You’ve been blogging, twittering, networking away. Whether online or offline, you’ve been putting the effort into making some connections.
And it’s working. People are starting to comment on your blog, re-tweet your tweets, introduce you at meetings and events as someone to know.
You even start to get noticed by people you admire, others in your field, or more well-known or influential people. They comment on your stuff and like it. Maybe they even show up at events you host, but maybe it doesn’t get that far. Let’s not get too crazy. (But maybe they do, OMG.)
And then it all starts to get gunked up. Suddenly, whatever you were writing and teaching about a few weeks or months ago isn’t good enough. You mentally leap from rock to rock, looking for that perfect topic to expound upon.
What’s going on? Is it just perfectionism?
Or is it something more sinister?
Audience Creep
It’s not really sinister, and I’m not talking about having a creepy audience. What I mean is that when you start out, if you’re smart, you’ll be writing for folks who need you. The folks your business was made to serve. The folks who are struggling with the problems you know how to solve.
But when you splash into social media and networking, what happens to those people you help? They aren’t always so vocal or visible. They tend to “lurk” as the people who live online would say.
They are needing help. They don’t necessarily feel they have much to contribute. And they can often feel shy about speaking up in public, even to say, “Thanks for what you just wrote!” Make no mistake: commenting on a blog is speaking publicly, which is perhaps why so many people lurk and don’t write.
But being human, it’s easier to focus on the folks who do speak up. Especially if they are people you admire, or otherwise influential or semi-famous people. They comment or otherwise give you feedback. That feels good. So you want more of it. So you try to do things that get you more of it.
Suddenly you find yourself writing for those people. Except you know what? They aren’t your clients. They aren’t who you originally were trying to reach. And they aren’t the folks you were writing for when you did have some success five minutes ago before all this relating got gunked up.
Greed for Acceptance and Love
It’s almost not fair calling it “greed.” More than money or security, I find folks including myself, instead getting caught up in wanting acceptance and love.
So let’s not say “greed.” After all, it’s a totally legitimate need. We all need acceptance and love, and it’s okay to admit it.
The problem comes when you are running your marketing, content creation and networking to get acceptance and love, rather than to help the people who you are really supposed to be serving.
The Truth Is It Can Get A Little Boring At Times
If you have a good flow of people coming to you, mostly they are going to be in relatively similar stuck places with whatever problem you help them with. This means that you are going to be talking, writing, and helping clients with the same stuff year after year.
So don’t let yourself get bored. You can get creative. You can get edgy. You can evolve, push the limits of what you talk about. But don’t forget who you are really writing for and to.
It’s one thing to push the edges of your creativity. It’s another to lose sight of the people you’re helping, and end up unconsciously trying to curry favor with the folks you admire.
If you’ve done this, you don’t need to get down on yourself. It’s just a legitimate need for love and acceptance that led you there. Turn to a loved one and get some love. Connect with your friends and drink in some acceptance.
Spend time in your heart and realize how deeply it’s thirsting for these things. Let your heart drink in love and acceptance from the ineffable, from Source, from the great Love that we’re all awash in.
Then get your feet on the ground, take a gentle, full breath, and remember who the heck you’re trying to help. The folks who don’t speak up so much. The folks who are really needing you.
Get back to writing, blogging, networking like you’re on a mission to help those folks. If cool, influential, famous people notice you doing that, great! Enlist them in your mission.
Just don’t lose sight of who you’re really here for. They need you.
This was a really useful post for me. It addresses something that’s been puzzling me, which is the pressure I feel when I write an unusually popular post. I think, “Oh no, now people are going to expect this kind of thing from me all the time – I can’t deliver!”
Sounds like the answer is to reconnect with why I’m writing in the first place (quelle surprise). Thanks for the reminder, Mark!
.-= Lean Ni Chuilleanain
Sure thing, Lean. It’s so easy to get caught up in chasing after that popularity. Back to basics, eh?
Good stuff
Very helpful … to help me remember that all I need is to teach, to help, those in need … and then to find other ways to get the regard I also think I need.
LL
.-= Lyle T. Lachmuth – The Unsticking Coach
Yah! Glad you liked it, Lyle.
Yup! … also known as “Mission Creep”.
Thank you for the reminder.
Mission creep… sounds icky..
You are brilliant. This phrase brought such peace to my heart: The problem comes when you are running your marketing, content creation and networking to get acceptance and love, rather than to help the people who you are really supposed to be serving.
