Good MORNING! It’s a gorgeous fall Saturday here in the Pacific Northwest – sunshine, perfect temp to go for a run or work outside, a sweet old kitten harassing me for snuggles, plenty of coffee, and…
I also had a fabulously productive session with one of my clients last night, and we’re working together to figure out how I can assist clients in experiencing what I’m feeling about Oh Happy Plants.
The success of Oh Happy Plants
is inevitable.
Throughout this process I’ve felt this in my bones – that all I have to do is show up and do the work. That my future customers NEED me to do this, and that I’ve got a really strange, specific skill set, so I HAVE to do it. It’s odd for a person working a somewhat menial job in horticulture also be as well-rounded as I am in other areas, and my business coaching background has given me all the knowledge I need to do this well. It’s really strange for a massive go-getter to stick to aforementioned plant care job and get the 10,000+ hours of experience necessary to be really good at plant care.
It certainly helps my mindset that I’ve encountered three types of people when talking about the business:
- My future customers (they’re INTENSELY ENTHUSIASTIC and say things like “Oh my GOD I need you! Maybe I’ll become a plant person after all; I really want to be!” These people are massive cheerleaders, and are usually exactly what I imagined my target demographic to be – professional women in their late 20s through early 40s; totally fun and spunky and full of life).
- Folks who don’t quite get it (the ‘it’ that they don’t get is why people would pay for information, because they wouldn’t – they believe money is a finite resource and are willing to spend their time to figure things out instead. The “I could build that myself in 200 hours, so why would I pay $200 for it?” type. These people aren’t my customers). Lovely folks, and I don’t listen to anything they say about OHP unless it actually serves my purpose. I know that time is finite and money a renewable resource that I can make out of thin air (more on this soon, because money is fake!) 😀
- People who maybe would buy a couple tutorials or consume the free material and who want me to succeed or think the idea is cool, but aren’t crazy about plants. Again, not quite my target market, but they’re lovely folks.
In examining all of this and trying to figure out why I’m so dead certain of success, I asked my client to describe the feedback he’s gotten when he talks about his business. He said about the same thing – there are enthusiastic folks who want to work with him, slight skeptics who are willing to try his product, and folks who just don’t understand. So: mostly positive feedback.
A note on feedback like this: if a large portion of your market research (i.e. “talking about your business to people who aren’t your mother’) comes up with ‘they don’t understand my product,’ then YOU are the problem, not them. Fix how you communicate!
Anyway! My client knows his product works and has proven it with many clients. And I’m sitting here like YOU HAVE TO DO THIS, IT’S AMAZING! Yet there’s still something in his way. So we’re talking about it more and this comes up: he knows that his product works but isn’t in a space of gratitude to the universe for giving him this skill to bring to the world. Instead, there’s some little fear under the surface that’s keeping him from being his full, incredible self. His ego is pointing to his past and telling him that trying again isn’t a good idea, because “what if…?” His ego is trying to keep him safe. But there’s an antidote to your ego’s fear.
Fear can’t exist in the same space as gratitude.
This is why gratitude journals are taking the market by storm. THIS SHIT WORKS. So we’re going to try it, and I’ll report back – if this works for him, it’ll work for you!
So my ‘prescription’ to combat ego-based fear for him is this:
- Daily gratitude journal (like, 5 minutes or 10 sentences or whatever; just get in the headspace!)
- Affirmations prior to approaching new clients (things like “I am SO grateful I get to heal these people!” and “The universe/god/whatever gave me this incredible way to bring people joy/healing/relief/insert-whatever-feeling-you-give-people and I am incredibly lucky!”)
- Follow up questions to keep him in a growth mindset after approaching potential clients (questions to help him learn from and examine his approach, to keep him on a meta level and avoid being mired in any feelings of failure. The only failure is not doing the thing, people!)
Again, I’m going to work with him on this and report back. Egos are sneaky little devils, but remember:
The devil guards the gates to heaven.
And your ego-devil will lead you straight to those gates, if you decide to follow. You just have to get past the booby traps, and gratitude is like a jet-pack.
Get some 🙂