I had this theory when I was editing the book early on that the first 20% of the book would be the most difficult as it represented the least coherent and least understood part of the book. I can distinctly remember that I wasn’t quiet sure how I was going to go about writing the story, and what it was all about. The only thing that I knew was that I needed to continue writing every day, regardless of how many words I was able to make.
Now that I have, more or less, passed the first 10% of the book and am now coming into the next 10% of the book (I am actually 15% of the way into editing the book), I am really starting to feel the book unload from my fingers. It is pretty amazing. Every time I enter into the text, I can feel myself letting go more of the story. Its like, as soon as you know the bones of the story, you can simply let go, unwind, and spin the tale.
…as soon as you know the bones of the story, you can simply let go, unwind, and spin the tale.
Alixander
What’s more is how exciting it is to be digging deeper and deeper into the memories of the past and using them as more material. It feels like introspection as I dig deeper and deeper into what I know and what I feel and what I remember. Each piece of what I unearth might be something valuable to the reader, something that might serve them on their journey through their life story as well as mine.
So once you get part the University of Utah, you will arrive at the Red Butte Gardens. There is a road that is owned to up to a gate, and then it is dirt from there to the top…
Wait. I am getting ahead of my self….
This is my friend, Elaina. We’ve known each other a long time. She wanted to go on a hike for her birthday and I was stoked to be able to support her on her journey. And here is me, repping my favorite local band. I love the Red Butte area in the spring, summer, and fall. One of these days I am going to get crazy and show you how I do a winter on these hills.Well, she is crossing over the bridge of one year, and now into the next one. When I asked her what will be true about her self in the next year, she said that she would have her degree… “About time, too.”The trees had started their annual wardrobe change. It never ceases to amaze me that the world can be so mesmerizing with it’s displays. It’s like it knows how to entertain us all throughout our days.It was cool to see some areas that had changed in color and others that hadn’t. Here is one place that looked lovely… In two ways.The mountains made for a great back stop for a birthday. And I often wondered what she was thinking about. Truthfully, I think the allergies she was struggling with we’re really getting to her.Feeling a little worried about her allergies. I didn’t expect them to be like this, and she feels self conscious about it too.One we got to an area to take a quick water break, I snapped a quick selfie. I can see my house from here, can you? But for real though. There’s my city, my Salt Lake City! It was so nice having that storm yesterday, even if it was just the wind. The smoke had cleared with the winds and so it was a lovely day!In spite of the clear air, she looked like she was having a tough time. So I asked her if she was okay. She said her allergies were killing her and she really wished she would have brought a kerchief to blue her nose. I realized that she was really suffering and I did something I wouldn’t do for just anyone… I gave her the shirt off my back to use as a nose rag… Gross, but that’s what buds do…Really loved this picture. One of those rare moments when you capture someone who has not only overcome great difficulties on the hike, but has also overcome many other difficulties over the course of her life as well. I really didn’t get any more pictures of myself, I was topless after all, but I was really impressed with how she was handling everything. Besides look at what a great job she was doing navigating over broken terrain and steep ridge lines!After mounting the top of what we affectionately call “salient point”, we navigated down the south edge to find some very interesting rock formations…This was one of the many areas on the south side of big beacon. I call it the office as there seems to be an area to set up a canvas and a window, or view finder, to peer out of. This was another area and boy did I feel like home sweet home! Jk… it I think this is one of the areas that they call the living room.We sat together and enjoyed the sun in our little living area. It was nice to sit in stillness and silence the city masked of view and the quietude all about us. Truly a rare treat in our ever growing valley.That was a fun adventure! And I appreciate you following along. I hope you get a chance to go hiking with be sometime. In really do love it!
(Note: This picture was taken before I loaned my shirt to her as a nose rag…)
I used to wonder what was meant when someone said they were a marketer. I used to get this image in my head of a guy or gal tucked away in some cubicle making presentations for their bosses to either heckle to death or herrald as the next big thing.
When I got into my career as a Realtor, I thought of marketing as copy and paste. Copy the corporate message, paste it all over the internet. And if you’re lucky (which means putting in a lot of hours pasting the content everywhere you can), then someday someone just might buy it.
As you might imagine, I didn’t experience much success marketing this way. And so I became frustrated, and upset. I was doing everything the company wanted me to, why wasn’t I seeing success?
So I turned to the coaches of the company, to see what advice they’d give me. They’d say I needed to put in more hours, do more cold calls, imitate what he successful people are doing in the company.
And wouldn’t you believe it, I spent hours doing cold calls, I spent days posting corporate messages over the internet, and I changed everything about myself so as to look just like the top producers. From the social media channels I worked years on to make look just like me, to the very words I was saying to the people I know, love and trust… I was living in cognitive dissonance.
As you might imagine, I experienced very little success. Performing at about the same level as any average agent and completely deluding myself into thinking I was a top producer, I absolutely hated where my life was going. What’s more, I had almost nothing to show for it.
In spite of my best efforts to change who I was, there was something I could not change about myself: my desire and passion for writing and the written word.
It didn’t matter how much I replicated the corporate message over the internet, my hand written journal was a sacred space. It didn’t matter that I intoned scripts day after day, I still had genuine conversations with myself as I walked to work. And in spite of all of my hard work to fashion myself into something I wasn’t, I still felt the truth of each day as I read the works of other authors .
Now, for those of you who are new to the site, I read a lot of books. And for those who aren’t new around here, you know that I report on the books that I’ve read. It’s a passion of mine. I’ll probably do it for the rest of my life.
So when I encountered the title of Seth Godin’s book, I felt a strange allure. Aside from its look-at-me orange cover, and it’s bold but simple statement for a title, I felt that there might be an answer to my woes as a marketer: This is Marketing.
This is Seth. He is pretty freaking profound when it comes to stuff.
Come to find out, lots of folks have woes with marketing. They feel that marketing is synonymous with advertising, which Godin artfully discusses as being plainly untrue. Advertising is one way to get your story heard, he offers several strategies and principles that may just work better than advertising only.
Now seeing as I’d rather you read the book then have me report on every little detail of it, I mean Godin does a wonderful job educating his readers of a more enlightened path to storytelling than what can be confined to my book report, I do want to share with you a checklist of items that you might want to consider the next time decide to tell a story.
You see marketing is essentially artful storytelling. You have to consider who you’re talking to, and what you’re saying. Who you’re talking to will determine how you say it, and what you’re talking about will determine whether it is of any value to them at all. Advertising generally, doesn’t care who it is for. Advertising is built on the idea of interrupting you early and often, and hoping you’ll buy. When you’re talking between friends, it’s okay to interrupt when you are excited, but between strangers it’s an insult.
The next time you find yourself wanting to tell a story walk through the list below, it might be the difference between having no one here your story or going viral.
Seth Godin’s Simple Marketing Checklist
Who’s it for?
What’s it for?
What is the worldview of the audience you’re seeking to reach?
What are they afraid of?
What story will you tell?
Is it true?
What change are you seeking to make?
How will it change their status?
How will you reach the early adopters and neophiliacs?
Why will they tell their friends?
What will they tell their friends?
Where’s the network effect that will propel this forward?
What asset are you building?
Are you proud of it?
Now I know that was a lot. And it doesn’t necessarily make sense to go through the checklist every time you want to talk to your friend about some cool restaurant you went to, or a neat business idea that you have. The purpose of the checklist is to review internally what you’re trying to accomplish, who you’re trying to change. As Godin might put it, if you’re going to show up at least try to make things better. That checklist serves as guide rails for when you decide to show up.
Are you ready to start making things better? Which of the items in the checklist will help you make things better?
Alixander Court 