• Despite what our calendars tell us, now is a wonderful time to engage your new year energy.

    I know we’re in March, and our “New Year” was supposed to be two months ago, but as I’m going to explain, this tradition is actually a relic of bureaucratic decisions made a long time ago. We’re running an old calendar that doesn’t align very well with the natural cycle of time.

    When we re-align with a “natural” calendar, something based on deep time, our actions and energy can work in tandem with the phase the world is actually in.

    This is particularly pertinent to the practice of goal setting and new year planning.

    For over a decade now, I’ve relished the new year tradition. I love the downtime over Christmas, and then the invitation to mark the passing of the year.

    I’ve developed my ritual over the years. It starts with a deep review of the year just passed, with particular attention placed on my wins, successes and appreciations (gratitude is important for me to counter the “never enough” voice).

    And then my favourite part—a deep enquiry into my vision for the year ahead. What do I want to create? What is it that wants to come through this year?

    In more recent years I’ve learned how to then take all this, and “call it in” spiritually.

    What I realised this year, is that January 1st is a really fucking weird time of year to do it.

    Time cycles and ancient bureaucracy

    There is a cycle of deep time. Something that is built upon natural and real events, rather than the more arbitrary models our human culture tends to run on.

    This natural cycle is based upon the actual events that create our global year. It’s the time it takes for the Earth to fully orbit the Sun. This creates our seasons, our solstices and equinoxes. There is nothing arbitrary about this cycle.

    We start our year on Jan 1st, which does not align with this cycle. It’s close to the Winter Solstice, but not really. Why do we place it here? The Romans. Whose ancient tinkering is still coded into the way we think about time.

    Originally, the Roman New Year began in March, which was their first month. The period between December (the final month) and the beginning of the year was left as undefined “winter” time. This is something many pagan cultures did.

    In roughly 700 BC, the Roman calendar was upgraded from a 10-month to a 12-month system. January and February were added, and a 355-day year standardised.

    This screwed up the order, and the numerically named months got out of sequence. September comes from ‘sept’—seven. But where does it fall in our calendar? That’s right, ninth. The same issue goes for October—December. Oops.

    Gradually, more changes were brought in, including the moving of the New Year from March, back to January. This was a key move that is of course still preserved in our calendar.

    Why did they do it? In short—ancient bureaucracy. It had administrative advantages, and allowed them to better prepare for that Spring’s planned military campaigns.

    Which all results in some funky karmic energy still running through our New Year’s magic. As Dr. John Churchill says, we’re still running on empire time.

    A natural quarterly cycle

    As our world heads ever more frantically down the technological rabbit-hole, I feel many of us are called to a re-integration with the natural timing of things. To align with the deep code in our bodies with the cycles of change, expansion and contraction.

    We’ve got most of the right practices, we’re just doing them at the wrong time.

    Rather than follow an old calendar designed by an empire looking for military expansion, I believe we are being asked to remember and realign with the natural calendar that Earth provides.

    This is a calendar that is based on deep time—the actual passage of our planet around her Sun. The solstices, and the equinoxes are natural delineations of time given by astronomical and astrological reality.

    We adhered to this natural calendar for so long we don’t even know when it started. Though the solar alignment of many ancient structures gives us a clue as to how deep this knowledge went.

    And according to the natural calendar, now is a wonderful time to activate your new year energy. As we approach the Spring Equinox (March 21), and new life is sprouting all around us, the natural world is literally inviting us to join the growth party.

    From the perspective of natural time, this makes much more sense as the “start of the year”, and something that many cultures practiced for millennia.

    Making it real

    If you already have a plan for your year—you know what your goals and intentions are—then this is a great time to call it in, commit to it, and feed your soul juju into its bubbly excitement.

    If you don’t have a plan and you’re unclear what you’re aiming at this year, then this is also a great time to do that work. You haven’t missed the boat. You’re just in time.

    What is the essence of this practice?

    • The purpose is to get clear about your goals and intentions. This is what sets your aim for the journey ahead.
    • Source them from as deep a place as you can find. Take your time, let the truth come through you.
    • Write them out in a short list—get specific with your language. Shorter is better, distilling down the essence into simple language.

    Don’t ask AI to generate all this for you. What makes the process powerful is the struggle and learning as you translate what’s inside you into words. The result is infused with your own creative effort and is what sets the tone for the year ahead.

    My favourite way to “sign off” on my yearly plan is to do so in ceremony.

    After I stir up the magical field, I say out loud what my goals and intentions are. I call in the spirits of change, asking for help and guidance as I commit to the path for the year ahead. This is an embodied practice too—feeling the desire in my body as I speak, including the doubts and fears, declaring the commitment in my heart.

    This brings it into the present moment—making it a real and embodied declaration.

    There are many ways to do this kind of ceremonial commitment. The form is less important than the authenticity—making it your ritual, following your intuition. What makes it powerful is the pouring of your sincere intention into the vision.

    New life is sprouting all around. What wants to be born through you and your work this year?

    What will you create?

    I will be taking the goals and planning I did on December 31st, refining them into my plan for the next year, and invoking the spirit of Spring to help me create it.

    Would you like to join in?

    Ewan Townhead

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  • My upbringing gave me a very strong narrative about business: it’s corrupt and corrupts good people.

    It took me many years to unwind this story and reintegrate the archetype of the Merchant back into my worldview and life.

    It’s been a great lifeline for me, when I’m feeling like a shy artist, or entrepreneurial imposter, to remember the ethic of the Merchant. Giving the value and goodness you have is what makes things better for all of us.. And to not do that, for fear of this or that, is essentially selfish.

    This is a good antidote for any of us who can tend to hide away our light, for fear of what might happen.

    The archetype of the Merchant

    The Merchant is in the business of goods and services. Modern economic theory names this “value”. Which is a powerful, though somewhat dry notion. The deeper quality is “good” or “goodness.”

    This is the transcendent ethic at the heart of the Merchant, to offer goods in service of the greater good.

    It’s hard to appreciate this sometimes, given the scandalous ethics that so much of our actual global marketplace currently embodies. Nevertheless, beneath this cultural shadow is the deeper ethic of providing value, of creating goodness.

    Here’s the basic mechanic.

    When I provide you with something that carries high value for your particular circumstances, and you give me something back which is also highly valuable to me, then we both end up better off. The amount of total value is higher after our exchange. We’ve done something good for each other; we’ve created goodness that didn’t exist beforehand.

    Back in the day, this was pretty simple stuff. I’ve got goats, and you love goat sausages. You’re a baker, and I have no time/skill for making bread (I’m looking after all the goats). So we create an agreement, where I swap you my goat sausages for your bread. We’re both richer as a consequence of the exchange.

    We’ve both done something good for one another, and received that goodness back. The result is a net profit on both sides of the goodness equation.

    Our society is fixated on money as the metric of value. It’s so hard for us to imagine a world in which this wasn’t the case, that we’ve ended up falling foul of the shadow of money.

    The shadow of money is that it purports to be the goodness itself – that it itself is the value. While in fact, it is the measurement of value. We’re mistaking the sausage for the stick that measures it.

    Why is this important?

    Because understanding it unlocks a new level of freedom for the entrepreneur who doesn’t know how to “bring in more revenue” or the freelancer who wants to “make more money”.

    Magic dashboards

    Imagine a metrics dashboard that would show you the current status of your business. And the big window at the top says “Goodness provided to people this month”. (Rather than our actual metrics dashboards, which of course feature “income” or “revenue”.)

    It’s a magic dashboard, so it can actually measure the total value of all the things you’ve done. There are countless things that make this number go up, but which have no financial exchange attached.

    An hour on zoom with someone, helping them out with their thing. Sending out a productivity cheat sheet to the folks on your mailing list. Messaging someone with the idea that popped into your head on Thursday. Getting out the barbeque and cooking up some goat meat sausages for your friends and family.

    These things would all pump the numbers in this imaginary value dashboard. If this thing actually existed, you could measure your success by “goodness created” rather than “money earned” (or God forbid, “number of social media likes”.)

