Photo by Paul Wallez on Unsplash

Despite all romantic ideals to the contrary, the crux of all creative work, art, copy, advertising, marketing, sales, or strategy comes down to a simple goal:

Whatever you do, you absolutely must convince people to give a damn about you and what you offer.

This relentless pursuit of consumer attention is the reason why everything from wit and humor to borderline-creepy, ultra-specific sales tactics are at work day in, day out, to grab and harness your brain.

These are techniques that, when used correctly, can make you look twice, assess, and digest new information— at least for a moment.

Translation? They’re strategies designed to make people give a damn.

However, the consumer’s decision to give a damn or not happens in roughly 7 seconds flat.

To make the stakes even more absurdly high, the consumer’s final opinion at the end of that teeny time frame often becomes their opinion for life.

This makes damns the most illusive, precious commodity in marketing — and currently among the hardest to acquire.

Back in the 1970’s, humans were bowled over to discover they’d been served upwards of 500 ads every single day. These days? It’s closer to 5,000.

That’s also a lot of doubtlessly-wasted damns along the way — because once people give a damn about something they eventually realize is low-value, or out of integrity?

… It’s twice as hard for them to give a damn about something similar.

Yep, even if yours is the best, prettiest offer on the planet.

Yep, even if you do a great job of explaining it.

Tragically, reeducation doesn’t always equal immediate revenue/opinion changes either.

All over the digital business world, this reality is becoming more and more apparent. (I’ve written about it a few times, including here and here.)

The fact is: These days it’s extremely easy to get in front of people… but extremely difficult to make them actually care enough to invest their time or money — a.k.a. give a damn.

So: We can easily agree damns matter and are harder to attract with each passing day.

Now the question becomes: How do you begin to pick them up in the first place?

How do you turn people from not-caring into totally-and-absolutely-caring-all-the-time-customers — or at least caring enough to open your emails, or share your latest blog post?

I’ve got a few ideas.

Give your neck a good crack and let’s get into it.

5 ways to make people give a damn about you + what you’re selling.

Way #1: You first.

Seriously.

Demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that you give a damn about your audience first — and not just about what’s in their wallets — before you sell anything.

Find out what they need most and give it to them — for free if you can.

Find out what their insecurities and fears are and address them outright and offer a solution.

Find out what their goals and dreams are and be willing and open to show them the path to get there as publicly as you can.

This initial damn-giving on your end makes all the difference in your content and business.

This is also the deciding factor between, say, an opt-in gift — a free offer to convince peeps to sign up for your email list — that flops or catches fire.

Here’s what I mean:

If you look around at what everyone else in your industry is offering for their opt-in gift, and use that as your guideline (instead of giving a damn about your audience first)? Sad trombone noise.

Chances are if you take this route, your peeps will either already know the information, or will perceive it as a cop-out ploy they’ve seen 100 times before.

Needless to say, this is a damn-killer.

Contrastingly, if you create an opt-in gift based on something you know your people genuinely need and want, because you did your research or asked them? Your existing people love it, and new leads tend to pour in. Good ones.

As one example, consider comparing a “How to write a blog post” opt-in gift against one that promises to teach you: “How to write blog posts that feel fun and fiery to write — and get crazy engagement”.

The first one? Eh, you know the score.

The second? That’s what you really want deep down, right? Who doesn’t?

The second one shows I took the time to figure out what peeps really wanted. More sign ups. More wins. And more sweet, sweet damns.

When you genuinely care, you can show your audience that you genuinely understand. And when you genuinely understand, you can create better things for more people.

And when you make good stuff for more people — you make more money, and feel good about life in general.

And really, who doesn’t want that!?

Way #2: Don’t bullshit.

Bullshit is an instant damn-killer.

And, while there is a line between “bullshit” and “marketing tactics”, it is perhaps not as woefully thin as some might assume.

It comes down to refusing to make promises you can’t keep.

Never make guarantees you can’t follow through on. Do not fudge information or your expertise in the name of getting your paws on an additional email address or ten.

People will find out sooner or later, and once trust is killed, you’ve killed it forever.

And, while being more specific, clear, and honest may not get you 1,000 new leads, it’s much more likely to get you 100 leads who are genuinely invested in you, your point of view, and what you have to offer.

(And trust me, it’s way easier to sell to those eager 100 than the blasé 1,000 you managed to scoop up by feeding them nonsense — because you’ve shown the 100 that they can count on you to deliver.)

Figure out the biggest promise you can make, and push that. Make it real, make it feel as impressive as it is, and show results. The folks who are on the look out for you will find you, be impressed, and want to know more immediately.

Way #3: Front-load with (real) value — without making demands.

The nice thing about the current deafening din of the digital world? Transparency has never been sexier.

