🔦2025’s perils of avoiding the spotlight

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Wednesday again. Hope you’re up for it. Me? I’m rested and ready.

Today’s Feature Story gets into a recent blog post from prolific author Steven Pressfield. He’s warning artists of every kind about the coming starvation if they refuse to promote themselves. This obviously applies to marketers and business owners too. 

After I break down Mr. Pressfield’s thoughts, chomp down on the following sections: 

• The Knowledge Base  

• Self Help (big catch)

• Facts & Stats (OG personal branding)

• Get Hacking (who’s behind the scenes)

Ok, let’s peel the cap back on today’s Feature Story…

Choosing the Right Voice AI for Contact Centers

Explore how forward-thinking contact centers are navigating the trade-offs between small and large language models to optimize for latency, cost, and performance.

This guide breaks down what truly matters—from infrastructure efficiency to conversational quality—and reveals how you can deploy voice AI in weeks, not months, all while achieving sub-100ms response times for faster, more human-like customer interactions.

Get the Insights

Feature Story

Promote Yourself or Be Invisible

Love me some Steven Pressfield. And I think I shared his recent article with y’all last week - Artist = Entrepreneur.

Short story even shorter. Mr. Pressfield is advising anyone who creates any kind of art to sprint toward the spotlight. 

Avoiding the spotlight in 2025 is a death sentence, he says.

What he calls “awareness generation” has been flipped on its head. 

His example is writing a groundbreaking novel but hearing crickets because the New York Times has no interest in promoting your work unless:

• You have a huge podcast

• Have mastered social media

• Are a cherished guest on other big-name podcast shows

• Look better on camera than Ryan Reynolds or Scarlett Johansson

No pressure, right?

Again. This applies to business owners and marketers as much as artists.

I will say, though, I don’t agree with Mr. Pressfield that this is a new phenomenon. 

Shark Tank’s #1 Question

“What kind of sales are you getting already?”

That’s what the Sharks would always ask the entrepreneurs on the show seeking investment money.

At least, that was the main question back when I watched years ago.

See, if the entrepreneur could not generate any sales on their own, the Sharks assumed their product or service was not that great. 

Or that they lacked the sales skills to sell even a desirable widget.

And handing entrepreneurs a check for $300,000 wouldn’t fix that problem.

Being the best or inventing the best thing is not enough. As I’ve always said…

Being the Most Skilled Accountant or Plumber Does Not Matter

If you have mad skills, you have to make the masses aware of those skills. If you don’t, you can’t max out your revenue from those skills.

Yes, you can make money. But inferior competitors will outearn you if they’re unafraid to toot their own horn.

Sad. True.

There are no guarantees, though.

What Artists Think About Pressfield’s Advice

The commenters on the Artist = Entrepreneur article were interesting. 

🔥Some people were motivated by Pressfield’s advice / warning.

⏳Others felt there wasn’t enough time in the day to create cool stuff and then promote it. Or promote themselves separately from their art, widget, or widget service.

😤A few were mad at the “industry” for expecting artists / creators to do the audience building.

🫤The most interesting comments were from two people who’d tried to be their own hype-man and hype-woman. Neither got a major payoff from the efforts.

I’d say the last one above’s the biggest concern for folks. Trying like hell to get attention. But coming up short. Feeling like all you did by reaching for the spotlight was create free content for Meta, LinkedIn, and TikTok.

No Guarantees

That’s the reality for artists and entrepreneurs. 

There are no guarantees your audience building efforts will pay off. Matter of fact, you’re almost guaranteed to fail to achieve the kinda success Pressfield notes in the blog post… Ryan Holiday and Jack Carr. 

No reason not to use top-tier examples like those two authors. However, it does blur the reality. 

Not everyone is going to grab the level of spotlight Holiday has. I don’t care about privilege or other whiny stuff outside an individual’s control. I’m saying it’s statistically impossible for even 3% of creators to build a huge audience like Holiday has.

What is possible, though?

Anyone can write a book every couple years like Holiday has. One page a day for 300 days equals a book.

Anyone can hire a $10/hour virtual assistant to post their articles, videos, or podcasts across the web. Or a U.S. assistant for $20 an hour. 

Anyone can tell one more person every day about their art, their project, their new widget. That’s 365 people a year. A small spotlight, maybe. But I’d imagine the compounding effect would take over after year two?

Again. No guarantees.

Thing is, you can’t know how much awareness you can generate for yourself unless you try. 

That means experimenting consistently. 

See what gets attention. See what makes people wanna listen to your audio content or show up to hear you speak. 

As I close out this Feature Story, one warning. It’ll be exhausting trying to be something you’re not. 

Mimicking superstars of the web isn’t likely to work. Guidance from them is fine (Holiday uses ancient books as his guide). But being yourself is so much easier. And sustainable. 

Just remember, don’t aim for superstardom. Aim for grabbing enough spotlight to reach the level of financial security that leads to the life you want. A good life is the #1 goal. Not fame or money or power. Just my dumb opinion. 

Now, we can slide into The Knowledge Base below…

Self-Help

Walked a lake trail a few weeks back. Got to see a dude reel in a huge catfish.

Was he in a fancy fishing boat? Nah. Just chillin’ on a little dock in a folding chair. 

Instead of chasing fish all over the lake, up and down the banks in a boat, he sat and waited for the fish to come to him.

Less effort. More enjoyable, even if he hadn’t caught anything. 

Two lessons:

1. Let the good stuff come to you. Often the best “tactic.”

2. You don’t need expensive toys (boats) to have fun.

Facts & Stats

Bonus: What type of videos do the majority of video marketers prefer to produce? Answer at end of email.

Get Hacking

A specific strategy to implement today

Y’all Inbox Hackers know I don’t care for all the mimicking going on these days.

That said, if you’re determined to try and replicate someone’s or some brand’s success, then consider this…

You may be mimicking the wrong person. 

Have you considered the real brains of the operation is the “person behind the person?”

Maybe it’s a hired gun growth hacker you don’t even see. Or a mentor who’s making the difference for the successful leader, influencer, or individual you admire so much. 

Something to think about if you believe there’s a “template” for success. 

An example is Scottie Pippen. There’s no bigger MJ fan than me. But if there’s no Pippen, Jordan falls well short of six NBA rings. Pippen never got the spotlight Jordan got, naturally.

I’ve got five more behind-the-scenes success stories here (90-second read).

Thanks for reading Inbox Hacking. Please share it with your peeps - it’s sugar-free but stings a bit.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin

Bonus answer from Facts & Stats section: Explainer videos are the most preferred video type, favored by 73% of video marketers (Social Sprout).

“Focus on producing a performance of consequence.” ~Tom Peters