    I like this idea. It casts the game of business into an entirely different light. The goal is giving goodness, which by the law of the merchant’s code, and a result of his skill, results in a receiving back of reciprocal goodness.

    In other words, over the long term, as you saw your “goodness created” go up, you’d also see your revenue (monetary income) rise along with it. For the two are of course deeply related. Since, at the energetic root of the merchant’s action lies the exchange of value, which creates extra value.

    The filling of one extra goat intestine with fresh meat is no skin off my nose…it’s “cheap” to me. Yet the convenience of munching on your tasty bread with no extra effort expended, is really quite valuable to me. So the swap creates extra value that hitherto didn’t exist. That’s the equation at the root of commerce.

    Our culture has made it exceptionally easy to do. Because money fills a second role for us, alongside it’s “measurement of value”. It is a “store” of value. In other words, I can “store” the value of my goat sausages in the form of money. Classically this was coins. Everyone valued the metal the coins were made of, and so could safety “sell” the coins again in the future.

    We barely even use coins any longer. Our money is now digitalised, such that I can swap it for unprecedented numbers of things with unprecedented ease.

    And that’s of course where the shadow of money rears its ugly head. We shoot for money being the target, the goal of business and life. Forgetting that the point is the sausage, or the deep satisfaction that comes from doing what you’re really good at, knowing it really benefited someone else.

    Playing a good game

    The goal is to create goodness. Doing what you’re good at and giving that goodness to others in the form of goods or services.

    Even “non-professional” goodness counts! Calling your mother to catch up can create more goodness than brainstorming a new business strategy.

    One thing to remember however is that you create a great deal of goodness when you start with what you’re good at. Where is your value? I’m assuming you don’t make premium goat sausages. So what is it?

    From the ethical perspective of the merchant, selfishness is when you don’t proactively offer your goodness in the marketplace.

    I know a great many “old souls” (this one included) who struggle to fully present their value in the marketplace, because they don’t want to be pushy, or they feel like imposters. While from the inside this can feel real and important. From the outside it results in your goodness being withheld from people who would benefit from it. Which is indeed a form of selfishness.

    So the perspective shift is from “how can I make more money?” to “how can I create more goodness (value)? Even if you do want to create more money, the metric I suggest you optimise for is ‘goodness created’.

    If you want to be strategic about it, you can ask yourself “how can I create goodness for the people I want to work with professionally?” This helps you funnel your goodness toward the people you want to build your business for.

    It’s a lot easier for someone to say “I’d like to pay for more of the goodness you’re already giving me.”

    Another way of looking at this is that it’s a practice of generosity — of giving your goods, without a strategic objective of return. The law of the universe seems to handle the returns (you’re not in control what they are).

    This is a form of reciprocation. Humans are wired to reciprocally return generosity. Indeed, many people feel guilty if they’ve been given a kindness and haven’t returned one.

    The real payoff though, is the shift of focus from the stick to the sausage. The point is the goodness. The practice of doing what you’re good at, and of doing good in the world. This makes us feel useful, like we’re making good on the gifts and plans we came down here with.

    You get to be good to people. Live a good life. Which feels so good.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • I’m in the “business of transformation”. If you’re reading this, I’ll assume you are too. The transformational professional seeks to create an experience for someone that allows them to change, not on the surface, not in their “efficiency”, but in the very structure of their being.

    This is becoming big business.

    As the new marketplace of coaches, purpose guides, cacao yogis, and unicorn shamans grows ever busier, I want to address the economics of transformation—how we as professionals sell this elusive outcome.

    Because there are plenty of snake-oil peddlers out there—plenty of “discover your purpose in 30 days” or “heal your soul wounds with these 6 easy steps”. If you listen carefully, you’ll discern the subtle scream for attention between their words.

    It is not this prevalence of this naïveté that I want to address however. I want to talk about the genuine problem of selling this “merchandise”. For transformation is a tricky product to package. And an even trickier effect to measure.

    You can’t measure it in hours. It’s not a tactical exercise. There is no clear “problem” that we’re seeking to solve in the next 90 minutes of our coaching session. I can’t put “hours in one end” and “get transformation out of the other.” It doesn’t work like that.

    Cultivating the mysterious

    The transformational process is mysterious, and unpredictable. It is by definition, surprising—the results of a genuine metamorphosis cannot be accurately discerned from the prior state. Transformation brings together the existential dilemmas that bind us, lights a fire under our ass, burns away the old, and creates the new from its ashes. It draws us down into the deepest questions we hold.

    Who are you?

    What is being asked of you?

    These are not questions that can be fully lived into and unfolded, within the confines of a “two-day intensive”. The goal cannot be achieved in this time frame. In fact, the goal cannot even be achieved in a year, or ten.

    Because the goal is not something that is “achieved”. It is of a different categorical nature.

    The goal is the cultivation an unknown future potential, whose seed can be planted, nurtured, and encouraged. But the result is not within the control of our conceptual minds, or pragmatic hands. It cannot be promised by the practitioner.

    What can be achieved in the creation of a space—an existential garden—where Being itself can grow, from the deep substructures of our archetypal nature, up into the luminous heights of our divine potential.

    The great Chaos of Nature gives no guarantees. The process is an alchemical meeting between two human beings, between a coach and a client, between the conscious and the unconscious, between the known and the unknown, between the past of identity and the future of our potentials.

    Nut nevertheless, it is an experience—a product—that must be sold, in the marketplace. This is new.

    The Merchant and the Seeker

    The enlightened master in the mountains—the seeker of the spiritual path— is not generally close friends with the merchant in the marketplace. It is an estranged relationship, as it has been for centuries past.

    The purity of the spiritual path has hitherto rejected the profit of trade— “the dharma should be free” they have cried through the halls of the temples. The substance of the spiritual path cannot be turned into a commodity that is sold.

    Equally, the marketable needs of the commons do not stretch to such abstract and unquantifiable notions as “awakening” or “self-realization”, The merchants and traders have ignored the spiritual technologies, favouring more “saleable” and “immediate” goods that can reliable turn a profit.

    It is only in the last half century that these archetypal postures, have begun to rub shoulders, and have had to contend with their apparently oppositional moral outlook.

    And it is only now, in the new bazaar of work that the information age has birthed, that it has gone beyond the possible integration of these opposites, into the necessary integration of them—the necessity to integrate them to such an extent that it underlies the way we actually go about our day, and enact our work.

    This integration work entails an honest and oftentimes humbling admission of our biases, and caricaturing of “the other”. I have found, both in myself and many of the people I work with, a preferencing of the spiritual, and a suspicion of the mercantile. The spiritual is “high”, “luminous” and “worthy”. The mercantile is “shallow”, “manipulative” and “greedy”.

    But to the extent that we deny the intrinsic and necessary truth of the mercantile perspective, we banish said truth to the shadows. The repression of this posture creates a “shadow merchant” that we see everywhere out in the world, and not at all in ourselves.

    “Capitalism” and its exponents then becomes a dark spectre over our world, manipulatively siphoning off wealth and exploiting anything and anyone they can extract profit from. This is a problem.

    The Good Merchant

    There is a “good merchant” that is revealed when the “shadow merchant” has been faced, and reabsorbed. This archetypal posture is based on the ethics of trade. And to be an “agent of change”, to “give your gifts to the world”, to “live your purpose”, you must understand and embody this posture.

    The ethics of trade are based on a very simple truth—voluntary and honourable exchange enriches society.

    When we both walk away from an exchange, feeling like we got a good deal, it enriches both of us with goodness.

    This is the brilliant insight of the merchant. Slowly, though each incremental exchange between honest people, society at large becomes enriched, and we all benefit.

    This is true whether the exchange be material, informational, or transformational. It is true when I work with a client.

    “I feel so grateful. I get to work with someone who inspires me. We have fascinating discussions about the nature of work, and the ways in which he is called to his deepest expression. It fulfils me more than anything, to see another human being grow into who they are, and touch the communities around them. And for this I get paid so handsomely that I can dedicate myself to this work with all my vitality. Fuck yeah.”