For example, I recently went into fangirl convulsions when I discovered I was included in a sales letter from the king of email marketing himself, André Chaperon for his program Sphere of Influence. You can check it out right here, because it’s awesome.

But my fangirling isn’t the most compelling part of the story. (Obvs.)

In his sales letter, Chaperon digs into his use of pre-sell pages to sell products.

In a nutshell, pre-sell pages are long (long!) form blog posts that share resources and offer the actionable, could-totally-apply-this-to-my-business-right-now ideas that tie into the philosophy or goals of a larger offer — usually soon-to-be-launched. At the end of the pre-sell page, you invite people to learn more about your offer by signing up if they wish.

It’s a breathlessly brilliant strategy, and there’s no paywall or opt-in required to get the info. You don’t have to give him your email address, phone number, or credit card. You don’t have to wait til the third missive in the nurture sequence to find out what’s really going on.

And you know what? It works.

Presell pages aren’t a new concept, but their current impact is the symptom of the continuing, churning-sea-change underway in the marketing world.

While pre-sell pages may not grab as many email addresses as, say, that dearly beloved 3-part video training series strategy, I’d wager this tactic turns into more sales way more easily.

Reason being? By NOT hiding your stuff behind a paywall, you create memorable, high-value experiences, and those who sign up will be frothing at the mouth for whatever you have to offer.

You give the value. You build the trust. Then, and only then, do you offer the invitation.

… And then you can watch as your perfect customers willingly dish out their damns.

Way #4: Concentrate on “giving the right people the right stuff at the right time” — a.k.a segmentation.

I put that last part in quotes because Chaperon talks about this a lot in his work, (#transparency) and uses variations of that phrase. Definitely take a deeper look at his stuff if you haven’t already. But in the name of this blog post, I’m gonna drill into what this means for you right now.

In today’s climate, leads are less of a numbers game and much, much more of an engagement game.

There’s a saying in marketing that I parrot non-stop: “You can make a million bucks off a 200-person list, and $0 off 10,000 disinterested people.”

Those 200 people are who you should be chasing. Not the 1,000.

Theirs are the damns you most want to acquire.

Because think about it. When you cast a net in the ocean, you can:

1. Cast a big ol’ net in a place you heard there were lots of fishies, where all the other boats go.
2. Cast a smaller net, but spend time researching what fish you want most, where they’re swimming, when there will be fewer boats, and what kind of bait those fish are most likely to go gaga for.

The first net may bring in some of the fish you want… but it will also bring up a lot of other things you probably don’t want; like inedible species, and some old tires, toilet lids, boots, beer cans, etc. That’s just the nature of the big net.

The second net may bring up fewer items on the whole… but you’ll likely bring more of those tasty fish you were looking for in the first place.

This is where segmentation comes in; i.e. creating “buckets” for your buyers — whether they opted into a certain freebie, or got certain results from a quiz, or answered questions in particular ways on a survey, etc. — that place them in specific groups depending on their desires, goals, struggles, and buying habits.

While I understand the basics of segmentation, I’m no expert, but if you want to link up with someone who is: Ryan Levesque’s book “ASK: The Counterintuitive Online Method to Discover Exactly What Your Customers Want to Buy…Create a Mass of Raving Fans…and Take Any Business to the Next Level” is all about this. (That’s not an affiliate link by the way, it’s just a great book.)

Essentially, the goal of segmentation is to help you get extremely targeted with your messaging, so you’re not blasting out the same “Buy my thingie” email to 100% of your list when 98% can’t or won’t give a single damn about your offer. Segmentation allows you to focus all your energy on that precious 2%.

As a follow up to the value of segmentation: At an event I spoke at last month, I got to ask legendary Copyhackers founder Joanna Weibe, “What’s the biggest mistake you see people making in marketing?”

Her answer was: “Segmentation”.

So: You don’t have to take my word for it. But consider taking hers.

Way #5: Show up consistently, and with conviction. Demonstrate that you get it with words and deeds.

There’s this quote from legendary drag performer RuPaul that reads: “Know who you are, and deliver at all times.”

While this is a favorite principle of mine for success and general existence on this planet, it applies perfectly to marketing and personal branding, and the cultivation of damns in a crowded marketplace.

In order to show up and deliver, you have to know what and who YOU give a damn about, and share that with gusto.

You also have to know HOW you want to show up. Are you funny? Irreverent? Passionate? Incredibly sweet and kind? Are you a cynic? Do you see the beauty in all things? What bullshit are you tired of? What secrets are people not talking about enough?

If you don’t have the answers to the above questions yet, find them A.S.A.P. Then, go all in.

This will create a consistent vibe for your business which, along with the look and feel of your copy, graphics, and website, will make you both memorable, trustworthy, and an irresistible damn-magnet.

I should add: Consistency does NOT mean you have to play it safe or avoid taking risks. In fact, you must take them in order to make the right people give a damn about what you offer.

