Stories From the Next World: Swimming Against the Tide
February 15, 2010
I must be doing it all wrong. Everyone else is doing it one way and I am doing it the total opposite. I must be a total failure. That’s what I told myself for many years in the area of marketing my business.
Recently I had a conversation with a colleague who is great at marketing, in fact he has a background in corporate sales. He and I have similar training in NLP and Hypnosis and some years ago he went out on his own and created his own business. He’s doing fine but he’s not really thriving. His struggle is to get repeated clients.
But if you ask me (and no one did!), that’s not the real issue. The real issue is that in all he’s doing he is missing a certain level of fulfillment. We all get into the ‘people business’ because we want to help people. Then we are given the dreaded mandate that we need to market ourselves. Eeek! Every creative caring person hates this part.
We didn’t get into business to be in business, we just happened to pick something which required it.
The irony is that even though he is the one with the marketing background and knows all the right ways to do things, I am in fact the one that is thriving. Better than that though is that I am very fulfilled in what I do. The money that keeps me afloat is wonderful but more vital than that is the happiness that I have.
I have nearly total fulfillment in my work. That is the biggest value that my business provides me. I love my clients, love what I do and am working with amazing people from all over the world. How the hell did that happen? Me who didn’t have a clue about marketing myself and never wanted to do it either.
I have been swimming against the tide.
When the experts told me to:
- Have a clear marketing and business plan - I couldn’t.
- Create an exact target market of who I am selling my services to - Uh no, couldn’t do that either. Isn’t it the whole world?
- Get out and network myself with schmaltzy print materials and business cards – Nope, hated that. I went to Starbucks instead.
- Create a one line description of what I do that would totally grab people’s attention in under 10 seconds – Call me old-fashioned but I stuck with regular old human conversation.
- Package my work in a formulaic way that I could sell to businesses – I’d rather have Chinese water torture than do this.
- yada
- yada
- yada
- yada
- yada
Anyway you get the idea. I did it all wrong. I did absolutely everything backwards from what the experts said I should do and much to my surprise - it worked!
Who are these experts anyway? Hmm, good question! Well they are might be people who have tried to find a kind of generic formula so that everyone can win the game. Not a bad idea by any means, many people do succeed this way.
But are they happy? The big question is – can we make money and have personal fulfillment too? The answer is – we must. This is just one of the values of the future - a “we can have it all” paradigm.
In the series that I am writing called, Stories From the Next World, I will be talking about the values of the next world – those values, traits and characteristics of greatness and bravery, that if we embody them now, we will be ahead of our time.
So trait number one is this – swim, swim, swim against the tide little fishes. If the experts tell you to X, Y, Z but you feel in your gut to Q, S and LL then you must. You need to have the courage to swim against the current of the world that says that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things.
Swimming upstream is definitely hazardous. You have to be able to tolerate feeling alone, thinking you’re a failure, have people point out what you’re certainly doing wrong and feeling utterly confused.
But for me I just did it from instinct because I could never tolerate having business ‘success’ at the expense of my personal freedom or fulfillment. No go Joe! At the end of the day, I want to be happy AND peaceful.
The world of the future will not be a world of either or – either I am rich or I am happy. The value of the next world is that it has to be both!
Stay tuned for more in the series of Stories From the Next World and please tune in to my weekly Radio 42 Show where I’ll be sharing more of these stories and secrets of the Universe as well. You wouldn’t want to miss those!
Yours in swimming against the tide that was going in the wrong direction anyway,
Annie
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5 Responses to “Stories From the Next World: Swimming Against the Tide”
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Annie,
I love when people buck the system and it seems that we both do that.
keep doing it wrong girl!
great blog.
elizabeth
Hi Annie,
I’ve spent much of my life swimming against the tide. Like you, I simply must be true to myself first and foremost! When I became a coach, I was told to find a niche. I wanted to address money and life purpose. I was told: “No, pick one or the other”. I said ” they go together”. Many people argued with me or just shook their heads. Intuitively it made sense to me although I couldn’t articulate why it was RIGHT (for me, anyway). Now, I KNOW it was right AND I can articulate why. I found the way to express this while using marketing wisdom. So far, so good.
Namaste,
Kamila
Hi Annie
Like you and Kamila, I have made swimming against the tide my life’s work. Still here! Still swimming!
Love the blog
Filao
The bad thing about planning is that it sets us up for disappointment, it gives us a false sense of “being in control” and it excludes the person/experience that’s just around the corner.
The good thing about planning is that it helps us focus on what’s important to us, and prepares us to make choices and interact with what emerges from a more grounded place.
Many of us are getting tired of taking corporate processes (strategic plannng, branding) and applying them to ourselves..You, Inc. style.
I just blogged about the downside of personal branding http://www.jillmalleck.wordpress.com
Thanks Annie. When you’re swimming upstream you’ll bump into me and I’ll say “hi there, isn’t it grand!”
Hi Annie,
As I’m in the middle of starting up my own business, your words sound calming and encouraging to me. Thanks you.
Hannes