The Power of Words

I scanned my to-do list and read Rethink Funnels.

I had been meaning to review my funnels to make some improvements and it seemed like a good task for the mood I was in.

Except that as I began to focus on the task, I drew a complete blank. I knew what I needed to review but there was a fairly solid block to going further with it.

And I had created it.

There is a lot of energy attached to words. We can use this to our advantage by anchoring energy into copy and systems through the words we choose and use. But it can also work the other way.

The word itself was limiting my thinking and keeping me lock step with the conventions of funnels even though I have consciously taken a different route.
But I didn’t have another word, so I just went with it. And that shorthand has not helped one bit. The energy within the word has been squashing my ability to think with a blank sheet and disrupting my ability to listen to what is needed.

I challenged myself to think with a completely clean canvas (that’s what I challenge my clients to do, a bit of my own medicine was not going to hurt!)
That’s when I realised that my expectations of what would happen were being driven by the energy of the word – funnel. I was not making room for a creative solution to what I want to achieve.

My objective is not to grow my list in the traditional sense. In fact, I am actively seeking to keep the energy of my list really clean by only subscribing those who have a deep interest in my work. I am creating a curated community rather than a big generic one.

What I had created though was following the expectation not my objective. Feeling into the energy of what I had created I could sense the need to “maximise” and “convert” within it, which is totally at odds to the experience I wanted to create for those taking their first steps into my community.

The energetics of the word had influenced my creations, because I had allowed it to.

Business and marketing terms are absolutely drenched with expectation and convention. Breaking free of the energetic attachment is a real challenge if we choose to use the existing language – even as a shorthand.

Despite being very focused on clearing out this language over the last few years specifically to break these energetic attachments, the energy has still been present behind the scenes courtesy of my (rather lazy) shorthand.
So my first action point was to come up with another description and stick with it

Nothing I came up with grabbed me but framing my thoughts with words like connection, concept, expansion instantly lifted me out of the existing paradigm and gave me the freedom to think differently.

As is normally the case, when you take this approach, the result is way simpler than you would have believed possible. The idea that I would have to rewrite long or complex sequences with conditional steps was not one I was relishing and, of course, I won’t need to dedicate hours of time to this because what wants to be created is so simple.

The language we use has a big impact on how we work. Absorbing the language of existing paradigms and using it without question inevitably brings energy that does not belong into the equation. Consciously challenging the energetics of our language is an essential (and ongoing) aspect of honouring the energy at the heart of your business.

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