Last Week A Reader Emailed Me
She wrote, “I’d love to be able to write blog posts or newsletters like you, and I don’t like doing it. I doesn’t come naturally and I feel like I’d have to force myself.”
And I wrote back,
“I hear four concepts in your thoughts:
- I’d love to be able to write blog posts or newsletters like Todd.
- I don’t like doing it.
- It doesn’t come naturally.
- I’d have to force myself.”
And I added, “I’d be curious to hear what you find if you work these thoughts.”
Here’s What She Found
She wrote back saying, “I found that, with the thought, I’m only seeing you and Grace Bell [another facilitator who writes a newsletter], and I’m trying to squeeze myself into that mold of being a Certified Facilitator. I feel like a failure. I’m not seeing other Certified Facilitators I know that do things differently.
“Without the thought I’d be focusing on the clients I want to get back to by email. I’d be focusing on my own plans of what I want and what I like for moving The Work. I’d be in my business. Appreciating myself and what I offer, no comparison.”
Then she turned it around: “I wouldn’t love to write newsletters like you.”
Her examples:
- “It feels fake to me, something I’d have to ‘come up with’
- “I don’t love writing that much and talking about The Work on Facebook. I like doing it.
- “I’d make my newsletter look different, I see myself using different colors and layout. It wouldn’t be like yours.
- “I don’t love the idea of ‘writing a newsletter.’ I love the idea of answering a question I received and sharing the answer publicly. An example is my mom asking me: why do we need turnarounds? Another example is sharing about inquiry I did with my girlfriend and how the turnarounds stuck with me for days: I’m being a sh** parent to myself and I’m being a sh** parent to their kid.”
I Love This Perspective
And it makes me think of another angle to question: “I need to write a newsletter, is that true?” What are my motives for writing a newsletter?
If I answer that question myself, I come up with one main motive: I need to write a newsletter because that’s what keeps my business going.
But Is That Really True?
That’s my story. One I inherited from some marketing person a long time ago. One I believed. And one that is true to a large degree.
But is it absolutely true? No.
I have about 600 subscribers to my newsletter but only about 30 regular clients. I could probably stop the newsletter tomorrow and it would not affect my bottom line. I probably gain more clients by word of mouth than through my newsletter anyway.
Even if I wanted more clients, it might be more effective to simply do more public presentations, or get on the phone. Who says a newsletter is necessary at all?
Which leaves me with my simple truth: I like to write. I like this way of sharing. So writing my newsletter is what I do for me. It’s my way to serve. But it’s nice to know that I don’t HAVE to do it.
Have a great weekend,
Todd
“The thought ‘I have to go to work’ makes your life a war zone. Whereas if you just wake up knowing to go to work, you just go, you go in peace, and work is a pleasure. But when you argue with reality, the beliefs pile up, and the office becomes a sweatshop.” — Byron Katie, Question Your Thinking, Change The World
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