When we look to someone remarkable (and remarkable comes in a million different colours), why do we spend so much time studying where they put their feet instead of following their gaze to the wide-open sky?

…inspiration only dies down because the theoreticians… begin to dissect, analyze and then codify into rules what yesterday’s great artists did freely from their true selves.

~ Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write:
A Book About Art, Independence & Spirit

]]> http://rebecca-leigh.com/chase-inspiration/feed/ 0 http://rebecca-leigh.com/who-do-you-think-you-are/ http://rebecca-leigh.com/who-do-you-think-you-are/#comments Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:19:28 +0000 Rebecca Leigh http://smartfreshwriting.com/?p=412

Who the hell do you think you are?

And what makes you think you have anything worthwhile to say?

Who the hell do I think I am?

I’m a life unravelling. Alongside 6 billion others.

I don’t know exactly what I am, but I know I’m a complex thing.

I’m conscious. I’m aware.

I can be transported by the flickering shower spray caught in the beam of sun coming through my bathroom window.

I’m having this experience. I’m creating this experience.

I’m infinitely unimportant. But I can decide.

I’m one leaf fluttering and flipping its way to the ground. Delighting in the flight.

I’m the boss of me.

I think. I write.

Sometimes I think I’m a person whose thoughts and words and actions are of no use to anyone. But then, I remember they’ve already been of use to some.

I’m telling you a little of what it’s like to be me. And you might tell me a little of what it’s like to be you. No moment can be wasted in this way.

I can be only who I am.

I’m a vulnerable explorer. Who are you?

.

Go, in the name of imagination, of wonder and curiosity, of the spirit of inquiry, of critical engagement, of the ethic of the producer and of enterprise, and see what you can make of them.

~ Donald Horne, Graduation Ceremony Address at University of Sydney, 2005

Donald Horne was an Australian journalist, social critic, academic and author. I read this quote in his book Dying: A Memoir, which includes his ‘journal of a terminal illness’—written in the last year of his life with pulmonary fibrosis. He died in September 2005, aged 83.

Horne approached life as a constant exploration. He talked of:

…a producer’s ethic—another enlightening phrase, as distinguishing between a creative, productive life, both cooperative and self-reliant, and a consumer’s ethic, now one of the definers of our ‘consumer society’.

He believed a producer’s ethic must be part of a life worth living.

The above blessing, given to the graduating class, gave me a sense of lightness and freedom and possibility.

What does it give you?

Last weekend I watched The King’s Speech—the movie about King George VI (Colin Firth), his stutter, and his speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush).

What stayed with me, was the gently drawn portrait of Lionel Logue as a man with a sincere vocation.

He approached his work, whether with children or kings, with deep dignity and focus. He was obviously fueled by a desire to help, and a belief he could do so, and yet ego did not run his show. (If ego did slip in, he had a very perceptive wife to nudge him straight.)

The speech therapy work was not all of him. He was close to his three sons and wife, and still savoured what he may have considered his ‘true’ passion: acting.

So, why speech therapy? Why help children with their stutters?

When the Great War came, our boys were pouring back from the front, shell-shocked and unable to speak and somebody said, “Lionel, you’re very good at all this speech stuff. Do you think you could possibly help these poor buggers”.

I did muscle therapy, exercise, relaxation, but I knew I had to go deeper. These poor young blokes had cried out in fear, and no-one was listening to them. My job was to give them faith in their voice and let them know that a friend was listening.

~Lionel Logue, The King’s Speech

In an exchange with his wife Myrtle, Lionel explains he’s having trouble with a client that is “frightened of his own shadow” and she replies “isn’t that why they come to you?”

He doesn’t fix stutters, he helps people with their fear.

We’re all in the same business

Some time ago I was talking with a woman I greatly admire; her work is in self-discovery and development, and it’s changed the way I approach life. We were chatting, as part of a larger group, about the work we do and why we do it and she said something to the effect of:

But, you know Bec, you and I are teaching the same thing. We just use different doorways to get there.

I was amazed.

It is clear to me now that we are all helping people with the same core needs—to move from fear to freedom, from isolation to connection, from repression to self-expression.

Our vocations are the doorways we choose (or the doorways that choose us), through which we are able to help others (and often ourselves).

But, at the heart of it all… and this is true of myself and the kind of people I work with, be they coaches, artists, consultants of every flavour…

At the heart of all our work is the simple, powerful wish for our people:

To give them faith in their voice and let them know that a friend is listening.

