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How to Launch an Offering

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I recognize that this post may tick some people off. And… I’m going to write it anyway.

I had a moment yesterday on Facebook, as I was scrolling through my feed, when I literally wanted to fling my precious iPhone across the room. Post after post after post was an offering for an online course, a teleseminar, a retreat, a telesummit, a training…  I couldn’t get away from them. Where were the folks bitching cryptically about something that happened which they were never actually going to share the details of? I’d have much rather seen that or a meme about Justin Bieber or one of those sad puppy rescue videos that pipe Josh Groban’s “You Raise Me Up” throughout and make me bawl until snot is running down my chin.

My reaction got me thinking.  First of all, with full transparency, I will say that I’m noodling a new offering myself. I’m waiting for more info from the Big U(niverse) and I’m immersing myself in the works of Joseph Campbell and Lewis Mehl-Madrona as I await further instruction, but the thought of “launching” or doing it in the same ‘ole way makes me want to swallow an anvil.  (No, not an Advil, an actual anvil.)

I further wondered to myself: why are some programs working and selling like proverbial hotcakes while others flop? My hypothesis is that it’s the person who’s holding said retreat, telesummit, program, blah, blah, blah. When you launch something, it’s YOU people are buying. Martha Beck could hold a course on learning to crochet with chicken intestines and I’d be there brandishing an aluminum hook. Anne Lamott could hold a retreat in the sewers of London on a warm, sunny day in August and I’d be there wearing my purple galoshes. If Philip Pullman invited me to an event where I’d be required to eat pickled baby diarrhea on rye I would bring my own forks.

When I read through the sales page of an offering or I see all these promotional things strewn all over Facebook land, I think what’s irking me is a sense of not feeling the person holding it; not feeling their pure passion around their subject matter. In my years of work in the online entrepreneurial world I’ve seen clients who’ve launched programs they’re not really hyped about but they feel that they’ll make money. A great example of this is the “diet program.” You know the ones – “Lose 5 LBS in 5 Seconds.” Most folks know diet programs are money makers and, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE money. I have a great relationship with money, I think money is awesome and money is just energy after all. But if you’re not passionate about it, well, that’s going to come through energetically. There are plenty of peeps out there running very successful weight loss programs, Susan Hyatt and Brooke Castillo come to mind, the difference is that they’re crazy passionate about it and that shines through like a beacon in the sewers of that Anne Lamott retreat I’d sign up for.

Here’s the thing. There is SO much out there, so many offerings, so many people, so many programs, so much information. And I’m guessing 90% of the folks making an offering really have their full hearts in them and they’re most likely chock full of AMAZE.  So why wouldn’t they do well?  Is it over consumption? Is it inundation? Or could it be that we don’t see you?

When I search “Make More Money”, a common program I see, I find 2,900,000,000 results on Google.  When I look for “Grow Your Business”, another big theme of offerings, I would have to wade through 571,000,000 results.  ACK!  What differentiates you from the herd? What makes your program special? What’s your personal story around your offering and why are you so passionate about it? What unique part of YOU can only you provide to the world? What about you is different?  What do you truly love and what lights you up like nothing else? What one (or two… or five… or twenty) things do you absolutely feel that you MUST share with the world? Those are the questions I think we should be asking before we put something out onto the net.

At the same time I also want to allow for the magic to appear around my offerings without my usual pushiness and anal attention to detail. When I launched my coaching business I had no clue whatsoever that it would morph into my Book Shaman work as well. The Big U delivered that with a large red bow and it’s been one of the greatest gifts of my life (and a dream come true to boot.)  So, as I ponder my own next big thing, I’m giving myself lots of space to nap, to read, to find the perfect pen (a quest I’ve been on since I was eleven), and to consider what would make me squeal with joy to put out into the world. In fact, I’m just trying to follow the joy, period, and if the joy involves peanut butter and apricot jam, I’m out shopping for bread. I’m considering what I’m about, what uniqueness I can bring, including being able to eat a whole bag of Almond Joy pieces in one sitting. It’s all important, and it’s all me taking every one of my traits, pains, experience, lessons and each ounce of knowledge I’ve gleaned and mixing them up, adding in spice, and seeing how it tastes and then letting it simmer some more. Not to mention, leaving space for the magic might also mean that my offering looks like nothing that exists in my limited brain.

