I see you!
Well... kinda. I mean I see you... but I'm not really seeing the REAL you.
Because despite being the woman who's FUNNY AS HELL with a million stories up her sleeve and tucked away in her past - here you are, churning out the same ol' vague & boring shit as all the others - writing with all the enthusiasm, excitement and finesse of someone writing an instruction manual for a German washing machine. Oh frau!
OK, so there's the "like, know & trust" factor... which can be misinterpreted to mean "safe, dependable, dull" factor - which is where you play safe. you want to be LIKED, to be NICE - don't be weird - make them like you and then maybe maybe maybe baby... they'll buy.
BUT here it is:
- You're FAILING YOURSELF when you refuse to unleash the crazy - you're better than that.
Your audience will get to know and trust you when you reveal the real you. The things you fuck up. Your controversial thoughts. Your silly funny anecdotes.
And sure... like may be the very LAST thing on people's minds and they may well NEVER buy from you - but at least they'll trust in your honesty and integrity because they know you're not playing at Mary Poppins. - You FAIL YOUR AUDIENCE - because they never get to truly see the POWER WITHIN YOU - because you're just dishing out a sanitised version of yourself, curating your thoughts, fears and dreams, your message - you know - that message you were BORN to share!
Washing machine instruction manuals are useful... and yeh, we might drag them out from time to time trying to figure out what the button on the right does or why it only seems to flash on a Tuesday - but these manuals get flung to the bottom of a kitchen drawer. Dusty. Forgotten.
That's where your newsletters go. Your blogs. Your content. Flung to the "bottom of the kitchen drawer".
Then there are the books which reel us in and we still remember the story 10, 20, 30 years on - still think about the characters and the situations they find themselves in - and you find yourself on eBay at 2am bidding for a long-out-of-print book which you'll read again and again fall in love with... which will be lovingly placed in your bookshelf and never given away again.
The book which travels in your handbag for when you have a spare 10 minutes waiting somewhere.
The books you can't put down which have you finally succumbing to sleep at 4am.
You CAN be in that category - the stories and thoughts which stay with people - longevity of tale - not instruction pamphlet.
You only get one go on this planet - are you going to create and write content worthy of a trilogy? Or get flung in the back of a drawer?
Your choice.