    “Wow. I worked with him for a year, and he helped me transform the entire way I approach my work. I’m clearer than ever about what I’m here to do. I signed my dream client. I’m super productive, and my wife just told me she’s never felt more in love with me. What a bargain.”

    The world is literally a richer place after this exchange has taken place.

    I have more than when I started. More money. More understanding of the transformational journey. More gratitude for life. More pride at the work of my fellow human.

    He has more than when we started. More clarity about his work. More energy and juju. More creative production. More income. More love. More embodiment of his purpose here in life.

    The transformation that has occurred will ripple out into the future—in both our lives—in ways neither of us can predict or track.

    This kind of trade is hard to put a price on. But value it we must.

    The price of change

    A life transformed. What is this worth?

    €1,000?
    $10,000?

    There is no one number. The price is determined by the context—it is the figure that energetically charges the container with commitment and devotion, on both sides.

    A close friend of mine coaches CEOs. He is very skilled. He changes people’s lives deeply. To work with him for a year costs $100,000. I mentioned this to my mother once, and she felt really quite uncomfortable about the whole affair. It looked greedy, and ugly to her. But this is because the context is foreign to her.

    The CEO pays $100,000 because that’s the number that symbolizes commitment to him—investment in a demanding process. The fee for coaching is in one important respect the “promise to do the deep work required”. This is why “free coaching” rarely works. There’s not enough at stake. There isn’t enough energetic commitment, and so the whole project deflates and falls flat.

    The CEO’s $100k is like my €10k. Or another’s €1k. It’s a big investment—whatever “big” means to me. It’s a stretch. I know that to get the return, I really need to show up and access a different level of being and functioning. The size of the number is symbolic of the level of significance it holds for me. It’s a “big” moment.

    When I pay a “big amount” at a “big moment” in life, “big things” happen.

    I paid my first coach $4,000. It felt like a ridiculous sum at the time. I freaked—the—fuck—out. But now I can look back at the change that occurred, and see what an absolute bargain it was.

    $10k to the CEO, or €1,000 to me is a figure that can just be thrown at something. And if it doesn’t work out? No biggie.

    Money is the way we “charge” the transformational container with energy. It’s not about the actual figure. It’s about the contextual figure that represents both the size of the game we want to play, and the nature of the arena in which we’re playing.

    The new way

    It is a tricky business. To hold in one hand, the integrity of a process of awakening that cannot be measured by material means, or “replicated at scale”—and in the other, the goodness of trade, and the necessity to offer our products in the marketplace at a price that makes the transformation itself possible.

    But it is this integration that we must each contend with as transformational professionals, walking the line between self-gratifying greed and selflessly inept charity, between impractical spiritual depth and well-packaged superficiality.

    We must come to understand the world of the merchant and the seeker to such a degree that we can embody their essentials truths, and weave them together so as to seed the transformation we are devoted to in the first place.

    This is new. The new way. To hold the ethical precepts of both the merchant and the seeker—the marketer and the mystic—in such a way as the economics of transformation make it available to those who need it, and profit those who offer it.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • It’s been three years now since I started calling myself a coach. I’ve worked with a whole range of people. It’s been challenging, it’s been enlightening, and it’s been deeply fulfilling.

    Sometimes, a client’s life has been truly transformed – issues that have blocked them for decades dissolves, and a new path opens up in front of them.

    Sometimes I’ve worked with a client and we didn’t fit that well, and I think they walked away feeling grateful but a little disappointed.

    Sometimes it’s not until 6 or 12 months after the coaching that my clients tell me everything has changed, and how thankful they are for the work.

    I’m still very much a student of coaching, but I feel it’s time to speak to some of the principles that I’ve discovered in my work.

    This is not an exhaustive list. Neither is it particularly carefully structured. It’s a bunch of ways I think about coaching, and things I try to remember every time I sit down with a client.

    These are not principles of coaching.

    They are principles of my coaching.

    If they don’t work for you, please ignore them completely. If they do work, use them.

    1) You have to coach your way

    When you try to be a “good” coach, when you attempt to get it “right”, when you do your very best to fit in with what a coach is expected to do, you will strangle the mojo. Your mojo. Your way.

    Coaching is simply a method of helping someone.  How do you want to help them? How do you organically work with someone if you drop the ideas of best practice?

    Do you want to create a safe space, listen deeply, and help them extract their own answers? Do you want to lovingly challenge the fuck out of them, express your opinions, and push them?

    Do you feel more powerful when you keep the pace really slow, and explore the somatic and emotional feelings of the moment? Do you like to ignite the fireworks of ideas and dreams, and be buffeted by their explosiveness?

    There’s no code. There’s no rulebook. There are no guaranteed steps to success. There are no models of perfect practice.

    There’s you, your client, and the conversation that wants to occur between you. It’s an emergent mystery.

    Do it your way. Find your way. Take risks to understand your way. Reflect to define your way.

    It never ends. But it’s your way.

    2) Surrender and desire in the face of the unknown

    To coach someone is to enter into the unknown. For an hour or more, you’re going to enter a conversation, a meeting, and neither of you knows what’s going to happen.

    And yet, into this unknown space, we bring things.

    I bring into the conversation a desire to really get this person in front of me – who they really are. I want to feel their pain, and their desire. I want to understand what they’re being called to, and help them face it. I strive to orient them from what is most true.

    My clients bring their aspirations and struggles, and the commitment they’ve made to the coaching journey. They often bring questions or specific challenges. Sometimes they come with an epiphany they’ve had since our last conversation, and a new view of their reality. They bring their fears and wounds. They bring their brilliance and natural wisdom.

    And we enter unknown territory.

    We surrender to what wants to emerge in the space between us. We surrender to the great mystery. And let the conversation surprise us.

    We follow our desire. We create the conversation we want to have.  We envision the life they want to live.

    And we see what happens.

    3) It’s about them

    It’s not about you.

    It’s not for your gratification. It’s not meant as a support for your insecurity. It’s not supposed to validate your sense of worth.

    The purpose of the work is for you both to serve one of you.

    The coach gets helped too in the process. But the goal is to serve the client. This is what distinguishes coaching from a friendly chat, or brainstorming, or a healing treatment, or a strategy meeting.

    You’re both there to help them create something they want. It’s about them.

    4) You’re not impartial

    It’s about you too. How could it not be? You can’t turn off your own humanity.

    Therapy mistakenly believed we could be ‘impartial’. It’s a nice idea, and a noble intention, but impossible in reality.

    Don’t pretend you don’t have opinions. You do.

    Don’t hide your intuitions, because you’re supposed to be objective. You’re not.

    You have desires. You feel things about the relationship, and your client. It’s not a problem. It’s not something to hide.

    Your job is to learn how to include yourself in the conversation such that it is in the most service of your client.

    If you’re sitting there watching as they desperately scrabble around for an answer, commendably being “impartial” when you actually know exactly what they need to hear. Say it.

    If you’re growing irritated by their avoidance of something, and you realize you want to go deeper. Reveal it. Tell them, and then hash it out.

    Learn to feel when it’s the right time to keep quiet, and when it’s the right time to reveal your own experience.

    5) The truth of language

    If you’re going to play in the depths with people, you need to understand how the words we use, open or close the moment.

    Sometimes I have intuitions about big decisions my clients make. I feel whether the direction will truly serve them. Sometimes I tell them.

    Perhaps they’ve just been asked to take part in a big new project, and they’re thinking of doing it. But believe its resistance at play, tempting them away from the thing they actually want to be doing. I decide to tell them.

    “That’s not a good idea. You shouldn’t do that.”

    If I say it like this, I close the conversation. Instantly. Not because I’m being “negative”, but because I’m not being linguistically accurate.

    My statement is factually untrue.

    It’s not objectively a “good” or “bad” idea. There’s no universal rule that says “you shouldn’t.” These are not objective facts. And if I convey them this way, I either close down my client and they lose touch with their own centre. Or they feel unseen, or pissed off, and they throw up their guard, or withdraw.