One thing I know for sure: Launching, for me, will look different than all the launches I’ve personally been involved with before, but that’s a post for another time – I have much to say about launches.

I am curious though… since this is just my hypothesis and I’m still batting it about, what pieces am I missing? What do you think makes for a successful offering? Why do you buy one program over another? What is it that compels you to say “yes?” What makes you say “hell no?”

Copycat, Copycat

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I’m not sure who learns more when I’m coaching a client – me or my client.  Perhaps it’s how a teacher feels when a genius kid shows up in their classroom and starts to school them. Either that or they mix up a stiff vodka cranberry, eat the ends of their pencils and curse their fate, I’m not sure.

I’ve been pondering the occurrence of copycatting as of late.  You know what I mean, right? When someone close to you, or even those not so close, try to either become you or they do every single thing that you do, just one or two steps behind. Most of us do this as teenagers. If I had been given a hunk of gold every time my mom told me, “If your friends jumped off a bridge, you would follow them,” I’d not only have a golden palace, I’d probably have a golden kingdom. The answer then was, yes, of course I would have. I was fifteen, indestructible and my friends were my life.

But I see it today too, and I still do this.  When I first met Martha Beck at her ranch in California I wanted to crawl right into her and wear her skin like a little meat tuxedo. There was such a peaceful presence within her and an inner power that felt palpable. I felt as if she were talking to me without saying a single spoken word. It was quite dizzying. I so admired the life she had built, I loved the inner tribe of spiritual seekers that she surrounded herself with and I too wanted a life where I was enveloped by horses, mountain lions and bears, oh my. It’s likely, in part, why I signed up and completed her Life Coach training. Not to mention the fact that I felt like I had come home and was able to see that there was a term for someone doing what I was doing in the world – Life Coach.

I’ve had people try to replicate my life as well. Folks who have wanted to become a coach like me. Peeps who have modeled their businesses after mine. Women who wanted to write in a similar voice. Girls who have gone back to college later in life because I did. Some have even copied my signature hair-do (which is the most egregious of all because, most of the time, my hair looks like an errant Q-Tip that has been shuffled around in a travel bag for the past twenty years or so.)

The thing is I never really understood why, until a few days ago on a coaching call with one of my dearest clients.  Jill Dryer, (who has graciously given me permission to write about her and our conversation) is probably one of the most creative women I know. Her energy is that of hummingbird meets eagle and you can literally feel her creative juice crackling through the phone line on our weekly calls. As we began to talk about copycatting which, by the way, is how it goes in coaching – if you’re noodling something in your own life, invariably your client will bring it up. (Is it collective consciousness? I don’t know, but it’s sometimes just flat out eerie.)

Anyhoo… as we were discussing this phenom, Jill said, “Think of the Tour de France.  If you’re trying to find your rhythm or you don’t know your way, it’s okay to ride behind the person in front of you, it gives you momentum and helps you to see where you’re going. It’s called drafting.”

My jaw dropped to the floor as this lil’ gem sunk into my bones. That’s why we do this.  I don’t want to be Martha and wear her meat suit. Truly I don’t, plus it would be completely psychotic and gross. I just needed to draft along behind her for a bit to test my speed, the wind, the climb and the terrain until I had the gumption to push out on my own and let the wind hit me straight in the face without buffer.

And all these peeps who are trying to replicate me, well, I don’t know why they’d ever want to, for one, but I get it.  It’s because they haven’t quite figured out what they are supposed to do so they’re riding along behind, using the momentum of the path I’m forging to test their own paths.

