Private vs. Public Readiness to Share your Writing – VIDEO

April 14, 2017

The writing process is messy and it’s supposed to be. When you truly dive into a story and let all that you are jumble up with all that your story asks to be, there will be many times when you have no idea which end is up.

And this is good news. When this is your experience, it means you are on the path even if you think you’re lost in the woods.

You look up, flushed, and a bit out of sorts as if you’ve emerged from a deep dive and strangely peaceful even though you’re not sure where the shore is. This is what it feels like to write from your core. You nailed it: the last paragraph, page, stanza, totally delivered.

You get a bit of a rush. Your confidence spikes and your endorphins kick in. You decide to do the unthinkable: show it to someone. You practically leap over the sofa as your partner comes through the door and thrust your journal at him. “Read this. Tell me what you think”, you say. So he does. Then he looks at you funny. But not funny bad, funny weird. You know the face: polite cheeks just a little too high because of the tight smile, and the distant but encouraging eyes. Yes, he is being super friendly but you can read it all over him. He doesn’t get it.

You get that dropping full stop in your stomach. Your bum cheeks let go. You smile back and say “thanks” as he says “it’s good”.

Good.

Right.

Damage done. Your second guessing starts. You start to stagger and stammer through “I just started. I’m not sure exactly where I’m at yet. Really. Hey, thanks for looking at it. No really. I’m okay. Thanks for looking at it.”

Then what do you do?

You stop. Right?

Or maybe it’s like this: You’re writing something deeply personal. It might be a memoir piece. You might be capturing a sliver of your life that was treacherously difficult but because you lived through it and came through stronger for it you feel an intense desire to write about it. This horrendous thing which like a phoenix, you rose from the ashes as it blazed this knowing inside you: to whom much is given much is expected is WHY you feel compelled to share your story. And so you do. Bravely, courageously and unabashedly let us all in.

Again, this is good.

This IS what we write about.

Your instincts are bang on.

But then something happens.

You write about it instead of into it. You know what you want to say so you say it on purpose. You don’t know this, but your story is now dying a slow painful death inside of you. Because you are so clear about the impact you want to make you take us right to the target but lose us because we didn’t discover it with you. The painful details of your story begin to feel brutal and obvious instead of devastating yet transformative. Your journey takes on a caricature quality because it has become a vehicle to drive instead of a partner to navigate. As the reader, we’re now bored. We’re judging. We stop listening not because we don’t believe you, but because we can’t hear you. We hear your commentary instead.

Harsh right?

I wrote it to protect you from draining all the beauty out of something you treasure as sacred enough to make a difference by giving it away. I want you to have your dream. I want your story of survival into thriving to be protected and nurtured until it’s ready. I want that for you.

You see, your story has to live in order to connect. It has to sit with you as you write it like a mysterious loving friend who word by word lets you in on a precious secret. A part of your writing process is supposed to be unknown to you. We want to go with you as you discover the layers that live between the details, in the pauses, the breaths, and the moments of waiting. But a story needs to be ready for that. Sometimes we have to spend a lot of time alone first, being obvious and hard hitting with our words and images until our bruising heals and we no longer need to give our words away. That’s when we’re free. That’s when it’s time to let someone else in. We invite them we don’t need them.

There is a line between public and personal for every writer and it’s going to be different for you than it is for me. Here’s the way I think about it: Stories are like children and we’d never send them out into traffic without us – that is, not until they’ve grown up a bit.

Meribeth Deen and I had a good chat about this line today. This is what we came up with.

Want to join in to our Aspiring Author’s Core Story Club, you can do that here.

TinaO is a Core Story Specialist and a Program Director of PUBLISH with Meribeth Deen for The LEAP Learning Lab. She’s a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub to Live, Give and Be Your Story, plus the deep listening weekend retreat Live Your Best Story. She’s been in the PR and Marketing world since she could put words together and has been a professional network marketer for over twelve years. She teaches: selling isn’t slimey, marketing isn’t make-believe and writing won’t give you an aneurysm (it’s not hard). You can be yourself in all that you do. In fact, that’s what the world is waiting for.

Identifying Your Core Story – an Excerpt – BLOG

December 29, 2016

Here’s an excerpt from the first draft of Chapter One of You Matter – Identifying your Core Story that will be complete by December 31st. Follow along if it speaks to you. Big love to Meribeth Deen for being my Story Doula through this process. She said to me once a few months ago: ‘I can see that my challenge with you is going to be when and how to reign you in to a specific focus.’ She was right. But as is true with all my core story work, the focus found me and all I had to do was follow the thread.

Here is an excerpt for you:

I begin every Core Story client with a complimentary inquiry call and while this may shift as my work carries on, here’s why I do it this way: I am creating the best place I know how to let the story tell us and not the other way around. It follows the same belief that we can never run faster than our story and by making the call free, both you and I can step into the ring of ‘what have I got to lose?’ and that’s where permission begins. It’s not a flippant, what have I got to lose? although it can start out that way, usually and very quickly with that kind of freedom between us, I can establish a sense of ‘it’s just you and me here’ so that the story that wants to be known by you can feel safe enough to emerge.