As one example, let’s talk about my girl Margo Aaron’s site, That Seems Important.

She took a risk with her website content. As founder and operator of The Arena, a mastermind for high-level business owners and marketers (which I just joined, by the way — and it’s awesome), she could’ve easily made her website parrot the same copy we’ve all heard 100 times.

“Do you want to make more conversions in your business?

Do you feel stuck in a sad hole of poverty?

Join my mastermind to have all your problems solved.

That will be $50,000 pls ty.”

Instead, Margo’s site makes about 50 self-referential jokes about marketing that only marketers will get. Check out the first few lines of her homepage:

This works to immediately turn off people who aren’t a fit for her, and turn onindustry pros who can’t wait to give her all their damns. Myself included.

… In fact I laughed so hard, and gave so much of a damn after seeing this website, I immediately tracked Margo down on social media and posted her website on one of my favorite writer’s groups to share the love.

In my opinion, the best marketers get sales, get strategy, and get the joke. And oh does Margo ever get the joke — and that’s how she shows up every single day.

The risks she took for it paid off in a lump sump of ALL of my damns. And I’ll keep buying whatever she’s selling.

Now please make no mistake: As with all marketing and promotional advice I offer, you need to give these ideas time to work.

You can’t plant seeds in the ground and throw Facebook ads at them until they sprout.

The same is true for your business.

In order for your mighty field of damn-givers to blossom, you have to ready the soil (give a damn about your peeps first), fertilize them (with the good stuff — not bullshit), water them, but not too much (give all the right stuff away at the right time), and tend to them every day (show up).

If you’re not ready to put in that kind of footwork? That’s OK. But all the shortcut tactics you’ve heard will only send you back to this square one eventually.

I’m pretty sure it’s in the Bible somewhere: The more damns thou giveth, the more thou shall receive.

And once you give ‘em? The more you’ll get in return with time.

It’s not just the best way to build a long-term, profitable, sustainable business.

I suspect it’s the only way there ever was.

Photo by Cory Woodward

We need to talk about the emotional experience of branding yourself as a creative, y’all.

It’s one of the most popular topics in all the writer’s groups I’m in.

Every few days it comes up again:

“Why is branding myself so hard?”

“Why does it take so long?”

“Whenever I have a good idea, someone points out it’s bad, and I immediately deflate!”

That last one is especially huge.

You probably know the feeling.

You have an idea that’s SO GOOOD that you think over for days and get more and more excited. It works in so many ways! There are so many different ideas you could plug into it. It’s so smart and pithy and and and —

Then you show it to someone and… they promptly riddle it with holes.

So you cry a lot and go back to the drawing board.

Ugh. It’s my Achilles heel too!

But can I tell you a secret?

This is also why when I know in my gut something’s good-but-different, I sometimes don’t tell anyone until I put it all out there so it makes sense in context.

The title of “The Wordshops”? I didn’t tell anyone for a year.

Photo shoot concepts? Silencio.

Structure for my Wordshops sales video? The only people who knew about it were me and my videographer.

Blog posts? It’s just me and Medium.

Why?

Because imagine if Picasso showed his first attempts at cubism to a fellow artist who said:

“That’s so ugly. I don’t get it. No one will like or buy this. Where’s the poetry? Where’s the feeling?!”

I suspect we’re not actually all BAD at branding ourselves as pro creatives. It’s just hard to define ourselves without the protective layer of someone else to take on the consequences for whatever we come up with.

Here’s a truth to chew over: Everyone’s a critic and folks won’t always get it.

After all: Why do we always tell clients not to show the final product to 50+ people before launch? Because there’s such a thing as “too many cooks in the kitchen”.

(And no offense, but your Aunt Barbara who told you your logo was dumb doesn’t know the first thing about branding.)

There were, are, and will be moments when you’ve gotta trust what’s right.

That’s what personal branding as a creative and artist is overall, in my opinion. An exercise in deep self trust.

Prepare to do what you want that feels good and right, develop a stomach for the potential range of responses, and you’re good to go.

Sure you’ll fail sometimes, but the wins will be THE WINNIEST.

All this to say: I love other people’s opinions, but sometimes?

Screw other people’s opinions.

Your personal brand is PERSONAL. Play around. Break rules. Rattle cages.

Experiment and see what works without letting someone else in on it too soon.

See what happens.

Photo by Jeff Weller

2017 in HWeiss Landia was, above all, a year of talking and writing about things I genuinely give a damn about.

(It was also a bizarre, tumultuous, topsy turvy, exhausting year for a number of us — but one of the greatest gifts of being alive and creative at a time like this is the response it inspires, and the quests it sends us on.

I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but in my case, 2017 seems to have flipped on my “transparency switch”.)