The best part of figuring all of this out was later realizing that no one is ever in the lead, really.  Even though some folks may be further down the path, (like Oprah or J.K. Rowling,) it’s not a race.  There’s not a first place or a second place or even a last place because we all have a different finish line that is as individual as we are.  Not only that, our paths are wholly different. While I have started out drafting behind some amazing women throughout my life, my course has veered and each time I’ve found my own way. (But… boy am I thankful they were peddling before me.)  However, just as certain as I am in this moment that I’m going it “alone”, invariably I will ride up behind someone who models something else for me, and I’ll rest a spell in her draft, getting a sense for the speed and route, before I forge on “alone” again. And so the “race” goes.

This is dedicated to all those trailblazers and all those fierce peddlers who have gone before me, gracious, amigas.  I’d love to hear who you would like to thank for allowing you to draft behind them. Tell me about your copycat stories.

With burning thighs,

Melanie

P.S. For those of you who read my Hysterectomy? Or No? blog, I’ve gone and done it… I’ll be having the surgery next Thursday, 4/10/14. Prayers and healinig juju welcome. This means I’ll be off my blog for a bit eating sugar-free JELL-O and counting the number of invisible bugs on my skin.  But… rest assured, I’ll be back.

The Arctic Tundra of My Soul

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I haven’t had much to say. Maybe you’ve noticed. More likely you were busy fighting with family over the turkey neck , making popcorn garland interspersed with bright red cranberries and hiding your kid’s frightening Furby on the back shelf at the top of your closet.  Perhaps you’ve been hanging out in said closet, below your fancy party dresses, eating your Valentine’s chocolates.  Maybe you’re mapping out your spring garden.

For a writer, having nothing to say feels like mammoth emptiness. It feels like the Grand Canyon, only bigger.  It feels like Russia. In the depths of winter. After a blizzard. At minus 40 degrees. Wearing only a white wife beater and a pair of tattered yoga pants.

I’ve been on a pretty intense spiritual journey over the past few months and my flip-flops are so worn out that the balls of my feet are pushing through the soles onto the pavement.

I’m exhausted.

I haven’t slept since October 2002.

I’m too tired to sleep.

The overarching theme of my recent spiritual road trip has been rest.

Whispering to horses

I recently traveled to California with Lissa Rankin to meet up with Martha Beck and her team for a “Heal the Healer” curriculum planning meeting. Our plan is to train fifteen doctors in a new way to practice medicine and the purpose of our trip was to experience what the healers will experience on the opening week of this program. Martha brought in a brilliant team: an amazeballs energy body worker, an astounding horse whisperer, a gifted coach and empath, and a number of others. I’m not wholly ready to share the entire experience with the world, but I will share one part of the weekend.

It was our first day working with the horses and Koelle Simpson, the horse whisperer, asked me before I went into the corral with my horse what intention I wanted to set. I told her that I wanted to reconnect; that I’d felt very disconnected for the past ten years. I also told her that, in the past, most of my relationships have ended because I’ve burnt myself out with my giving so that, once I’ve given all I could give without being filled in return, I bolt. Gone. No warning. No previous indication. Notta.  I eluded to this phenomenon here. Essentially I told Koelle that I wanted to end this pattern in myself and to reconnect to the magic.

Before I even entered the space with the horse I was crying. Not the sobbing-snot-running-down-your-face-guttural-cry that makes some folks uncomfortable, but rather the streaming-tears-rolling-down-your-face-crying that makes some folks uncomfortable; that kind that you can’t control no matter how hard you try to suck it up and make the tears stop.

When I finally went into the ring I stood maybe twelve feet from the horse. I didn’t approach it right away I just stood there looking at it, trying to feel what it needed. I did this for quite some time. Eventually I approached the horse and put my hand on its nose, still trying to gauge its needs. Koelle definitely had my number. She knew exactly what I was doing. And in the most loving way possible she chided me.

“What are you doing?” Koelle asked from the wooden platform above.

I don’t remember exactly how I replied, but it doesn’t matter. Koelle knew the answer already.

“The horse doesn’t need anything from you,” she said, “the horse is perfectly content. He’s curious. What are you trying to do?”

While I don’t remember my response, I too knew what I was doing. I was trying to see how I could help the horse. I wanted to sense how he was feeling. I wanted to be there for him. Was he scared? Nervous? Pissed off? Did he need to take a dump, but felt bashful because I was staring at him?