Is my time valuable? Yes, no more than yours. Is my experience worthy of payment, yes, no more than yours. Do I deserve to be paid for my work? Yes, and at this stage of our relationship, only if it’s of value to you. If we decide to move forward together we’re going to be doing some intimate work so we need to choose each other. I like to think of it like dating. Imagine if we charged for that. What would that do to our connectivity? What I’m saying is, we have to authentically decide for it to be real. We don’t kiss the guy or girl at the end of the first date simply because we’re supposed to, or because it’s deserved, we kiss them because we want to, because the desire to be together emerges out of us.

One of my favourite moments with my now husband happened at the end of our second date. We had gone to the movies or something (I totally don’t remember the details), and we both knew that the next day he was going on tour and wouldn’t be back for a week. He walked me up to my door and I let him inside. We had an awkward hug and a peck on the cheek followed by stilted small talk about when he’d be back and how he’d call me when he returned and then I let him out and closed the door. I took a few confused steps down my hallway towards the living room when I heard a gentle knock, and I smiled. I didn’t even have a thought yet, but I somehow knew this was honest. This felt true. I curiously walked back, turned the deadbolt and opened the door. He looked at me, hesitating briefly and trembling just a little and said “If I went on tour without kissing you, and I mean really kissing you I’d have to kick my own ass.” With that he planted one on me and left. His desire to kiss me emerged out of him. It behooved him not to leave without a real, risky, whole-hearted kiss. He could not run faster than the story of that kiss. As for me, I felt confused when he left the first time because I didn’t get it, but I didn’t know what the it was that I didn’t get yet. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t formulaic. It just didn’t feel right, him leaving like that. It wasn’t until he knocked the second time that I kind of understood, and then when he kissed me, I fell, and hard. That was the moment of our connection. Neither one of us needed to take charge of the end of the date, we simply had to follow the thread of the story and then show up and live it out fully.

And that’s why I don’t charge for my inquiry call, I am creating space for what is real to emerge so that the truth can happen without our own alpha-agendas of how things should be or my own story of self-worth getting in the way.

Don’t worry, I won’t be kissing you, but I may knock twice.

By December 31st 2016 the first draft of this book will be done. If you’d like a complimentary digital copy of TinaO’s Identifying your Core Story, pop your name in here and we’ll be sure to send it to you once it’s complete early 2017.

As well, if you are a Canadian woman with a story to tell and would like to be considered for PUBLISH, a book writing program launching in mid January 2017 through powHERhouse Media Group, you may want to consider becoming a Woman we Celebrate so TinaO and Meribeth Deen can support you to get your book written this year.

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TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, and the workshop Live Your Best Story. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.

Dear Tina #3, Teach Others to Listen

April 14, 2016

Yesterday I decided to stop pretending.

Yesterday I decided to ‘come out’ – can I even use that term if I’m not gay? Can ‘coming out’ apply to being ‘seen’?

Yesterday I quaked a little bit, you know the human part that worries that people will think you’re weird and you’ll end up alone, wandering back alleys with nothing but stray cats following you, their bent tails resembling the off-ness of you, eating samosas out of a bag, muttering poetry with every step, and wearing nostalgic too old sneakers and smelling like patchouli…? That part. I quaked about the possibility of all of that happening, and then I decided to risk it. But then, I kinda like the smell of patchouli.

Yesterday I didn’t stop until the message stopped me.
Yesterday I decided I’m going to be seen.
Yesterday I said I am. I do. I share.
Welcome to my page: Work with TinaO

Here it is:

I’m committed to helping you to LIVE.

That’s a pretty broad statement isn’t it? Yes, I think so too. Yet that’s what I’m here for, and that unique message was delivered straight to me via me through my very own Dear Tina journal…

My Dear Tina personal practice began on March 13th 2014, and through these very pages, my own calling to help others truly live is what showed up. And who am I to argue with myself? Because that would be kinda silly don’t you think?

What am I talking about?

Life.

Living.

You know, this ride we’re on for however long we’re invited to be here (which none of us knows how long that will be even though we talk a big talk and stay up at night thinking about or avoiding it).

It’s this thing called LIFE, and it’s super distracting (oh the schedules, appointments, paperwork, pings, dings, deadlines), often ridiculous (the fights, flights, climbs, and confrontations), kind of depressing (broken dreams, resentments, shattered hearts, deaths and disappointments), is also wildly thrilling (think: love, laughter, accolades and ambition), is fantastically possible (with our bucket lists, breakthroughs and aha moments), and is ultimately, an intoxicating ride (hate it, love it, forget about it, and want it…) called LIFE.

My work is to help you LIVE FULLY without having to:

FIGURE IT OUT or
ESCAPE from what you don’t understand.
Live only in the ‘meditative or spirit world’
or be an EXPERT.
or be a LEADER.
or become ORGANIZED.
or know how to PRIORITIZE.
and for freak sakes… to once and for all FINALLY GIVE UP the painful practice of NEEDING TO BE ON TOP OF IT ALL.

Gawwwwd aren’t you exhausted of being on top of it all???

I sure was. It gave me cancer. And that’s how I came to be here with you.