    It’s an opinion, not a fact. And more importantly it’s my opinion. So share your opinions, as opinions, and you’ll maintain a free market on “the truth”, helping both of you find more of it.

    “I don’t believe that’s what you really want to do.”

    Then you can have an honest conversation about it.

    6) I love my clients

    I love who they are, and who they become as we explore what they’re really called to.

    I think about them before sessions. They pop up in my awareness from day to day. I’ll text them sometimes. I’ll forward links sometimes. I do it with ex-clients too.

    I want my clients to succeed. Because if there is anything I wish for a human being, it’s that they continually discover who they are, and express themselves in the world through art and service. That they contribute, and change things.

    So when I see the people I work with travelling this path it gives me enormous fulfilment and pride.

    And if I ever notice myself getting wrapped up in trying to “be a good coach” or get validated by them, I pause, and I put my attention on my heart, and my love for them.

    7) Challenge them, as love

    And when I love them, I can begin to really challenge them. I can push them because it’s what my heart wants to do with them, for them.

    “I think you’re hiding. And I think you know it too. But you’re afraid, so you’re not listening to yourself.”

    Challenging my clients has been a challenge for me! I don’t want to upset people, I don’t want to offend them, make them angry so they pull away from me. I’m British. One needs to be polite. I’m also introverted. I like peace and harmony.

    But when I have my heart open, my anger can flow in service of them. Not with aggression, or ill intent, but simply the fiery strength to say:

    “I love you, and I think you’re holding back.”

    8) Connect with faith

    God. Your higher self. The universe. Whatever you want to call it, you have to stay on connection with what is larger than you. Both as the coach yourself, but also to help your client do the same.

    In the midst of transformation and change, reality can look pretty weird, and feel incredibly confusing. What’s true? Do I really want to make this audacious new training program? Who am I to write about the theological nature of reality?

    Without this sense of connection, the overwhelming doubt and chaos of the unknown can shut you and your client down.

    Trust that God wants something from you. From them. Feel it. Connect with it. It’s what gives light in the dark times. It’s what gives strength in the midst of the existential wobble.

    And it’s beautiful. And incomparably powerful.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • What’s the point?

    I don’t mean, in the self-deprecating fashion that we can be prone to. The one where the internal voice whines “oh, what is the point?”

    I mean, what’s the point – the sharpened statement that conveys the essence of what you do?

    Do you know?

    Do you have it written down? Do you tell people?

    The age of specialism

    I remember those times when someone asked what I do, and I had this vague response that killed any curiosity they’d had a moment before.

    “I’m an entrepreneur.”

    “Interesting. And how long have you lived in Amsterdam?”

    In a crowded marketplace, where more and more people are setting up their stalls, sharpening the point of what you do is what distinguishes you from the throng.

    This is the age of specialism.

    The mass market is full up.

    The ones who succeed are those that get ruthlessly specific about who they serve, and how they serve them.

    So that they can get on with the business of serving them.

    Help people make a decision

    When someone reads your website, they want to make a decision. They want to decide if you’re someone who could help them.

    The word decision means the opposite of incision. To make an incision is to cut into something. To make a decision is to cut away the excess.

    They want to cut away the unclarity.

    “Yes. That sounds exactly what I need right now. I’m interested.”

    “No. Not what I’m looking for at the moment. But thank you.”

    It’s your job to help them make that decision.

    The point of your work, is the tip of the sword. The sharpened point, where the breadth of everything you do, comes down to one small and refined idea.

    A sharpened point is what allows you to sink the blade of your service deeper into their being, opening up possibilities, freeing potential.

    It’s what allows the person you’re relating with, to decide if they want to spend more time with you.

    The magic is in the specificity

    “I help designers be more effective.”

    There are a million people helping designers now. And everyone wants to be more effective. What do you really do?

    “I help designers create beautiful work that moves their clients to tears.”

    The sharper the point of your blade, the deeper it will go into those who want you, and the more powerfully it will turn away those who need another’s help.

    The magic is in the specificity of your words.

    The clarity is not just for them

    It’s for you too.

    If you know – because you’ve worked hard to hone the words – what the point of your work is, then it becomes obvious when you stray from the path.

    If I have left the point of my work dull and blunt, then my penetration into the world will be dulled and blunted.

    Bluntness begets bluntness.

    Sharpness begets sharpness.

    And we live in a time where people want the keen blade of truth, to open up their world in beautiful ways. A time when they want the right person. One they trust.

    Show them the point of your work, so that they can go deeper, if they want to.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • I’m writing an ebook. I thought it was finished, then I discovered it wasn’t.

    It will be out later this year, and it’s called How to Market Your Art. So, as a little teaser, here’s a very practical description of some of the main ways I market my own art.

    First though, a quick word about ‘art’. When I say market your art, I don’t just mean paintings, or songs (although it could be those things). I mean your Creative Work – the expression of who you are through artefacts that move and provoke people.

    Everyone has their own art. It may be more or less visible. It may be more or less skilfully expressed. But your art is your art.

    And then there’s sharing it – marketing it. This is where ‘artists’ traditionally possess less skill, or more resistance. But it’s crucial. Because art doesn’t count if you don’t share it.

    So, here are the 3 main ways I share my art.

    I’m only going to write about three, because they’re the only ones I can speak to with lived authority. They are not the best. They’re simply the ones I find most aligned with my work (so far).

    1. I write on this blog

    As a writer, this is my most important platform. It’s where I put my most in-depth and rigorous work. I’ve written very long articles, and shorter pieces. I’ve written practical business articles and I’ve written poetry. If anyone asks about my work, this is where I always point them.

    I don’t have a strict publishing schedule. Normally every couple of weeks or so I publish a new piece. I’ve experimented with weekly. At the moment, I’m incredibly sporadic with publishing here due to the writing of the ebook, and various other excuses!

    I only write about the things I want to write about. I have an ongoing list of article ideas. Sometimes I pull one out and sit down to write. Sometimes I just journal and something comes out of it. Sometimes I plan something out heavily in advance. Sometimes something pops up and I have to sit down and write it out.

    Most of my writing will never be read in public, because most of it isn’t very good.

    I write for me first, and my audience second. Which doesn’t mean I don’t constantly think about what would help my tribe. But I’m an artist first, and unless I’m writing something because I want to, because I feel called, it normally falls flat.

    Sometimes writing for me first means the first draft, and then I reframe it during the re-edit. Sometimes it means writing the piece I really want to, and then writing a second one that addresses something I know folks are coming up against.

    Both aspects are crucial. Writing for me. And writing for others.

    Titles are important. I try to write article titles that do two things. Firstly, a title must represent the piece accurately. Otherwise, I’m being misleading or vague. Secondly, a title must be written to draw people in. Attention is at a premium. Write titles that really elicit curiosity for your tribe. Sometimes it’s hard, don’t sweat.

    These were some of the titles that really worked for me.

    The Most Powerful Question I Know

    Speaking Your Truth can be a Trap

    6 Stories that Stop Us Creating our True Work

    It’s a loud market place out there, and you do have to interrupt people. Here’s no way around that. Good titles interrupt people’s newsfeed scrolling…

    “Oh, that sounds intriguing…” *click*

    2. I email my tribe

    When I work with my clients on their marketing, this is the platform I almost always say is a non-negotiable. If you want to grow your tribe in today’s marketplace, a mailing list of the people in your tribe is basic necessity.

    It’s important because this is the place I get to speak directly to my core tribe. These are the folks that have given their explicit permission to speak to them. They want to hear from me, they want to be led deeper into the ideas that I write about.

    If you have an engaged list of several thousand people (which is no small tasks these days) that like what you offer, then you probably have a sustainable business (at least for you the artist).

    An email list is like your tribal meeting hall. Every time you have something you want to share with your followers, you can simply drop your words into an email, and suddenly, they all get it, direct to their inbox.