Of course, there was other stuff happening beyond my intimate relationship with my keyboard and my blog, too.

I put out a course. I released 50% of my clientele. I spoke on stages in Brooklyn, Austin, and Phoenix. I spent a ton of time talking to newbie writers, and veteran entrepreneurs. I stopped taking sugar in my coffee.

But more than that? Sometime early last year, when I stared at my semi-populated blog, I realized something: I was bored.

Omg. Sooo bored with what I was writing.

Don’t get me wrong — I enjoyed all the pieces I wrote before 2017 began; they felt deep and gratifying and important to pen.

But I was spent. I’d felt I’d hit all the “stuff copywriters/writers should write about” notes I wanted to hit, and felt ready to move on.

But what was next? I wasn’t sure.

So I tilted my platform a little bit, and decided to scrub away the “Serious writers talk about This Serious Thing” must-do’s on my list, and started gabbing more about the stuff that mattered to me — about experiences, about point of view, personal philosophy, and creativity rather than conversions and sales.

(Not that I ever talked too much about those two things — but there are about a billion extra smart people who do. So if that’s what you’re looking for, head over here or here.)

That began to leak into everything I did; from my blogs, to the way I taught, to what I shared on podcasts and interviews.

So, after spending the last couple of weeks chewing the cud away from my desk, I decided to take a peek back at the things I wrote and said in 2017 — and the tales behind them.

What was I most proud of?

What surprised me?

What did I wish I’d done differently?

And now in the spirit of the only roundup season NOT involving cowboys — A.K.A. END OF YEAR ROUNDUP SEASON IN THE BLOGOSPHERE — I present these musings to you.

Without further ado, I present the 10 favorite things I made in 2017 — and the stories behind them.

Thing #1: I hopped on The Copywriter Club Podcast for an interview.

To date, this is probably the strongest interview I’ve ever done on the subject of copywriting.

I say that both because on this blessed interview my accursed “ums” and “yknows?” are fewer and farther between, aaaand because my parents listened and immediately called to excitedly tell me that finally, after 6 years, “We have a better idea of what you do now!”

One thing also missing from this story, however, was that I showed up to the interview 15 minutes late and flustered as all hell. I’d gotten the time of the damn interview wrong. Blessedly though, Kira Hug, co-founder of The Copywriter Club and an old friend of mine, pinged me to find out where I was before banishing me from her roster forever. So the Hillary you hear here is a little extra anxious, but extra excited to be there all the same.

This was also the first time I’ve ever talked in-depth about the connections I make between the music I love and the words I write — and no one laughed at me or called me a stupidhead. That felt unexpectedly awesome.

“I think music, in that sense, music can teach us a lot as writers, because when you get to a certain point with your writing and your craft, it doesn’t necessarily become about the individual words or even the sentences. It’s about texture and rhythm, and you see things more in block form.

You’re thinking about it in a sense of how people are going to react to these ideas, not just the ideas themselves, and I think hip hop is a great example of how to do that.”

You can listen to the full interview or read the transcript behind the link.

Thing #2: I wrote On creative shame: The agony of knowing when something sucks (+ 3 strategies for getting over it).

This post was probably the least-read of the entire year, but it was still near and dear to my heart.

I’d actually written the first draft of this post at my former business partner’s kitchen table on a snowy afternoon in 2014, but it was much darker, and much more shame-faced than the version you see here.

Since then, time has not only made me tougher when being open about failure, but it’s forced me to continue to face it down and acknowledge when it happens so I can learn the most from it.

This post was also a chance for me to talk about my, uh, background in writing fanfiction, and how it helped me get some creative faceplants out of my system early.

(This was much to the delight of Copywriter Club Podcast co-host Rob Marsh, who is determined to find my old fanfiction pen name to this day. I can assure you: He will never succeed.)

“The opposite of creative shame is creative courage. And you can’t have one without the other.”

You can read the full post right here.

Thing #3: I wrote “What it Takes”.

This was the first in what would unwittingly become a series of pieces on the reality of entrepreneurship and the more physiologically and psychologically painful effects of pushing oneself to the limit.

It popped into my head at 10 PM on some busy Tuesday. My partner was out with co-workers for the night and so I used those extra few hours to do what I often do when I’m given the wiggle room of additional time:

I was working late.

At the time I was putting the finishing touches on my course and launch plan, and figuring out how to restructure my business.

I was not feeling good. In fact I was so tired I felt almost ill… but I had to keep going.

It’s a piece on willing things into existence that I’d probably rewrite knowing what I know now, and seeing where it led me— but it’s a piece I’m proud of all the same.

“Sweat begets ease eventually, if you know where you’re going.

That’s why, for every nauseous moment on your living room floor, for every sobbing dancer collapsing just offstage, there are 100 moments of pride, accomplishment, and certainty in one’s own abilities.

