Your content diet is making your ideas boring.
Your brain is running on the wrong fuel, and it's starving your Unorthodox Engine.
The US government just released a food pyramid to fix a physical health crisis. I’m releasing one to fix an intellectual one. Most strategists and marketers are living on a diet of 90% Intellectual Junk Food. They’re intellectually obese and bloated on the same "best practices" and "industry hacks" as all their competitors.
If you eat the same meal as the rest of the market, don't be surprised when you have the same ideas.
Breakthroughs don't happen in your own backyard.
To create unique, "Category of One" content, your diet has to change. My content diet is inverted. I find "gold" by looking where others don't...in History, Science, Philosophy, Psychology, Unrelated Industries, and the Arts.
That’s the high-octane fuel for the engine. I leave the "Industry Noise" for the tiny 15% tip at the bottom.
The Unorthodox Engine Content Consumption Pyramid:
Cross-Wiring (50%): Out-of-category concepts. Philosophy, Art, Architecture, Military Strategy. This is how you find "Causation" while everyone else is chasing "Correlation."
Deep Human Narrative (35%): Biographies and Behavioral Psychology. This is where you learn to identify the "Unspoken Want" of your audience.
Industry Noise (15%): Industry news and competitor blogs. Use this for context, never for inspiration.
Stop digging deeper in your own silo.
The Insight: Understanding how a Magician directs attention in a card trick will teach you more about your "go-to-market" product campaign than any marketing PDF ever could.
Flip your pyramid. Upgrade your engine.