    I use Aweber for my email list, I’ve used it for years. Mailchimp is also good, and is free for the first 1,000 subscribers.

    When I email my list, I try to be very personal, very direct, and ‘un-markety’.

    You know those lists you’re on and every time their email arrives in your inbox, a voice inside your head says “Oh nice! I love their emails, let me go read it” – that’s what you want with your own list.

    Don’t write newsletters, write letters, like you would write to your friends. Don’t try and ‘sound professional’ just be your post-conventional self.

    “Hey Horatio, I wrote a thing about un-markety marketing. I’ve wrestled with doing good marketing without being an ass for a long time. And I had some interesting thoughts about it this week. I think it might help you. Here’s the link, I hope you like it.”

    There’s no formula for email. Everyone has to find their own groove. Here’s what I would advocate though.

    • Show yourself, write in the first person, don’t be ‘professional’
    • Tell people what you have for them and why you think it will be useful or interesting
    • Tell them what you want them to do. Be direct. “If you’re curious, click this link.”
    • Write to them consistently. It doesn’t have to be on a schedule, but these are your peeps, be in relationship with them.
    • Train them to expect good stuff when they open your email, or click a link

    Email lists are secure, private and powerful. The rules can’t be changed on you suddenly, like on Facebook or other centrally controlled platforms.

    Whatever your art, whatever you create and share, allow people to easily stay in close relationship with you. Have sign-up boxes on your website. Invite them in warmly. Tell them what they’re signing up for, explicitly

    “I’ll email you every couple of weeks with my new stuff. I hope it serves the shit out of you. Unsubscribe any time.”

    And then welcome them when they sign up. Maybe you want to give them a gift for signing up. Maybe you don’t. But welcome them. These are your people.

    3. I write on Facebook

    Facebook is a powerful and unique platform, if you use it the way it’s designed to be used. Facebook is not a marketing platform. What I mean by that, is…you can’t directly promote stuff on Facebook. Well, you can, but it will probably bomb.

    “Do you struggle to be productive when it comes to phalange making? Sign up for my free webinar: “Phoebe’s 7 secrets to powerful phalanges.” It’s free, but places are limited.”

    You might get a couple of ‘likes’ but mostly, people really dislike this stuff on Facebook. It’s like walking into a party and trying to flog your latest thing. People are there to socialize and share connection, not listen to your pitch.

    Here’s how I use Facebook. I learned this from Michael Ellsberg who is a fabulous writer and has a wonderful course on the art of writing for Facebook.

    1. Learn to notice when interesting ideas float past in your mind. Get used to grabbing them with a butterfly net. They happen naturally, practice seeing them.
    2. If an idea has a somatic feeling with it – a fizz in your chest, gurgles in your chest, excitement, fear – then stop what you’re doing and open up Facebook.
    3. Type right into the status update box (don’t copy and paste from Word), and share your thoughts. Reveal yourself, don’t self-edit. Don’t try and sound clever. Get vulnerable. Share what you’ve learned, or how you see something. Share your process or your story.

    Because people are bored of pitches, and inspirational quotes, and cat pictures, and political choir-preaching.

    They’re also tired of what Michael calls bliss fronting – showing only the good shit, in a dis-proportionate way, or an attention seeking way.

    “OMG. I just had the most amazing meeting. I’m blown away.”

    “I just love myself so much. Life is awesome. I’m awesome. Wow.”

    It’s the bliss front. What about the shitty backside? Show us. Why did the meeting impact you? Why do you want to share it? When do you also not love yourself? Tell me vulnerably how awesome you are. Or tell me what’s been really hard for you, and how you navigate it.

    I’ve used Facebook to push my edge with my writing. I write about anything that interests me. I’ve shared very tender personal things about feeling like a little boy who just wants everyone’s attention. I’ve written about politics and stirred dissent among many old friends.

    And that’s the thing about Facebook. It normally contains a pretty diverse range of people from your life. And it can feel almost unbearable to write things on there that you would really rather certain people didn’t know about you.

    Your edge is yours to find and flirt with.

    What I will say is that Facebook is an amazing space to practice self-revealing. If you can tell people on Facebook that you’re actually into BDSM, or Astrological therapy, or Libertarianism, or you’ve just divorced your partner, or your father died, then you can tell anyone.

    Some people may unfollow you. Let them. And new people will friend request you. Let them. You have no obligation to please your Facebook friends. It’s your party. If they don’t like your toasts, then encourage them to leave, with love.

    And then share your art there too. I post all my blogs on Facebook, along with a short message. I’ve had an awful of people find my work through Facebook. An awful lot.

    Just remember, it’s a social-network, not a marketing-channel.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • Sometimes when I sit down to write these more instructional posts – the one’s where I’m trying to teach you something that practically helps you – I assume a position.

    I hear myself with this haughty voice in an upper-class English accent.

     “I, Lord Ewan, in my superior consciousness, and infinite generosity, I will impart the knowledge which you, dear muggles, have yet to command as I have. Now, listen carefully.”

    I’m sorry. It’s my way of covering my own insecurity. It’s been a life-long habit.

    Because in reality, the topic I’m going to tell you about here (honestly, like all of the things I write about) is one I still consistently trip over. I’ve studied and practiced marketing for 7 or 8 years now. And yet I’ve always done so with a slight begrudging tolerance. And I wrestle with it continually.

    I have some nasty marketing allergies. Perhaps you do too. And if you do, I want to offer you and I some anti-histamine.

    Because marketing – when done right – is powerful as fuck. And too many of us are turning away from that power, because we don’t know how to grasp it both honorably and effectively.

    If that resistance to wielding the power of marketing is something that affects you, then I hope this article will help.

    So here are five of the most common marketing allergies and beliefs I see. And how to heal them, so you can get on with the work you’re here to do.

    (And you may notice that a lot of my imaginary marketing examples have do with sex. It’s apparently on my mind a lot at the moment.)

    1. Marketing is immoral and manipulative!

    “Buy my six secrets to sandwich sex and you too will have the life of your dreams”

    And if I’m feeling lost, desperate, and a yearning to have the kind of sandwich sex I fantasize about, I grasp onto the promise. And if the promise does not match the reality, I feel played, tricked. You told me I’d have the life of my dreams! And I did everything you told me to, and I’m still impotent. The cheese and Gherkin baguette alludes me still.

    Marketing – like any form of communication – can indeed by manipulative. But simply because we have a lot of internet-marketing vacuum salesmen, it does not therefore mean all marketing is manipulative.

    Let’s think of a scale. On the extreme right is manipulation. A deliberate inflation and misrepresentation of the truth that is designed to generate maximum short term sales.

    On the extreme left is apology. A contracted deflation of what is offered, to minimize sales through fear. I’m afraid that my product is not worthy or good, and so I downplay it. Which is just as manipulative, it’s just bent the other way. And incidentally, this is often far more comfortable a manipulation for those of us with marketing allergies.

    The centre point is persuasive translation. I’m going to be honest first and foremost. I’m not going to deliberately misrepresent the truth. I am however, going to try and persuade you of the value of my offer, in language that you can understand.

    You have to spell it out, and convince them of the potential value. You have to overcome their limited understanding, and educate them.

    “Why would I need to buy a jewel encrusted butt plug? My regular rubber one is fine. It does the job.”

    “Well, you probably don’t need it. But my experience of this plug is really different. When I use it, I feel like a queen. It feels regal and classy, and it helps me overcome my shame of using such a “seedy” thing in the first place.”

    “Oh, that sounds cool. I like that. Ok, I’ll try it out!”

    2. Marketing is inauthentic and shallow

    If I market myself, I need to put on some kind of persona. I need to look like those other chaps who are great at marketing. With snazzy squeeze pages and red arrows, and bold promises that sound too good to be true.

    So much of marketing is outward focused. I call this deterministic marketing. It’s what we normally think of as marketing. We determine who our target customer is, we determine what our product is, we determine what our brand is, and then we go out and enact strategies that get those target customers to be attracted to the brand and buy our stuff.