In the world of marketing and copywriting, ‘What’s the benefit?’ is a mantra. It’s the question every service or product has to answer, in one way or another, to convince us to hand over the cash – What’s this going to do for me? Why should I care?

Naomi Dunford of ittybiz.com gives a quick how-to on working out what’s a feature and what’s a benefit:

If you don’t know [if it's a feature or a benefit], drill down. Ask why whatever it is you’re thinking about is important to your customer. When you arrive at an answer that even a three-year-old could understand, you’ve found your benefit…

Web design
Feature: Knowledge of PHP, AJAX, JavaScript, etc.
Benefit: You get a pretty website.

Seems straight forward…

What if you’re talking benefits, but your ideal customers just aren’t getting it?

One possibility is that you are stuck in a reality distortion field, a term I lifted from a post about the Apple iPad (via @gwenbell):

[There's a] reality distortion field at work, though, and everyone that makes a living from the tech industry is within its tractor-beam. That RDF tells us that computers are awesome, they work great and only those too stupid to live can’t work them.

You know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of this, don’t you? To be the one who doesn’t ‘get it’?

What if I put it like this:

You’re in a reality distortion field. It’s created by your intimate, direct knowledge of how and why the thing you do is so awesome. You’re talking about benefits from within that field. And your ideal customers who aren’t getting it? They’re on the outside.

That doesn’t mean your benefits aren’t real or valuable

Let’s be clear about this. Because as a passion-driven entrepreneur you might become very disheartened at this point and conclude that if people aren’t getting it, there must be something wrong with what you’re offering.

You may think that people just don’t want it.

Maybe they don’t.

However, I spend a great deal of time talking with clients who are offering something wonderful and useful, and who do have very satisfied customers, so they know they’re delivering something that their right people want. But, the value is being lost in translation when they try to communicate with potential new clients.

What’s going wrong?

Honestly, there is so much to be said about communicating benefits and your value in a way your people can hear and understand. I expect to come back this topic again and again in the future. For now, let’s focus on just one translation problem that arises from your reality distortion field.

The benefits you’re talking about are important to you, but not to them.

With any service, particularly those provided by coaches, consultants and creative professionals, clients are likely to experience a bunch of great benefits. You really want to focus on just a few to create a clear and compelling message.

But what you perceive as the most important (from within your field of knowledge and experience), isn’t necessarily the ones that are most valued by your people.

Hint: Most often, they respond best to those benefits that are immediate, significant and easily understood.

Again, it doesn’t mean your other benefits suck. More likely, your people simply can’t relate to those benefits from where they are right now.

Very. Common. Disconnect.

You’re talking about how at the end of the process (or even beyond) they will have, or be able to do, x, y and z. Right now, their mind is tangled up with pressing problems. And from that place of pain and stuck they can’t even imagine, much less care about, x, y and z.

You’ve got two options here:

Stay in your reality distortion field. Dig in. You know that this particular benefit is the most important. Try to convince your people of that.

OR

Step out. Find the meeting place at the core of your business. Give information you believe will be useful to them right now. Don’t get caught up in your own narrative. Be absolutely present, but present without ego.

Give your right people enough to hang on to, without overwhelming them

It’s not about showcasing your skills or expertise for the sake of it. Don’t overwhelm your people with everything you could possibly achieve together.

Use your awesome knowledge of what you do, and your interactions with your ideal clients, to focus on what’s really important to them. So they can hear it, relate to it, understand it, and get excited about it.

Be willing to let go (not entirely, but enough to meet you people where they are) of your ‘pet’ benefits. The ones you really care about, but that your ideal clients simply aren’t able to see right now.

These benefits might continue to happen in the background whether you talk about them or not, and they may even end up being really valued ‘surprise bonuses’ that your clients recognise and appreciate by the end of the process. Excellent – who doesn’t like a surprise bonus?

The key to breaking out of your reality distortion field

Listen.

Make sure you are listening to the right people – your ideal clients.

Let them tell you what’s the most important benefit. Listen carefully. You will rarely hear what you need to hear in a formal way (in a testimonial or otherwise) like this:

Client: The thing I valued most about our work together was…

Instead, listen carefully for moments of spontaneous exuberance and clarity that emerge throughout the process. Such as:

Client: Wow, I’ve never thought of that… This is fantastic because now I can…

Or they may say nothing specific. You may just notice their energy level lift as you explain a particular approach, or work through a particular problem.

Pay attention to these moments! Really. Listen. All the information you need to connect with your ideal clients is there – offered up by your own people – don’t allow it to get lost in your reality distortion field!