For every question of “Why do I do this?” the answer comes back the same, but stronger: “You can quit. But if you love yourself, and the future you’re creating enough, you won’t.”

You can read the full post right here.

Thing #4: I wrote “The Persistent, Precious Habit of Self-Belief”.

Some posts take time and effort to chip away at, while others flow out of me like clear, cold water. This post — and also the only piece I wrote in June of this year — was the latter.

I wrote this one after comments from a friend forced me to examine why the hell I always keep going.

It’s not as though Imposter Syndrome or self-doubt pass over me. In fact, I’m beginning to suspect I’m one of their favorite targets. But the struggle against such demons isn’t ended by a sudden magical eradication of the hate and disappointment and shame that threaten to eat you up.

It never ends. We can never win — only hold the line.

So the question becomes: How do we do that?

And the answer is… what I wrote about in this post.

“There’s the old adage you’ve seen on countless inspiring statues and high school senior quotes:

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”

Similarly, self-belief is not the absence of self-doubt.

My self doubt is my grey ghost, the monkey on my back. It is excruciatingly painful, and it comes complete with limitless energy and an unstoppable will to slow me down so it can eventually tear me apart, piece by piece.

I had no choice but to find a way to stand against it — or I’d surely perish.

But it didn’t feel heroic to me. It didn’t feel strong. Some days it feels like hanging from a penthouse balcony by my fingertips.”

You can read the full post right here.

Thing #5: My Creating & Launching an Online Course interview on The Wonder Jam Podcast

Despite the fact I recorded this interview with Allie & Adam of The Wonder Jam on the first day of The Wordshops launch…

Despite the fact I’d gotten barely any sleep the night before…

Despite the fact I’d slept so little because I wound up sleep walking that night for the first time in my life…

… This interview was still one of the best things I recorded this year. Not only because I adore The Wonder Jam (they designed the sales page for The Wordshops), but our interview turned into open season on connecting pop culture to branding mastery.

That’s right: They let me riff on two of my favorite icons the world loves to hate — Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.

“ Hillary tells us about how Kim Kardashian has informed her as a business owner — “She’s a branding master, she just is.”

#Onemoretimeforthepeopleintheback

You can listen to the full interview right here.

Thing #6: I wrote “The Worst Way to Price Anything Ever, from Someone Who Fell into the Trap”.

Possibly the only “traditional” business-y piece I wrote this year was sparked from a conversation I was having in one of my writer’s groups.

A discussion on rates and pricing was illiciting responses of:

“I just don’t think I’m worth that much…”

“Who would pay me that?!”

And (most importantly):

“I could never afford that. I can’t even think about it.”

Off went my writerly spidey-senses, and out came the words — all about the sneaky reason WHY so many creatives undercharge, and what to do about it.

“But in reality? I’d priced myself so low because I was afraid.

Terrified actually.

I was afraid of people rejecting me, laughing in my face, and pointing out that I didn’t have anywhere near the experience levels to charge anything even remotely resembling a higher-end price point.

I was afraid of being seen as a fraud, overcharging and under delivering, and generally getting too big for my britches.

All of that was bullshit of course.”

You can read the full post right here.

Thing #7: Director Juliet Warren and I made this video for The Wordshops sales page.

Revelation of the year: BEING ON VIDEO IS FUCKING DIFFICULT.

Especially when you’re selling a thing that’s yours.

Fortunately, I had my dear friend and brilliant creative Juliet Warren by my side who carried me through about 3 hours of totally unusable scripted footage that I singlehandedly ruined by looking down at my makeshift telepromter, and into a version borne of some handy Q&A.

I think this version works way better anyway.

“I wish someone had told me when I was getting started that my strangeness, the way I choose to speak about things, the slang I tend to use, the language I discuss things with when I talk to my clients — that all of that mattered. That all of that was supposed to be coming through in my copy. Because if it doesn’t? Then you’re getting lost, and the last thing you wanna do is get lost.

Because you have people who need you, who’ve been waiting for you. And if you don’t introduce yourself properly? They’re not going to be able to find you.”

You can watch the full vid on its own behind the link.

Thing #8: I wrote “No, You are Not Too Young to Start a Business”.

While this is another piece that falls into the “under-seen” category from earlier this year, it’s a topic near and dear to my heart.

I spend a lot of time chit chatting with young business owners, and every single one of them worry their lack of experience outweighs their youthful exuberance and eager desire to serve and succeed.

Short story: I started my business when I as 22 and green as a string bean.

Long story: In the long term — that actually ended up helping my business more than harming it.

Entrepreneurship, at its core, is an extended exercise in both self-trust and self-reliance (and, in some awkward hotel lobby moments, self-depreciation).

That means the only person who will ever know if you can really do this is… you.

(Not your parents, or your best friend, or your current boss. You.)