    As I’ve written about before, there are real problems with this approach, particularly if you’re at early stage of your business. But even if you’re a seasoned entrepreneur, this approach often runs into inauthenticity anyway.

    Because if you spend all your energy trying to determine the right models and brand for your customers, it can be easy to forget your own self, the way you naturally show up or say things. Which is why you need to counter-practice with the flip side of marketing.

    Revelational marketing is the practice of showing yourself as you are, and allowing the tribe that naturally fits you, to find you. It’s the opposite of determinism. It’s surrender to current reality. Reveal who and how you are, and see who organically resonates.

    Both are important. And when you marry the ideal (deterministic marketing), with the real (revelational marketing), you get a very powerful partnership.

    Many ‘experts’ teach only deterministic marketing, and it can indeed look very inauthentic. Probably because it is. It misses the subject. You.

    Show yourself, over and over again, and you will discover deeper and deeper layers of your own authenticity, and the way you creatively want to market your offerings.

    3. Marketing is trashy and cheesy

    “Hi, I’m Yousef Yaffle, CEO of yousefyaffle.com, and today I want to tell you about my new free ebook: “Seven steps to conscious consultant success sex” (actual value $74,497). Sign up below for free, and you too can fuck your clients consciously, and make six figures, and lose 20 lbs, just like I did.”

    I literally gag sometimes when I read people’s marketing pitches. It’s the snob in me. I’m an artist, and aesthetically ugly prose makes me turn my nose up, and climb up on my high horse.

    It can be a bad habit.

    I sometimes shy away from really pitching people. I shy away from owning my own value. I hide behind a sheen of mystery, because to my artistic mind it feels so much cooler.

    But marketing does not have to be vomit inducing. What’s the alternative? Beautiful originality. Not the same old landing page. Not the same old hook. The same images of folks standing on cliffs with their arms out.

    But here’s the kicker. You do have to learn the rules before you break them. I see a great many folks who want to already do ‘next paradigm’ marketing when they haven’t even succeeded with traditional paradigm stuff.

    Philosopher Ken Wilber would call this a pre/trans fallacy. There’s a developmental direction to learning. When you’re new to something, you don’t know the rules and best practices. You’re pre-conventional. Before conventions. This is step one. Then you read some books, get some coaching, and learn how to run a product launch. You learn the rules. You get the conventions. This is step two.

    And then you can break them. You can be trans-conventional. Beyond conventions. You know the rules, and you consciously break them, the final step.

    The problem is that step one and step three – ‘pre’ and ‘trans’ – can look very, very similar, because neither one is conventional.

    And there are a lot of people claiming to do conscious, authentic, new paradigm marketing, but they’re not. They actually don’t know what they’re doing, because they haven’t gone through the hard yards of learning the core principles of marketing, and understanding why those conventions have existed for a long time.

    You do have to learn the art of copywriting, and communicating the benefits of what you offer. You do have to learn the nature of strategy, and how to build pathways that your tribe can follow. You do have to learn the art of headline writing, and calls to action.

    Marketing doesn’t have to be cheesy and pukey. It can be intensely creative and beautiful. But if you don’t learn the rules before you break them, you’re curse will most likely be ineffectiveness. An artistically original sales page that doesn’t help people buy your thing is beautifully useless.

    4. Marketing promotes greed and selfishness

    Because it’s designed to generate revenue, sales, and money….for me!!!

    Unfortunately, so many of us still have bullshit neo-marxist narratives around money.

    “Money is corrupt, or evil. If I earn more of it, I’m taking it away from someone else who may need it more than I do. Me earning money creates inequality.”

    These stories are based on a shitty understanding of economics, and they really get in the way of you making a difference to the people that need you.

    I apologize for any rudeness and condemnation you find in my words. I’m still disidentifying from my own bullshit money narratives! And there’s a wee-bit of resentment still, that I believed them unquestioningly for so long.

    Because money is not what we think it is.

    Money is a neutral indicator. It’s like feet and inches. Except it’s not measuring physical length. It’s measuring value. As I get better at coaching, I put my prices up, because I’m creating more value, and it’s worth more to people. It keeps everything in balance and flow.

    But still the narratives of greed and selfishness swirl.

    “It’s selfish of me to market my stuff. I don’t want to annoy people, be too salesy, have them slam the proverbial door in my face.”

    And that’s part of the game. You will annoy some folks. Especially the ones with strong anti-money narratives. They might send you rude messages.

    The antidote to the selfishness story is this…

    Who are you not to tell people about what you offer? What if your stuff could really help someone, but they don’t know about it, because you didn’t want to self-promote?

    A friend told me a story. He was at a conference for spiritual teachers. And one of the shallower and gregarious teachers had latched onto some very interesting folks who had asked for help. He was pitching his stuff to them shamelessly. And another teacher, a deep and honest one complained to my friend. He condemned the self-aggrandizement. And my friend chastised him.

    “You would be a much better teacher for those folks. But they don’t know about you, because you’re sitting here with me feeling disgusted. And they’re gonna end up working with that other guy, because he’s not afraid to pitch his services. And they’re gonna get burned. And that’s your fault.”

    So long as you’re honest, unmanipulative and authentic, then your self-promotion gives other people a choice. If they know about your offer they can choose you, or they can choose someone else.

    If you rob them of that choice by staying silent, you’re being selfish.

    (Boy did I write this section for myself…)

    5. Marketing is for attention seeking narcissists

    “Look at me! Look mummy, I can do a headstand! Look! Look!”

    “Look at my website everyone! I made an amazing workshop, it’s amazing! Look! Look!”

    I feel that part in me that wants people to see me. I want to feel adored. Loved. Liked. I want to banish the trauma of primary school, when I struggled to fit in. When people would pick me next to last for the football game. Or when I was the only one left without a partner for the science experiment.

    Maybe if I get lots of people to look at me though my work I’ll finally feel loved.

    This one kicks my ass. It’s so insidious.

    I’m scared of to death of too many eyes being on me. It’s why I avoid public speaking, it’s why I hated performing as a musician. It’s so exposing. I feel naked. Vulnerable to their disdain.

    And yet, I want people to see my work. It feels so good when I get recognition.

    The paradox.

    The fear of being seen.

    The desire to be recognized.

    Pulling at each other, twisting me around. I probably shouldn’t write about this one. I’m still in it up to my neck in it. But at the heart I know it’s simple.

    Yes. I want your attention. I want you to look. Because I think what I’m saying could help you. And if there are a million people who would be served by my words, then I want a million people to read them.

     

    Let’s take my own medicine.

    Sometimes we can’t do it alone. We’re at some kind of juncture, we’re called to step out into the world more fully, or we want someone to help make our next big offering as successful as possible.

    You’ll recognize the feeling if this is you. It will be whispering, or shouting to you right now as you read these words. “It’s time. Reach out to someone who I just feel could help.”

    If you feel I could be that person, let’s chat.

    I offer a 6-month Liberation coaching package. This would be a good fit for you if you’re called to a new level of yourself. You want to crack out of the old, and step into the new. Clients who work with me in this way often don’t have a clear idea of why they want to do it. There isn’t an obvious tangible goal. They just feel an intuition. It’s time.

    I also offer a 3-month Launch coaching package. This is specifically for people who have a new product or offering they’re wanting to design and launch. I help guide you through the stages it requires to effectively and authentically get your thing to the people that want it. Starting where you are, and finishing when your enrollment is complete. I’m there every step of the way as an advisor, coach and thinking partner.

    You can read about some of my previous client’s experiences here.

    If you want to learn more or jump right in, email me at ewan[AT]therealizedentrepreneur[DOT]com

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • You probably have an idea that you haven’t made and shared yet.

    I don’t know exactly what it is, but if you think about it, you probably have a bunch of reasons why it’s not time to share it with the world yet. Maybe it’s an idea for a course you want to make, or a workshop, or a painting, or a show, or a book, or even an entire business.

