🪦 Content for Content’s Sake (2012–2024)

Cause of Death: Oversaturation. Emptiness. Terminal mediocrity.

There was a time when “just keep posting” was the entire strategy.
Post every day.
Add value.
Become a thought leader.
So I tried it.
I posted.
I listened to the advice.
I watched what everyone else was doing.
And I realized something:

More content wasn’t helping.
More clarity was.

More Posts, But With More Purpose

I’m posting more than ever these days—but not because I’m chasing some content calendar.

I’m posting with intention.
Focus.
Emotion.

And the impact?
It’s not just more engagement. It’s deeper engagement.

Even my son—who skips anything that feels too polished—told me he reads the ones where I say something real.

That’s not branding.
That’s connection.

And then there’s the flip side:
Some people have told me, “You’re posting too much.”
Here’s what I’ve learned—those people? They’re not my audience.

They’re not reading the posts. They’re counting them.
Meanwhile, the actual audience?

They’re coming from outside our subscriber base.
When I look at the stats, it’s clear: the more relevant, timely, and emotionally grounded the post, the more reach it gets beyond the list.

Strangers show up. They engage. They stay.
And the people on my list keep returning, rereading the more provocative posts even if they don’t engage directly.

So, no—I’m not posting “too much.”I’m posting when it matters. And that’s how the right people find it.

Let’s Talk About Ghostwriting—and the Leadership Illusion

Look, ghostwriting has its place. If you’re polishing up rough ideas, shaping something messy into something readable—that’s a craft. Respect.

But let’s be honest: most “thought leadership” isn’t ghost-written, it’s ghost-invented.

An agency or comms team sits down and says, “We need the CEO to sound inspiring this quarter,” and then invents a worldview on their behalf.

Here’s the problem:
If your CEO has nothing to say, no ghostwriter on earth can save you.
You can’t fake conviction. You can’t outsource values. You can’t delegate having a point.

If the person in charge of vision has no vision, narrative, or urgency, then what exactly are you building? Who’s going to believe it?

Leadership principles can’t be written by committee.
They can’t be fabricated by marketing.
They have to start from the person leading.

How I Use ChatGPT—And How You Shouldn’t

Most people treat ChatGPT like a vending machine: punch in a prompt, get a post.

I don’t.

I bring it structure.

Emotion.

Voice.
I tell it what I want to say, how I want to say it, who I’m saying it to, and what I want it to feel like.

It’s not thinking. It’s helping me refine my thinking.
That’s the difference between content that sounds like a copy-paste template—and content that actually lands.

Strategy Isn’t Always Planned

At MAC, we had a vision. But the content rhythm didn’t come from a quarterly plan.
It came from conversation. From showing up. From paying attention.

We didn’t sit down and say, “Let’s build a content series.”
We sat down and said, “What’s broken?”
And the answers showed up again and again.

That became:

• The Delusion Series – the lies we keep telling ourselves.

• The Graveyard Series – the tactics that should’ve died years ago.

• The Heuristics Series – the patterns and mental models that actually help.

• And now, the MAC Stack– the system underneath all of it.

This strategy didn’t come from a whiteboard. It came from iteration, reflection, and saying some unpopular things out loud.

Trust is built through iteration.
Through friction.
Through refinement.
Not through scheduled performance.

Amazon: The Literary Landfill

Let’s talk about where content for content’s sake ends up: Amazon.

Search for “ChatGPT marketing book” or “personal brand strategy.”
You’ll find thousands of self-published ebooks, slapped together in an afternoon.
The same five tips recycled endlessly, wrapped in a Canva cover, labeled “bestseller” because someone ran a $2 promo to game the algorithm.

It’s not content.
It’s landfill.
It adds nothing. It says nothing. And it’s flooding the market with noise that makes it harder for good work to be seen.

This is what happens when we mistake volume for value.

Just Because You Wrote a Book Doesn’t Mean It Matters

Let’s be honest: anyone can write a book now.
I did. You could too.

But writing a book doesn’t make it meaningful.
And publishing one doesn’t mean anyone should care.

You know how it goes—
Round up your friends.
Flood the pre-orders.
Stuff the Amazon reviews before the book’s even launched.
Claim “#1 bestseller” in a niche category no one’s ever heard of.

It’s not just a book anymore. It’s a performance.

But here’s the problem:
The market is so flooded, the shelf life of most business books is shorter than a LinkedIn poll.
And the real issue isn’t just the marketing.
It’s the delivery.

I show this Tricia Wang video in the second or third marketing class I teach every semester.
Because she nails the actual issue:

“The business question was ‘How do we get people to buy more books?’
But the human question was—how are people learning? Where are they getting their information?”

That’s the disconnect.
Most authors are thinking about sales funnels, not relevance.
They’re thinking about promotion, not how people absorb ideas.

So you get polished, ghostwritten narratives that sound smart but don’t stick.
You get “thought leadership” books that aren’t based on thought—or leadership.

You want your book to matter?
Stop asking how to launch it.
Start asking how your audience actually receives information. What they need to hear. And how they need to hear it.

Just because you made something doesn’t mean it rises to the top.
Cream doesn’t automatically rise in a system designed to reward noise.

Ten years ago, a great idea had room to move.
It could earn attention. It could travel.

Now?
Even the best ideas can drown under a pile of AI-rinsed fluff, ghostwritten op-eds, and business books stitched together over a long weekend.

So no—the work doesn’t speak for itself anymore.
You have to speak clearly. Repeatedly. With conviction.
And what you say has to actually matter to someone other than yourself.

And if it doesn’t?
No pre-order campaign, no Amazon category trick, no influencer blurb will save it.

Because the truth is:
If no one needs your book, no one’s reading it.

What Content Needs Now

Let’s not overcomplicate it.
Content that works is:

• Story-driven – because people remember stories.

• Emotional – because people act when they feel something.

• Specific – because generic is forgettable.

• Intentional – because no one needs “more posts.”

If your content doesn’t hit at least some of these?
You’re not building trust. You’re just burning oxygen.

Where I Am Now

I’ve stopped treating content like a deliverable.
It’s not about “staying visible.” It’s about showing up with something that means something.

Now, I ask myself:

• Is this real?

• Is this useful?

• Would I care about this if I saw it in my feed?

If the answer’s no, I don’t post.
If it’s yes—I hit publish and let it speak for itself.

And I’ve seen the shift. Not in reach, but in recognition.
Not in clicks, but in connection.

We didn’t build this content strategy with deadlines.
We built it through dialogue.

We didn’t say, “How do we get more engagement?”
We asked, “What’s worth saying?”

We didn’t try to sound smart.
We tried to sound human.

🪦 This is part of the Graveyard Series in the MAC Stack.
We don’t post to fill space. We post to clear it.

And if your content still tries to “sound good” without saying anything?
There’s a headstone waiting for it.

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