Today's Treat
Today's blog:
Are You Like me?
When we lived in Hawaii a doctor asked me if I knew about
the Big Island.
“In what regard?” I asked.
“If your husband needs more care you will have to go to
Honolulu,” he said.
Commute from the Big Island to Honolulu?”
I don’t think so.
I couldn’t get off the Island fast enough.
So with the question, “Are you like me?” you might also ask,
“In what regard?”
Well, your attitude
toward marketing for one.
It has caught me a couple of times.
I got a free download from a blogger I respect.
It was a great download, good information, I was impressed. A
true gift. I felt he was the real deal. He could help me with blogging. Maybe I
really haven’t gotten the gist of it. I could use some help. How do I write
good headlines? How do I keep people interested? How do I write good content,
be entertaining, or informative?
Okay, next he offered a mini course for $49.00. I figured he
was worth it. I joined.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
I “need” to keep joining this, buying that. I’m not good
enough until I buy something else—he can teach me. That will do it…. until the
next great thing comes out.
Maybe that’s the way bloggers earn their $100,000 a year.
But I’m not going to do it. I’m not trying
to sell you anything. And I’m never going to ask for money on this site, not
now, not ever.
Do the Opposite
When I had horses I was following Pat Parellii’s training
techniques, and he said that what most people are doing, do the opposite.
A couple of weeks ago, I watched the Belmont Race—and watched
handlers pulling on the horse’s mouth to get them into the starting gate. It
worked. They got the horse into the gate. I know though, that a horse works
better being driven than pulled. With a tap of a carrot stick on the rump, don’t
hit them, just tap them, the horse would probably jump into that gate. And on
top of it you would earn the horse’s respect. Don’t know, haven’t tested it. But
there is an old Indian trick of getting a horse into a trailer. Pick up a
handful of pebbles, and toss them—little prickling taps on a horse’s rump—and he
jumps into the trailer.
I hate it when something I have loved turns on me, and that
has happened with a number of marketing ploys. As I said, the marketing technique
started out good. Give them a freebee, and then you have their email. After that
you suggest, or push something else, then something else. I’m even willing to
pay for good material, but enough already.
I left feeling exploited.
Did the horse feel that way when yanked into the starting
gate?
I won’t yank you. Maybe I’ll toss a few pebbles at your
rump.
I’ll ask you to join my blog, or sign up for a freeby, but
that’s it.
No money. Not now. Not ever.
So here we are.
I don’t know how to tell you how to find an agent or how to
get published.
I don’t know how to tell you how to write good content, or
how to write without grammatical mistakes, or typos or any of that falderol writing
gurus like to hit us with. (Yes, and I ended a sentence with a preposition.)
I DO know how to motivate you.
I know how to tell you to keep your butt on the chair.
I know how to tell you that what you have to say matters.
I know that you are a gift to humanity, and to express that
gift.
I know that we are not given a desire without also being
given the way to achieve it.
I know that the Universe doesn’t play games. It is clear, so
clear that we get muddled in trying to understand it. We think it is supposed
to be hard.
People have told us it’s hard-- the starving artist idea you
know. “If it was easy everybody would be doing it”—those sorts of things.
Don’t listen.
You know something?
Life’s supposed to be fun.
And what if most everything we have heard is wrong?
I invite you to sign in. I want to know you. I'd love it if you followed me.
Ta Da,
Ta Da,
