On Trusting Big Creators & The Algorithm Over Yourself

You're free to do anything. So what are you doing?

All solopreneurs set out for freedom.

Not just from bosses and back-to-back meetings, but from constraint itself. You want to create on your own terms, to build something real without waiting for permission.

But even when no one is telling you what to do, you still find yourself asking…

What do clients want from me?
What should I create to impress my audience?
Is this post good enough?
Do people even want this?

Technically, you’re free… but you’re still waiting for permission.

I’ve been in this 11 years, and I still had an eye-opening experience recently. During a meeting, I kept asking a client what they preferred, and they kept asking me what I think they should do.

Maybe you’ve heard this advice a thousand times: trust yourself; do what feels right to you.

But most of you don’t. We don’t do it because we never learned to trust our own signals.

Agency isn’t just about choosing what time you work, or where.

It’s about being the origin of your own ideas, without waiting for an audience, client, or algorithm to say “yes.”

The system wasn’t built for this. You were always expected to please your parents, please the teacher, please the boss, please the client. We got good at guessing what others want and doing it.

Julian Rotter coined the term “locus of control” in 1954—and most people (so most solopreneurs, too) have external locus of control.

External locus of control is the belief that the outcomes in your life are largely determined by forces outside your control — such as luck, other people, platforms, algorithms, or trends.

In contrast, an internal locus of control means you believe your own actions, choices, and effort shape your outcomes.

Locus of control is primarily shaped by your past experiences with reinforcement — especially how predictable and controllable those reinforcements seemed.

The quiet addiction to outside approval.

Here’s why most people develop a high external locus of control:

1. Unpredictable or inconsistent reinforcement
   If rewards or punishments in childhood (or life) seem random — working hard doesn’t always lead to praise — you learn that outcomes are beyond your control. It’s why writers started leaving Medium.

2. Authoritarian environments
   In families, schools, or workplaces where rules are rigid and conformity is rewarded (so most families, schools and workplaces), you learn to comply rather than trust your judgment.

3. Learned helplessness
   Repeated failure or powerlessness in the face of a challenge can lead you to believe that effort is pointless.

Why you need to shift your locus of control.

In solopreneurship, there are a few specific ways external locus of control shows up, such as:

• Waiting for a client to say what they want instead of using your expertise to lead them.

• Letting the algorithm tell you which post is “good” instead of asking if it felt true to you.

• Designing offers based on competitor research but not your own beliefs about transformation.

We want to have a powerful, unique competitive advantage; we want to be thought leaders; yet we follow what’s “proven to work”, which will keep us in the “thought followers” category forever.

But then there’s the marketing argument. Why not follow what’s “proven to work”?

Can we really shift our locus of control, be ourselves, and still make great money?

The invisible reason solopreneurs are all about taking action (and why it’s BS).

One of the scientific ways to shift locus of control is to create small cause-effect loops.

Solopreneurs are intuitively drawn to small experiments that give them feedback. They publish and stare at dashboards. They launch offers and keep refreshing their Stripe accounts.

Each positive response strengthens your belief in yourself—but most new solopreneurs don’t get positive responses.

Your first few client pitches will be NOs or crickets. Your first few posts will be read by 3 people (if that). Your first product will probably sell to one person who’ll ask for a refund (ouch!)

That’s when things start to break. Instead of figuring out why this happened (which often has to do with lack of specific skills), we make an instant conclusion: My audience doesn’t want that. So let’s see what they do want.

So we buy courses and end up creating what big creators create.

And another one bites the dust.

How to “be yourself.”

You’ve been sold the idea that being yourself online is a business strategy.

But if your version of ‘yourself’ is constantly reshaped by metrics and mirrors, is it really you?

What if you stopped asking, “Will people buy this?” and started asking, “Do I believe in this enough to help them buy it?”

Do you believe in it enough to find the right angle, the right marketing approach, the right mini-audience that will give you leverage and credibility for reaching more people?

What if the job wasn’t to find “what works” but to build the muscle of self-trust and the skill of marketing so your work becomes inevitable?

Try this.

“If you don’t program yourself, life will program you.” — Les Brown

If you want to feel free, start by reclaiming authorship.

That means saying things no one asked you to say, building things no one gave you permission to build, and pursuing change even when no one’s buying yet.

Ask yourself:

1. Where in my business do I feel most powerless and what belief is keeping me there?

2. What decision am I postponing until I get a sign, approval, or validation?

3. If I trusted myself fully, what would I stop doing immediately, even if it’s working?

4. Where do I confuse being “strategic” with just being scared?

5. What advice do I keep following that doesn’t really feel right and why am I still following it?

Pick one. Act on it. No applause needed.

That’s how solopreneurs shape the future.

Till next time,

Maya

PS. Excited about the Smarter Solopreneur Strategy program? It’s launching on 8th of July and it won’t just teach you how to play one song: it’ll give you the notes, scales and chords of solopreneurship so you can play anything and even improvise.