Convos and Crumbs

After 20 years, I left my secure tenured job in academia to go all-in on my passion: helping individuals and teams grow their creative confidence and inventive thinking. In case you are wondering, this is not a normal career path.   

As an independent facilitator/trainer, I’m now responsible for everything in the business: finding customers, invoicing clients, managing cash flow, telling my brand story and, of course, emptying the trash bins.

I’m also responsible for “making content.” Ugh! Pardon me, while I throw up in my mouth a little bit. Ok, too graphic, I hear you (apologies).

To me, “making content” sounds soulless, or at the very least a Fool’s Errand. Can’t we be more creative? I get it. People need to know who I am. All the books say I need to capture leads. I need to book meetings. I need to nurture my clients. But forgive me if “making content” sounds a too much like the assembly line at ACME Widgets.

Content? Sure, it’s a good catch-all category. But it’s emotionless and uninteresting. There are so many other ways to say it: musings, reflections, insights, thoughts, ruminations, contemplations, notions, speculations, wanderings, observations, bubbles, doodles, crumbs, – see what I mean? Pick any one of these and it’s better than “content” in every way.

I’ve resisted “making content” (like this blog) for one reason: the voice inside my head that repeatedly tells me, “No one cares what you have to say.” Recently, my retort has been, “So what?”

Two weeks ago, I took a great workshop with Chris Taylor (LinkedIn) of Actionable and Change Catalyst fame – and he challenged us to consider marketing as a generous act. He told us to ignore the “head trash” and bring our authentic voice – and people will “enter your orbit.”

You know what? Even if no one reads these posts, I’m enjoying the process of putting my crumbs out into the world. See? Doesn’t that sound better than content?

Inspiration

Thanks to Chris Taylor for kicking me in the butt.