The only person who can be certain you’ll put in the work to create the success you want is you.

The only person who fully understands your instincts, skill set, and determination level is you.

So, what do you think? Are you ready, according to you?

You can read the full article here.

Thing #9: I wrote “On my Deep Misinterpretation of Mental Toughness”.

This post was a big, fat, squirmy, 9-minute-read uncomfortable practice in vulnerability for me.

Because guess what happens when you spend an entire year working as hard as you possibly can, physically and mentally?

Surprise. You burn out, and you burn out hard.

This post took me weeks to write. I kept coming back to it, and hiding from it. Peeking at it through the hands over my eyes, and leaning closer to listen in despite the fact my fingers were firmly in my ears.

And while this was the only post this year that made me wince before hitting “Publish”, the conversations it started to spark were incredible. My inbox and Facebook comments filled with stories, particularly from women, about working themselves into hospital beds (then proudly working from those hospital beds), about bodies crumbling while deadlines were still being hit, and about hitting walls with such an impact it took them 6 months to recover.

So while it wasn’t the most natural thing to share when I pride myself so publicly on my own mental strength — it made me realize that sometimes hard work just can’t be the only route.

But when I’m at my desk, doing my work? I’m titanium. A steamroller. The god damn Punisher, baby.

All I have to do is keep my eyes forward, put my blinders on, and march. I don’t bitch and moan, I (rarely) melt down, and I don’t take overwork personally. If I agree to something, I get it done.

How do you eat an elephant, they say? One bite at a time.

And boy, was I proud of it.

That’s the nuttiest thing about deteriorating mental health as an entrepreneur:

Burnout is hard to spot from afar because you feel you’re required to be blind to it.

We also don’t realize there’s a fine line between working hard and working ourselves into a delusional, exhausted mess.

You can read the whole article right here.

And finally, Thing #10: I wrote “8 Observations from a Crumbling Niche — And How to Avoid Getting Crushed”.

If there’s a collection of “posts that took on a life of their own” somewhere on the internet, I’d like to submit this to them for review.

This piece on the present and future of marketing in my chosen industry, borne of one comment I left in a FB group, and about 90 minutes of expansion on the points, quickly soaked up close to 20,000 views in the space of a couple of weeks.

It was unexpected. And kinda scary. And awesome.

Unexpected because it was such a quick, fiery piece to write, and because the topics discussed in this piece are not news to anyone who’s been in my industry a while. In fact some of them have been issues for years, they’re just getting hard to hide behind closed doors.

Kinda scary because I knew the people I was talking about in the post would read it… and I didn’t want to make anyone feel badly about themselves. I just wanted to tell the truth. But I also spent a few anxious nights worried I’d written myself out of a career.

Awesome because hey, who doesn’t like feeling like an “online influencer” for a whopping 5 days or so — like the things we’ve seen and said matter, confirming suspicious, putting hearts to rest, and are changing the way people look at things.

(Oh — and pissing people off. That was part of it too. But how good that feels varies moment to moment, and can sometimes stay stuck in the “fucking awful” position for prolonged periods. #Iamnotabadass)

But suffice it to say, of everything I’ve written, this was my most popular piece, as well as my most satisfying.

Sometimes when you say what’s on your mind, when you say what you’re seeing and what’s worrying you — people listen. And that just might be one of the best feelings around.

It certainly makes years spent in front of your laptop as a cog in so many digital machines feel less lonely and drone-like.

“It’s a running joke (among copywriters especially) that the biggest industry names are often the hottest messes on the back end… but I’m not sure it’s very funny anymore.

Even more worrying: These gigantic, nebulous “build your business online and brand and market yourself like a pro because that totally doesn’t take years to learn” programs are still being sold at high-ticket prices while their information hasn’t changed much from 2, 3, even 5 years ago.

And in a space that moves this quickly from one impactful strategy to the next?

That’s. Not. Good. Enough.

The people continuing to sell programs know this. Everyone who passed 9th grade Economics and learned about the law of diminishing returns knows this. Some just willfully ignore it.

We have to do better. We have to set an example. Especially if we claim to honestly give a damn about our “tribes”.

That’s why I’m writing this. As professionals in the space, it’s our duty to speak up, call stuff out, and discuss what’s not working anymore.

I’m also sharing this because my particular industry puts sales strategies and funnel tactic lifespans into fast motion — so if it’s not happening in your niche currently?

It may be soon… though hopefully at a slower, steadier pace than the current tidal wave of challenges facing marketers/brands/businesses where I hang out.”

You can read the full piece right here.

Now: I’m not usually one to self-deprecatingly wax on about WHAT A NAAAAARCISSISTIC PIECE I JUST WROTE I’M SUCH A MILLENIAL — but writing my own roundup kinda felt that way.

So now I’m curious: What made YOUR top 10 list?

