Having a hard time staying focused on your business content marketing? Focus-schmocus. Sometimes you start off doing one thing and end up an expert at something else. Life is like that.

I look at content marketing as an experiment or adventure. Some things work well and you do more of them. Others, well, let’s hope you haven’t wasted money as well as time.

Steve Allen was a famous comedian who started The Tonight Show, in 1954, long before Johnny Carson became the host (and later Jay Leno). Allen started off in radio but got his first TV job as an announcer for wrestling matches. Here’s what Wikipedia reports:

Allen’s first television experience had come in 1949 when he answered an ad for a TV announcer for professional wrestling. He knew nothing about wrestling, so he watched some shows and discovered that the announcers did not have well-defined names for the holds. When he got the job, he created names for many of the holds, some of which are still used today.

The point I’d like to make is that if Allen hadn’t taken that first job offer, he might not have had the same career path and ended up one of the most respected and admired comedians of all time. He could have just as easily become a jazz pianist in an orchestra.

Instead, he eventually created a new genre of entertainment, the late night comedy-talk show. And he was a pioneer in TV wrestling entertainment. And he still had time to publish over 10,000 songs and win a Grammy for The Gravy Waltz (1963).

Allen wasn’t following any guidelines for his career.  He went with what interested him. When people try to follow too many rules and guidelines, for example, for content marketing and social media, they end up with mediocre results. Why end up where everyone else is?

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