But we’re not only publishing on Substack. This project is intentionally multi-platform by design—not to promote a podcast or newsletter, but to meet midlifers where they are, in the formats they prefer.
We’re treating every platform as a standalone experience. Social posts won’t be billboards for longform. Videos won’t just tease the newsletter. The podcast (coming soon) will be an immersive audio-first experience.
It’s a practical case study in how to earn attention with aligned strategy—not just volume.
With this attention strategy comes a unique business strategy.
This probably will not come as a shock from the person who wrote a book about earning attention instead of buying it—Geoff and I don’t want to have ads in the revenue model for the Midlife Field Guide.
That means we’re not going to “flood the zone” with enormous amounts of mediocre content… because we don’t need to generate a huge amount of inventory to maximize ad revenue. Instead, we are aiming to create a deeply valued space where audiences eagerly anticipate each interaction because the quality and relevance are consistently high.
It’s not about building scale. It’s about building relationships.
And, even though it might not be the easiest or most lucrative option, we’re aiming for high-integrity sponsorships: companies and services that align with our mission and can meaningfully support the experiments themselves. We are going to see if we can make sponsorship of the content across the ecosystem the primary revenue stream.
We have a very specific audience—midlife Gen Xers.
We have a very specific content focus—public midlife experiments.
We have many very specific content lanes that align well with sponsorship opportunities, including:
Happiness
Meaning, purpose, and identity
Physical health
Nutrition
Sleep
Mental health
Community and healthy social lives
Relationships, family, and parenting
Financial planning and management
Retirement strategy
Our hope is to integrate sponsors and partners into the content organically, collaborating with them to facilitate or help with experiments. I’ve already had early success with Emmy Laybourne and her Phone Fight Course. She let me take the course and write freely about my experience, and the results have been very positive.
With our focus on building relationships and community, we are also going to stay open to ways that we can make for an extra-special experience for those who are interested. Depending on the level of interest, Geoff and I are keen to find ways to make it easier for others to do their own midlife experiments, to share midlife experiences with others, and maybe even gather IRL for meet-ups or events.
Curious? Intrigued?
Come see what we’re building at The Midlife Field Guide. Join the community. You might even get inspired to try an experiment on yourself!
New to Substack, Life Is Short is a bi-weekly newsletter full of insights about life from a very unique source - a children’s hospice in Vancouver called Canuck Place. The premise is that life is short for all of us, and the lessons learned from working in a children’s hospice are numerous, powerful, and universal.
Rachel Karten from Link in Bio recently detailed how brands like Saie and The Real Real have been growing on Substack. Nike and NASCAR have started Substack publications, too. Canuck Place’s entry into this space feels equally brave and forward-thinking. You can check it out and subscribe for free here.
Neen is an expert in working with luxury brands to create exceptional experiences, and the strategies she uses can be applied to any business by adopting a “luxury mindset.” Neen’s thinking aligns with so many of the values I embrace, and I love the way she helps readers learn to generate “champagne moments” that customers will never forget. (I hope to employ some of Neen’s thinking in making the Midlife Field Guide an exceptional experience!)
I’ve only recently gotten to know Peter, but I’m so impressed with everything he is doing in the midlife space. His new book is a wonderful exploration of seven different mindset shifts that will lead to a happier and inspired midlife.
If you’re in Vancouver, Peter is also hosting a live event on November 5th called the Shift Sessions, with a terrific array of speakers sharing stories of their midlife shifts. I’m honoured to be part of it, and I’ll be talking about the shift to a Brave mindset. It’s going to be a memorable night! Tickets are available here.
I had a really fun podcast chat with Geoff Welch, who has the best opening question: “What makes you weird?” We spent a lot of time on that question. 🤪 I got to talk about what makes me weird, but also the strategy of championing what makes you weird as a major differentiator, whether you’re an individual or an organization. Thanks for a great conversation, Geoff! You can listen to the episode here.
Thanks to my old friend, Christopher Nelson, for having me on his Straight Story podcast to talk about the power of storytelling, especially as it relates to organizations. Chris is a terrific storyteller, and it was a treat to talk shop with him.
Thanks for reading. It’s nice to be back in touch with all of you!
Steve
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