Stuff you wrote or made, or stuff you read, watched, or listened to?

Drop 1, or all 10, in the comments below. I’d love to check ’em out.

(And oh right — as promised, a pop culture 2017 roundup is also en route. But strangely, that may take a little more time.)

But in the meantime: Happy New Year, friends. May this year teach us all the lessons we wish to learn.

Image by the brilliant Witchoria, via her Instagram

I carry one (fairly) huge and utterly irrational fear in my life: my fear of flying.

While I’ve spent a good chunk of my past and present on planes without incident, my fear is always with me; like a heavy weight rattling around inside the well-loved duffle bag of my soul.

As you might imagine, being the steward of a lifelong anxiety like this comes with a colorful spread of trials and tribulations.

One example: I’m the woman doing a shot of whiskey and slamming a beer at the airport bar — if I have time, and if there’s no client work to be done en route.

Another: I absolutely cannot sleep on planes, even on 10+ hour flights, which meant the one time I tried Ambien to welcome the sandman at 30,000 feet, gravity turned inside out for a few hours.

And yet another: For years I’ve had to explain to well-meaning to partners, friends, family members, and colleagues that while yes, I understand pilots are highly trained, and yes I’m more likely to die in the car on the way to the airport, and yes it’s a 1 in 3 million+ chance I’ll ever be involved in a fatal plane crash… that this is the problem with irrational fear: It makes 0 sense.

(Besides, in the age of the internet we should all realize humans are largely emotional creatures. Logical thought rarely slices through the tethers of illogical patterns — and no human being is without a wild superstition, fear, or a nearly-incomprehensible view or two.)

However: This fear of mine is not without its intellectually interesting attributes— namely, the way it’s aged with me in order to stay “alive”.

Much like the organism it’s tethered to (me!), my fear of flying has evolved. It’s heavy but it’s damn wily. It shifts. It adapts. It finds new bends in reasoning to sustain itself.

When the fear found me as a kid, it was simple: I was scared I would die. I didn’t want to die!

So my fear amplified into nightmares — and a big reason why I still cover my eyes during a certain scene in the movie Flight Club.

Then, as a teenager (during my brief and eager dance with Christianity), I began pursuing solutions and turned to God. I’d wear my cross necklace and pray before every flight for protection.

Unperturbed by Jesus, my fear promptly evolved: If I died? It now meant God was displeased with me and was taking me out of the human race. My fear even inflated itself by reminding me that if I wanted God’s favor? I’d better make sure I didn’t do anything too sinful right before a flight.

Fun!

Then I entered my 20’s… and things got really interesting.

By then, I’d been on and off enough flights for my logical brain to suggest, “Hey you know what? Maybe we should chill out.”

Not to be outdone, my fear evolved again.

I remember it so clearly.

As I stared nervously down at the clouds on a flight from JFK to Fort Lauderdale, wondering why I couldn’t just relax, my heavy, clunky Fear Brain turned slowly around and said clearly:

“In every flight we’ve survived, you’ve been afraid. Fear has now become part of our routine. So clearly: If I allow us to relax? The plane will surely crash.”

Uh-huh.

Fear had managed to convince me, in some sneaky way, that my anxiety was, in fact, keeping the plane in the air.

Nope, it wasn’t the engines, or the highly trained pilots, or the crew that kept the flight safe. It was me, with my magical powers of terror levitation, doing it.

Joan Didion calls this “magical thinking” — the act of believing impossible things as your brain attempts to comprehend and navigate seemingly-impossible events.

In her case, this “magical thinking” was sparked by the sudden death of her husband while her daughter was in a coma. In my case, it was sparked by the stark reality of my fragile mortality a few miles above solid ground.

Are brains weird or what?

Now here’s the strangest part of all this (and my whole reason for telling you this story):

I realized recently that this type of thinking isn’t limited to my airline experiences. In fact, I’d been applying this adaptively unhinged thought pattern to my business every damn day.

It all clicked when a teacher of mine said something unexpected, but startlingly accurate on a group coaching call I was on:

“Heaviness, stress, fear, worry, and anxiety do not equal money.

You can make just as much money with lightness — enjoying the process of your work and business building, having fun, and doing what interests you.”

It sounds innocuous at first blush… but once the words really clicked, it was like my world froze for a second.

Wait… what?!

But…

Oh wow.

Damn.

I’ve spent a fair amount of writing time unpacking my own relationship to heaviness, a.k.a. workaholism and stress. I’ve talked about it here,here, and here, and about a million other places on various social platforms.

Make no mistake: I still think/know that having a powerful work ethic and deep stamina for the hustle is a fine, and relatively rare thing.

I still think/know if you can pick ONE superpower for yourself in this life, it should be an ability to out-work anyone.

I still think/know being a little scared of not being smart or good enough can be useful.