    The process of turning an idea into a real thing can be an arduous one. Especially if the idea is dear to me. In fact, the more exciting the idea, the more important it feels, the more confronting the prospect of actually manifesting it usually feels.

    And while our procrastination is utterly understandable. It is also, I believe, unnecessary. And I want to tell you why, and how you can take a different route to the creation of your inspiration.

    The day I drunk my own medicine

    I’m about to lead the final session of a group coaching program I’ve been running for the last 7 months. It’s been a special experience for all of us.

    The group looks little like the vision I had in my head when I conceived it. It’s not even the promised program that I enrolled people into.

    It started with an interview I did. Towards the end of the interview I was asked what final piece of advice I had for people watching. I said “launch before you’re ready.”

    I’d been practicing the principle for some time with my writing – publishing things despite my insecurity wanting to endlessly tinker with them. I’d published more regularly than my perfectionistic ego felt was safe.

    I’d launched my website the previous year before I felt ready as well. I’d procrastinated for months, and so in the end, after some help from a friend, I launched, with simply a front page. It had the name on it, an evocative picture I’d found, some prose and vague promises and a sign up box that offered free updates (I didn’t mention the fact that I didn’t really know what I’d be updating you on).

    So when I answered the question, and said “launch before you’re ready”, I contracted for a moment. I realized I’d just busted myself. Because I was thinking about launching a group program for the first time, and I was procrastinating, and I wasn’t taking my own medicine. I confessed this to her. And I said I’d follow my own advice.

    “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” – Reid Hoffman

    And so the very next week I followed through. I put a small note on the bottom of a blog article I published. It said…

    “If you want to really dive into this, I’m going to be running a new small group coaching program called Creating The Work You Were Made For.

    I’ll be inviting 6 people to work with me closely for 3 months, and learn how to connect to, create, share and sell their essential work. Interested?

    Write “I’m interested” in the comments below and I’ll email you more details.”

    And a bunch of people did. And I enrolled the program from that group of folks.

    You don’t need to pretend you have all the answers

    I tell you this story, not to demonstrate any competence that I may possess. But to try and illustrate a point. That if you have something you’ve been thinking about creating and sharing, there is a way to succeed, without having to know all the answers, or plan the whole thing exhaustively, or know where it will end.

    If you instead use your authentic ignorance as a part of the launch itself, something very powerful is allowed to unfold. Because you do not hoard all the creativity for yourself, you allow your followers or clients to participate in the creative process with you.

    I didn’t know exactly what my program would look like, I didn’t know exactly what the curriculum would be or how I was going to structure it. I had a theme and a rough skeleton, but little more.

    But the seed of the idea was clear. It was a group program for 6 people, over 3 months. And it would be about helping people create and share their own true work. So that’s all I said.

    Now let me be clear, there is a difference between telling people about your thing before it’s finished, and there’s dumping a big pile of confusion on people and expecting them to sort the quality from the chaff. The first one takes courage, the second one laziness.

    But our tendency so often, is that we wait too long. The ripe fruit is not shared, we think it needs to mature further, until it begins to go black. So that’s what I decided to do. I shared the fruits of my idea.

    If no-one had commented on my invitation, I would have binned the whole thing right then. It would have stung my ego for sure. But at least I would have got real feedback immediately. It would have stung a hell of a lot more had I spent 2 months designing the program and writing extensive marketing materials for it, and then no one had commented.

    But as people began to tell me they were interested, I went to the next level of detail. I sat down to brainstorm ideas, and then the same day I wrote a letter direct to all the people that were expressing their interest. I tried to tell the truth.

    If you’re reading this page, you must have told me you’re interested in the program I’m running. I’ve launched this program in a somewhat unconventional way. I announced it before I knew exactly what it would be.

    So, from reading this page, you should get a really good sense of what this program is about, but you won’t get all the details. Because I’m actually still designing it, based on who registers!

    In fact, to be even more accurate, if you decide to come and be a part of this, you’ll be designing it along with me, as we go along. It will be alive, organic, unplanned (apart from the meticulous planning I will of course do behind the scenes because I’m a perfectionistic idealist who wants to serve the shit out of you.)

    I told them everything I did know about the program. And I told them where I was vague. And I told them things would definitely change.

    And they did.

    The design process continued throughout the entire enrollment

    The first time I sat down with one of the potential participants things changed. We had a really powerful conversation, I understood more deeply where she was at and what she needed. As we talked about it I realized the time frame felt too short.

    “I have a feeling 6 months would fit better for this thing, how would that be for you?”

    “Actually, that really relaxes me. Yes it feels much better.”

    I checked it out with other possible participants, they agreed. So I changed it to 6 months, not 3.

    Because I’d been explicit in that first letter about the experimental nature of the program, it gave me the freedom to change my mind as I talked with people. Those enrollment conversations were as much about discovering what they needed as they were about me inviting them to participate. I learned so much.

    If I had simply made it all up on my own and then presented it fully determined, I would have missed so much.

    And that is what I love about this principle. That by being explicit that you’re experimentally discovering the nature of your creation, as you create it, it loosens the habit we all have, of pretending we know more than we do, and telling people how it is.

    Launching before you’re ready conquers your resistance

    I’d been procrastinating on the group program idea for a long time. I’d first brainstormed ideas for it 9 months before. Though to be honest, I’d had the desire to run my own small group program for years, and never pulled the trigger.

    “It’s not quite time, I need a bigger following first, or at least a bit more experience.”

    “I don’t know what I’d teach, let’s just let the more mature ideas emerge organically.”

    “The prospect is really hard. I’ll just not put my attention on it so I don’t have to deal with the fact I know I’m stalling because I’m afraid.”

    We justify it to ourselves. “I’m not ready.” Or to be more accurate, I don’t feel ready. We’re trained to prepare and know all the answers. In school exams, or business presentations, or interviews, we’re demonstrate our competence by giving intelligent, comprehensive responses. “I don’t know” is seen as a sign of incompetence.

    By deliberately launching before I was ready, I cut through my resistance in one fell swoop. Once it was out, I couldn’t take it back. Or I could, but I’d look like an ass, which I’m always determined to avoid.

    And all it took was 3 sentences on the end of a blog post.

    Us human beings don’t like looking stupid in front of our peers. So once you let other people know what you’re committed to, it’s a hell of a lot harder to back out.

    And we back out all the time. We have an idea, an exciting idea, we’re inspired, and then we think about how far away it feels, so we back out. And we justify it to ourselves. We say we’re not ready, or not worthy.

    But most of the time, that’s just resistance. It’s your safety zone trying to maintain its integrity. It’s current reality trying to preserve itself. It’s your ego wanting to keep things just the way they are.

    Resistance is cunning as fuck. And insidious. It will take any form it needs to stop you in your tracks.

    You don’t have to wait. You could do it today if you wanted.

    Do you have something?

    Maybe it’s been simmering in the background. Maybe you constantly think about it, and dream of the day when you’ll be ready to actually make it real. Maybe it’s a new idea that feels precious and fragile.

    What’s in your way? A story probably. One that says you need to be more prepared. One that says it would be irresponsible or inappropriate to launch that thing today. One that says you’re not qualified, or that no-one will give a shit if you put out an invitation.

    You may be a lot more ready than you feel. You may know a lot more than you believe.

    Your idea might be vague, or detailed. It might be just a name and an inspiration. It might be nameless and mapped out in structure. It doesn’t really matter. As long as you have something that people can say yes or no to, that something probably is enough.

    “I’ve been thinking about offering sessions for people that want to do naked pole dancing. I’m so passionate about it, I do it all the time myself. Are you interested? Email me at fuckyeah@nakedpoledancingamsterdam.com”

    Because once you release it to the world. It’s not just yours anymore. And it takes on a life of its own. And it takes you on a ride that you could never have mapped out in advance.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • There’s a very old story.

    A shepherd boy is bored tending his sheep, and so to amuse himself, he shouts ‘Wolf, Wolf!” And the villagers come running to save him, and discover it was a ruse. And he laughs.

    And then he does it again, and they still fall for it, bitterly.