(Are you catching on to how utterly ridiculous that is? Yeah, I thought so.)

The thing is, Koelle was right. That horse didn’t need anything from me. And, just like that, my time in that corral became about me. Koelle asked me to do whatever I felt comfortable doing. And I walked right over to the center of that ring, ignoring the horse, and sat down in the soggy shit and mud and I cried that same cry that can’t be controlled.

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When Koelle asked what was coming up for me all I could say was “REST.”

My memory is so fuzzy, but I believe this is the time when Martha chimed in from the stands and told me to drop down into that feeling of rest. Apparently I dropped down so far into rest that all of the people in the stands could feel it. They closed their eyes and for some distance out and away from the corral there was a very heavy silence. It was as if my energy of rest were a storm rolling across the valley, blanketing everyone and everything in its path.

Suffice it to say I definitely reconnected to the magic that weekend and as Lissa and I were driving across California back home I told her I wasn’t ready for re-entry. She said she wished that she could show me Big Sur. I told her perhaps we should just go stay in Big Sur and so we did. It truly was a restful and peaceful time and the weekend was full of hot springs, calling in dolphins and bending forks with my mind (a blog for another time.)

The thing is, now that I’m home and back to the grind, I’m not sure I know how to rest. Take a nap? I have shit to do, I’ve got this blog to write, I’ve got buttloads of work waiting for me, I need to buy toilet paper.

Soul Truthing

Still ruminating on the idea of resting when my plate is as full as the Bellagio buffet, I used the gift of a Soul Truthing given to me for Christmas from Monica. I wrote down three questions and sent them to the slathered in Awesome Sauce Soul Truther Tracie Nichols. They were “action” questions like “Yo, what’s up with my novel” and “Tell me more about my business” and “Why am I so disconnected.”  Apparently, Tracie wasn’t moved by those she communicates with to tell me how to work harder or apply ass to chair to work on my novel (though we did get to those questions). No, rather she said she was being told that I needed to know that my flame has nearly died out; that I’m in a life raft, but I have the canvas pulled over my head and I am crouched in the fetal position.

She went on to say that in past incarnations my soul has been a brilliant, fierce and fiery blue-violet flame akin to Athena and Hera. When she told me my flame had nearly died out I could only picture a little, sputtery flame like those cheap-ass candles you buy at Walmart with the whacked out wicks that never burn properly and the build-up of wax almost puts the flame out altogether when you burn it.

It scared me. Does that mean I’m almost dead? It terrified me more because I felt the truth in her words. Not that I’m dying, but that my soul flame is a akin to a cinnamon apple candle from the Walmart that was made in China by folks who trim the wick too short and place it, not in the center, but to one side of the candle so that the blackened soot always rises to one side and stains my fingers. That’s my soul right now. Tired, exhausted, blackened – an itty bitty flame like an old man with erectile dysfunction.

Not only do I feel the truth in her words, I feel that truth in my body. I remember times in this life where I’ve been that fierce and fiery blue-violet flame. And I can also see that I snuffed it down with guilt, shame, copious amounts of vodka and distance from Source.

Tracie said there are resources hovering all around my life raft like fireworks. My anal detailed action mind wonders if they’re specific books, if they’re yoga, if they’re meditation, if I’m going to meet someone with one of those fireplace bellows doo-hickies that you pump together that blows air at my flame and fans it up.

My soul realizes that this is an inside job. Damned, though, if I don’t feel like I’m floating around in that life raft; no shore in sight. Perhaps, as with my overwhelming desire to rest, I’ve just been burning my candle at both ends. Regardless, my session with Tracie has had me reflecting for months with its depths and layers and I’m infinitely grateful for both my trip to California and my trip with this gifted soul truther.

So that’s where I am, my friends. I don’t have a closing for this blog. I haven’t figured it all out. I have no wisdom to impart; no neat wrap up with a recurring theme, a bright red bow and a card with a picture of a fluffy kitten. But I hope your spring garden reaps a beautiful harvest.