I still think/know if you want to run a business, you have to work hard, long, and often for a while.

HOWEVER.

What happens when the ball gets rolling? What happens when you’ve already outworked most of your competitors and are making money and doing OK after all?

Where does that fear go?

Much like my in-flight worry-wartism: fear likes having a welcoming host. So it evolves to make sure we still carry it with us.

Years ago, I had accepted fears as part of the constant process of running a business. And so, fear had stuck around where I’d made a home for it.

Exactly the same way my flying fear had evolved, as time went on and my traditional newbie-business-owner anxiety around stuff like pitching clients, speaking in public, or delivering drafts wasn’t necessary anymore — my fear adapted.

My anxiety, fear, and stress became more than symptoms. They became litmus tests for how hard I was working, or how much I cared about something.

(This is also partly why, regardless of situation or location, I put my hands up every time I hear that line from Post Malone’s Congratulations : “Worked so hard forgot how to vacation.”)

If I wasn’t doing some stuff I kinda hated, or pushing myself a little too hard, was I actually working?

If I wasn’t stressed out and uncomfortable, was I actually making things happen for myself?

Though I didn’t realize it at the time: The answer, to my heavy, illogical fear brain, was a resounding NO.

In my mind, if I let up my guard down for even a second, my life as an entrepreneur was over. If I wasn’t constantly afraid, the plane would crash.

On the flip side of the coin: When stuff feels good and is going smoothly to the point I catch myself feeling positive — I worry I’m slacking.

And whether you realize it or not? The same might be true for you.

I hear it all the time from both entrepreneurs, and friends from the traditional 9-to-5 world:

“Work? Yeah, things are going well, but…”

“I’m having a great time, but…”

“Money’s been awesome and it feels like stuff is really starting to flow finally, but…”

And all those conversations end with some variation of:

“… I’m just sitting here terrified, waiting for something to go wrong.”

At the outset, it feels like that makes complete sense. And there’s almost a delicious drama to it.

I’m so realistic I believe all of my hard work, everything I’ve built from my relationships to my skill set, can and will collapse on top of me in an instant.

I’m so realistic I believe disaster is constantly imminent and the only way to combat it is to act like it’s already happening.

So you can imagine why I swirled my teacher’s words around in my head for weeks:

“Stress, fear, and anxiety do not equal money.”

God damnit she was right.

So why did it feel like she was wrong?

Why did this concept of “lightness” feel as clunky in my mind as another language?

I think I have an idea.

As business owners, we feel we should be mentally prepared or anything, right? For disappointment, for frustration, for everything melting down.

Rarely are we told to expect, or even prepare for ease.

Because business is not easy.

So we train ourselves to assume it’s all part of the grind, and turn ourselves into good peacetime soldiers, standing at attention in the sprawling fields of existence with our armor still on and our guns drawn, ready for anything.

We train ourselves to assume that without our heaviness, our stress, and our fear, we cannot — and perhaps don’t deserve to — succeed. That if we’re not constantly on high alert, the enemy (a.k.a. failure) will smell our complacency and ambush us in the night.

But, just like lingering terror of air disaster after hundreds of successful flights, after a certain point — you have to face that your fear may not be closely tied to reality.

The more I think this over, the more I realize that after a certain point, we need to learn to take a deep breath and say:

“I’m OK now… I’m allowed to feel good.

What else do I actually want that won’t feel painful to create?”

Surely, after all this stress and hard work, we owe ourselves more than just a moment of smiles and celebration? Maybe even more than a day, or a week?

Surely, after grinding to build our reputations and make money, we can have fun and relax into what we’ve built and earned for a bit? Maybe even for a lifetime?

So imagine with me, for a moment:

What would change in our lives, industries, and hearts if, instead of waiting for the next shoe to drop, we stayed on high alert for lightness, joy, and happiness?

What if we sought that every day with our work, instead of scrambling and surviving, and steeling ourselves for when it all goes wrong?

What would running businesses feel like if our “I’m doing great but…” sentences stopped before the “but”, and ended with a confident smile?

What if we treated pleasure and fun, genuine interest, and enjoyment as our litmus test for financial and personal success, instead of glorifying what we’ve managed to pull off as the result of our long suffering?

So far, I don’t have an answer for you.

I’m still a squalling infant in the school of welcoming lightness.

But I challenge you to consider, as we wander wide-eyed into 2018:

What could that kind of thinking change for you?

Who would you become if you prioritized fun over fanaticism, or genuine interest and excitement over heaviness and stress and constant fear?

What if, instead of fearing a touch of long-term relaxation will cause everything you’ve built to float away, you just laid your burden down and… allowed yourself to float instead?

Think it over.

Your fear is not keeping your business afloat.

Try something different.

See where it goes.

Watch what happens.

And report back.

I will too.

Stay light. Float on. And good luck.