    The third time, an actual wolf shows up, but the villagers don’t. They don’t believe him when he cries ‘wolf’. And so the wolf eats all the sheep, and maybe it eats the shepherd boy too.

    And the moral of the tale is that no-one believes a liar, even when they’re telling the truth.

    Everyone is shouting for your attention

    I have a special folder in my gmail inbox.

    When I sign up to someone’s email list, I use an address that funnels all their emails into that folder. It’s a very full folder.

    I’m on some of the lists, because they’re people I like to read. Folks like Danielle LaPorte, Michael Ellsberg, James Altucher and Seth Godin.

    And the rest I’m on because they’re my peers, or my competitors, and I like to keep a track of my market and see what other people are doing.

    And for the most part, I fucking hate the marketing emails they send me.

    I’ll skim down the list and look at all the clever subject lines designed to hook me into opening them up. And it’s like 100 people at a party all shouting at the same time to get my attention.

    And it makes me want to click away and never come back.

    Just get as many people to open it as possible

    I studied online marketing, and email marketing for quite a while, then I practiced for quite a while, then I taught it a bit. Now I’m fucking with the ‘rules’.

    I know the tactics to get people to open emails.

    I look at all these mails in my special folder and I’m impressed, because some of these people are really good. Better than I am. The subject lines are persuasive and clever and enticing.

    And if you could get more people to open your email by using a good subject line, why not do it, right?

    That’s what the marketing aficionados teach. It’s all about the subject lines. Good ones get more people to open your email. Bad ones get less.

    Simple.

    Except I think the principle is (deeply) flawed. Because everyone is crying wolf.

    Subject: I’m dying. And this is the last email I’ll ever send to you

    It would work, right? People would open this in their droves.

    But what do you do with the next email?

    Subject: Only kidding. I’m not dead, but you can get a discount on my new thing

    I remember when we were selling our course at Waking Up the Workplace. I wanted as many people as possible to open the mail. So I used this.

    Subject: This is the most important email you’ll receive from us this year

    It worked!

    It also didn’t feel that good. But I was ok with that, since I wanted people to buy the thing, because it was a good course. And they did.

    But now I’m trying out a different approach.

    Don’t be persuasive

    “Hey buddy. Have you ever suffered from not finding your purpose? Well I was just like you too, until I discovered these 5 principles of living a successful life. And now I have a 6-figure business. Click here to learn the secret. But do it today, otherwise this message will self-destruct.”

    And maybe they do click the link, and maybe they’re underwhelmed.

    And maybe they never open your email again.

    And you wonder why your business is not really flowing.

    So you go even harder at your marketing…

    With this site, I decided to do things differently.

    I wanted my email list to be a quiet place. One where I didn’t shout for my reader’s attention.

    I wanted it to feel like I was sitting in a coffee house with a friend, and quietly leaning over…

    “Hey man. I’ve been working on this thing. It’s about slurpies. I just finished it, so if you’re interested, take a look. I hope you dig it.”

    And if people are interested, then they do check it out, and hopefully they like it.

    And then next time I let them know about something, they’ll check it out again, because they liked it last time.

    And then I don’t have to persuade them of anything. Because it’s like a friend making a recommendation. And they trust my word.

    It’s not a magic spade

    “It’s a spade. If you want to dig a hole, it will help you.”

    And if no-one’s interested in your spade, go make something else. Or find people who love holes.

    Don’t try and trick people into checking out your spade by telling them it’s magic. Or that it will help them discover their purpose. Or enlarge their penis.

    It’s a good spade. That’s enough.

    And if it’s actually not a good spade? Then get your priorities straight, and stop marketing junk, rather than creating great stuff.

    This is all very well, but does it work?

    A valid question. Ask me in another 4 years for the definitive answer.

    But what I can tell you, is that by focusing on my writing, not hyping shit, and aiming for trust, not email opens, I’ve consequently got a consistent email open rate that’s higher than any list I’ve ever seen.

    Now, my list is still small, and maybe this is front loaded goodwill, and I snaffled the loyal friends and followers early on, which massaged the numbers.

    Could be.

    Like I said, time will tell.

    But either way, I’m pretty sure that if you measure it over the long term, trust is going to beat the shit out of persuasion.

    Plus it just feels good.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • Ever since I decided to build a coaching business last year, I’ve had to learn to sell. I’d avoided it before. I got good at marketing, so I could let my writing do the selling for me.

    But as a coach, I had to learn to be with another human being, and sell my services.

    Selling has a bad reputation. Yet it’s probably the skill that has the single biggest impact on a small growing business.

    I was lying awake in bed a few nights ago. And I had an interesting thought…

    Selling is like kissing.

    It’s a two-way meeting.

    It may lead to a deeper relationship.

    It’s full of potential. For either expansion or contraction.

    You remember the bad experiences.

    Sales doesn’t have to be invasive and icky

    The connotation many of us have for selling is the vacuum cleaner salesman.

    The guy who doesn’t connect with you as a human, doesn’t listen or notice your reactions, and is only focused on getting what he wants – you buying his thing.

    It’s invasive.

    It’s disconnected.

    It’s highly unpleasant.

    If you’ve ever had a really bad first kiss, you may know that feeling is rather similar. Like the woman at the party who’s drunk, and without even noticing who you are, crashes through your boundaries and sticks her tongue down your throat (yes, this did happen to me years ago).

    But sales doesn’t have to be like this.

    Good sales and good kissing are based on connection

    A good first kiss is the result of connection. You’ve spent time with someone. You’re coming closer to one another. You’re creating shared reality. You’re feeling the pull to be closer.

    And then one of you initiates the kiss.

    They lean in, slowly, perhaps hesitant about whether they moved too early.

    You stare deeply into their eyes as their face tilts upward gently.

    They slide up from a neck nuzzle, as you turn your face down toward them.

    A good kiss is born from mutual want. You both want to go deeper. You both want to come closer. And the kiss seals the beginning of that deepening.

    A good sales conversation is like that too.

    You’ve spent time to get to know one another. You can feel the click, the flow between you. You’re in connection with one another, and are both wanting to know what happens next.

    One of you initiates the questions.

    “So, how do I work with you?”

    “Would you like to hear what working with me looks like?”

    And then the sales conversation begins.

    Selling is a result of mutual desire

    You both want it.

    It’s not one person asserting their agenda unconsciously on the other. It’s not a pushing past boundaries. It’s mutual desire.

    “This has been so powerful. So, yes, I’d like to work with you more. What’s the next step?”

    “Yes, I think you’d be perfect for this program. I’ll send you the registration details.”

    I will never initiate a sales conversation with someone that I can’t feel desire with.

    It could be my desire to coach them. I think I could serve them so I ask whether they want to know more.

    It could be their desire to work with me. They’re really opened by our conversation, and want to hear about next steps.

    It could be that we’re both feeling the deep click.

    When you don’t pay attention to the felt sense of desire between you, and attempt to override a lack of desire with charm or pushiness, you’re entering vacuum cleaner territory.

    It can get icky. Fast.

    Follow the feeling of desire. Feel whether the conversation wants to go deeper.

    It’s not about getting to yes. It’s about getting to truth.

    “Yes, I would.”

    “No. Thank you.”

    Selling is the start of a deeper relationship

    When I offer my coaching services to someone, and they accept, I’m stepping into a deep relationship with them.

    I don’t take these things lightly. I’m going to be spending a lot of time with this person. We’re going to talk about the things they don’t talk about with other people. They’re going to grow. There will be challenging moments. Painful moments. Joyful moments. Intimate moments.

    I’m helping them as they step into a deeper commitment to their work, their business, their mission.

    I think about my clients when I’m not on the phone with them. I care about them. I only work with a handful at any one time, so that the depth is honoured and given space.

    Selling is about deciding whether you’re going to step into deeper relationship.

    And a deeper relationship requires deep connection, mutual desire and the willingness to step into the unknown together.

    Great selling is the same as great kissing.

    And remember it’s a metaphor, not a strategy.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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