It was Archimedes who said, “Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand, and I alone can move the world.” And Sir Isaac Newton famously said: “If I have seen more, it is being on the shoulders of giants.”

Used primarily in finance to express the relationship between debt and equity, the principle of leverage can be exploited in all spheres of life. Using plain language, I describe leverage as a small adjustment that you can exploit or a simple action that you can take wherever you are in your artistic endeavor to maximize your impact and result.

For example, let’s say you are a musician, author, or craftsman, you can produce a one-minute video and upload it to YouTube, Vimeo, or Invideo, and if properly optimized, your video could go viral. With that little adjustment to your strategy or that simple action, you could attract thousands, if not millions, of viewers in one go. BAAM! You have moved from a virtual stranger to a celebrity.

So this is the question I want to ask you: When was the last time you promoted yourself and your work? The saddest mistake made by experts, authors, trainers, consultants, professionals and indies (independent producers) of all shades is working in the dark or in total darkness in the hope that, by dint of their hard work, they will are somehow known. Or put another way, that what they produce, be it songs, paintings, books, crafts and the like, will somehow make people discover or find them by magic.

Let me tell you bluntly, as a producer, your chances of being discovered that way in today’s noisy, clutter-filled world are one in a million. Gone are the days when people would make their way to your door if you made a better mousetrap. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of other manufacturers making mousetraps that could outshine yours, so their product alone is not enough. In a globalized and Internet-enabled world, that is the reality. You must tell the world your story or you will remain in the dark.

So as an artist, songwriter, author, speaker, trainer, consultant, craftsman, or indie of any tune, you need to promote your good works for a little chance to be heard or discovered. Personal promotion is your simplest lever. Large companies with a lot of money can afford ads, but you will most likely be operating on a small budget.

So, to beat the odds, start promoting yourself. If you have written a book, tell people that you pride yourself on being a published author. If your book has made the New York Times bestseller list, jump on the roof and tell the world. If you are in the process of writing your first book, tell the world that your book will be out in six, nine months, or whatever time frame you are considering. If your team has designed an app, tell people that you were part of the team that designed that cool app or software that’s causing a sensation in the Apps or Play Store. Put your horn on, as the Chinese say. Sounding the horn is a powerful lever that creative artists of all genres in need of cash can use to find themselves in a world awash in noise.

The title of one of Tom Peters’ books is “You Can’t Shrink to Greatness.” Seth Godin’s advice to independent producers is: “Don’t wait to be picked up, get up yourself.” Seth Godin also cautions that all producers who wish to be taken seriously must live to be “a purple cow.” By that, he means that you should stand out. In a sea of ​​resemblance, only “a purple cow” stands out. You cannot afford to be average because you are competing with everyone where “average” is relegated to the pile of dust.

Spread the word; don’t smile in the dark. Promote yourself like your life depends on it because it does. Link to the amazing things you are doing or have done, and share the links to all your contacts on the 100+ social media platforms out there, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Reddit, WeChat, Telegram. , and many others. Let everyone know that you are a proud author of your book, or the writer of that song, or the artwork displayed in a particular gallery.

One of the easiest or easiest ways to maximize your leverage, as I mentioned earlier, is to write a book. Nothing else compares. Your book can get to The White House, Buckingham Palace, and the Kremlin, which you normally can’t get to until you become a celebrity. So don’t rest on your laurels until you’ve written a book or two. You can even write articles and upload them to online article aggregators like Ezine Articles and then compile all of your repurposed articles into one book.

If you hate writing and you think that writing a book is out of your reach, there is nothing to worry about. There are ways to post without lifting a finger using a ghostwriter. You can even get help from world-renowned text writers like Katie Parrot and / or Sonia Thompson if you know how to reach them. Just prepare your book outline and voila. As the saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Promise yourself that you won’t rest until your book is published, this year. According to popular authors who have written at least four best-selling books each, including Ryan Holiday and Chandler Bolt, you can write a book worth reading in 90 days. Tried it and it works, once you know how to use tools like mind maps.

If you want to promote yourself with video (it’s the most popular form of self-promotion), don’t try to overdo it by shooting to create high-definition videos. It is not necessary, at least in the beginning. You can use your smartphone to produce a simple video.

If that’s too difficult, you can get a graphic designer to design awesome covers for your book, e-book, or song cover, and upload them to free video-making sites like Animoto, Issuu, or Invideo, and before you know it, you already have a video that people can link to. You can even upload your video to your one page website. You can get a web designer on Fiverr to design an attractive site for you for pennies. Or you can design your website yourself on Weebly if it’s the tech type. In short, exploit the principle of leverage, particularly self-promotion, to catapult yourself to the next level until you hit the proverbial tipping point and the world will open the way for you.