Thank you for being so wise and helpful to me!
.-= Jennifer Louden
Brilliant… or just tired of seeing myself stumble in the same way over and over again, so I make it public so I’m too ashamed to repeat it… sigh…
Love you, Jen.
This is excellent, Mark. And it is so easy to lose sight of your goal when that kind of “acceptance” starts pouring in.
I don’t get comments from the “strugglers” as often as I’d like but when I do, they have great questions that help me craft my blog posts and services to address those needs out there.
And I honestly believe that the “lurkers” are your real audience. This was grounding to me. Thank you for this wise reminder.
.-= Judy Dunn
I am so there- the lurkers are the real audience. Other people are just cool people.
Thanks for being a cool person.
wow!! amazingly helpful and wonderful information you have shared. thank you so much. i will be thinking a lot about this.
and i am super happy i signed up for the momentum homestudy. perfect timing!
peace ~ karen
shaboom bang boom! Glad it helped, and glad you jumped into the homestudy, too- we’re working hard on getting it out to you Real Soon Now.
I like this!
Mark, you are wise.
Thank you.
Marian. I’m glad. It’s all done with mirrors.
Oh, Mark, this was especially helpful to me. It gave me something concrete to think about…and a real answer to something I hadn’t even quite articulated to myself yet. I feel relieved to think that I can just keep speaking with those folks who really need EXACTLY what I CAN give them.
I’m so glad I signed up for the year long course~and am eager to begin.
Thank you,
~Marian
Yah! I’m so glad you’re in with us crazy folks this next year- it’s going to be a great time, and I’m really looking forward to supporting you with this.
Perfect timing to receive this post! I’m already twittering and just starting to blog… and yes, I want to help potential prospects. AND I want acceptance and love (and, dare I say it, attention)!
Yet, as I read this post, I realize I can totally relate to the client-side-of-things. I myself am typically a lurker, even after I buy services/products.
Have to make the mental shift and look through my prospect’s/client’s eyes… Thank you for the reminder!
That’s the biggest shift- seeing it from the client’s eyes. Such a simple, but hugemongous, shift for all of us expert.
When I catch myself thinking about what others expect from me…..
I know I need to look into my own heart and ask myself….
what are MY expectations?
and are MY needs being met?
‘zackly! (Gosh, I hope I responded in a way that she liked… doh… caught again!)
Mark, as always you address big issues in such a loving, wise and grounded way. Thank you for this reminder to serve our hearts by serving our clients.
Love, Hiro
.-= Hiro Boga
Hiro- Thank you! For the space you hold in the world. Big hugs!
Mark, thank you. This is such a timely reminder. It is so easy to become habituated to praise, and that habit can so quickly block the flow between us and our just right clients. You rock, my friend.
.-= Molly Gordon
No, YOU rock.
Just dealt with a blog-freeze this week.
You’re so right about looking at what need you’re (I’m) trying to get fulfilled by your writing, and getting it outside of the business, then coming back to the ‘real’ people.
It took me years to learn this when running ‘real-life’ classes.
Now time to learn it in blogging.
My current hard: blogging as me (rather than The Expert) makes me feel like an awkward teenager sometimes – having the cool gang invite me to their parties *does* feel good…
Thing is, a lot of us here in online land are here because we are a *little* shy/geeky so even the cool ones aren’t really *that* different…
Thanks for the reminder, Mark – something for me to keep an eye on as things progress.
.-= Andrew Lightheart @alightheart
I get it. it’s good a thing you’ve learned the lesson once already at least- it won’t be that hard to apply it here.
And thank goodness many of us are geeky…
Wow, hit the jugular on this one!
Sometimes I catch myself twittering then checking how many people RT! Yikes! Guilty as charged. I gently remind myself that’s not the point. =-0
My big shift in my work (and life) has been to stop creating what I think people will respond to and to do what is emanating from the inside…
then trust that the RIGHT people will align with it.
Very freeing in that place and definitely the exact opposite of how I was trained in marketing.
Thanks for a poignant message Mark.
Melanie
Woo-hoo! Love it when I hit the jugular. Especially my own… gah.
It takes a lot of courage to focus on what feels true rather than what people will respond to, especially when your company gets larger and more people are depending on your ability to produce.
Ahhhhhh!!!!! Thank you, Source, for the serendipitous web leaps that led me to this article…. divine timing indeed.
Thank you, Mark! For such insightful wisdom!
.-= Shannan
Shaboom bang boom- glad to be here.