Dear Tina…

…teach others to listen, what to listen to, how to navigate the voices. Dec. 26th 2014

…You will create a process for people to follow that encourages self listening. December 26th 2014

…Show others the way through the mess of busyness. It is not necessary. Lead Tina. Lead. August 2015

…Disease is transformation Tina, and you have transformed. Do not shrink back. August 29th 2015

…You have been asked to help others connect to the whole self. You’ve been asked to help people reacquaint themselves. December 1st 2015

So there it is.

And that is how I will work with you. You will learn how to listen to your innate wisdom and together we’ll build a way of LIVING that is truly yours.

I call it Your Living Story, or #liveyourall

I showed it to my husband because he has the best ‘total-bull-shit-sniff-test’ out there.

and I passed his ‘sniff’.

I’ll never forget the day I shook in my boots across our kitchen island, over the toast and butter and apples and and and… clutching my Sunday morning coffee, crazy weekend hair flying and sheepishly looked up and said to him: “I think I want to write a book, speak, and run workshops and stuff. I can’t stand the expert industry, but I think I might be one. I don’t want to lose you. Will you still like me?”

He said: Tina, that train, your train has already left the station, you just haven’t decided to get on yet. I know you. This is who you are. It’s who you’ve always been.

That was almost four years ago now.

Welcome to TinaOLife,

to Dear Tina,
to Tall Poppy Living,
to Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers and
to Live Your Best Story.

These are my offerings.

xxT

p.s. if you are a cancer survivor or have loved ones you’d like to honour, check out my #100love campaign. I swim, bike and run for them.

TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and with her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.

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Dear Tina – Your Hands Needn’t Feel Small

March 26, 2016

It’s a funny thing this Dear Tina practice of mine. I do it for me, but I see now, that I also write them for you.

Dr. Gordon Neufeld speaks of emergent energy and the importance of cultivating time for that in our children’s lives. He suggests that we find out who we are when we’re doing what we do for no other reason than the sheer pleasure of being in the doing of it.

It’s when our doing has no ego.

For example, my strongest memory of this was when I was filling time as a 10 years old one pre-supper time afternoon. I gave myself ninety minutes worth of full on dancing – frolicking really, because I had time to kill before I was to be called in. See I grew up in a rather tumultuous home and going inside to that noise was always the last thing I ever wanted to do, so on that particular day, I decided to… dance. I found wacky ways to wind myself up the old chipped cement steps, entangle my willowy body up and over the black enameled 70’s style railing, roll my arms across the glass bottle stucko, and leap back and forth across our paved walk dotted by my mom’s spring favourites: orange marigolds. Oh yes I did. I can only imagine what our city neighbours thought about this curly haired wild child dancing like a fairy in her front yard. But I learned something about myself that day – though I didn’t know what.

Flash ahead a few months and now I’m running at full tilt down Fraser Street, 49th ave all the way down to 60th to visit some friend of mine (no idea who – clearly didn’t matter). It was summer. I had on lemon yellow shorts, a halter top and too small sneakers but I was on an adventure. Time stood still and I was running. Again, I learned something yet didn’t know what.

And the hours of walking, walking, and still walking, back and forth to my best friend and boyfriend’s house after school. I seemed to never have enough bus fare, so I walked, sometimes for two hours – and that’s a lot of alone time for a 14 year old. I loved it. Again I learned something, still I didn’t know what.

But now, at 45 years old, I do. I know what I was learning.

Dr. Neufeld suggests that it’s in these silent times of doing ‘nothing’ but ‘doing’ for the sheer enjoyment of the ‘do’ – while no one watching, or praising, or noticing – when there is no audience but ourselves that we become fueled by our very own emergent energy, and in doing so, we can listen to the story that is who we are.

We can hear who we are.

This Dear Tina practice that I do – is just that. It’s tapping in to the story that wants to tell me, to the wisdom that is timeless and to the emergent energy that fires up the effortless listening we all have access to.

I’ll write another post about what I didn’t know I was learning later, but if you want a glimpse into that now, here’s a piece I wrote a few years back as I was wrestling with being in my 40s, unsure of my purpose and feeling time tick tick tick. It answers the beginning questions of mine behind whom I’ve always been.

Welcome to Dear Tina #2. If you’re just tuning in to this thread and want a bit more context to what this Dear Tina thing is all about, click here for Dear Tina #1. Bottomline: This is how I listen to what I call my innate wisdom, or soul.

May 2014 – Dear Tina

Your hands needn’t feel small for you have access to the mother of all.

Whichever piece of me you need today – I am here – as father, as mother, as girlfriend, as daughter, as mentor.

I am all for you at all times. Step into my heart beat inside you and let your colours be seen – you are all that is needed. There is no need to impress, simply be. Be in your body, in your stomach that shakes – give of yourself as you always do. Give of you – dear one – you are needed today.

Step into my heart and together we can give it all away.

Happy Easter all. While I’m a woman of spirit, religion isn’t really my thing. Stories that are given as absolutes seem to divide us, but wisdom from those same words and the rituals they create do bring us together.

May you be blessed, warm, colourful, and funnnnnnnnnnn. Smile and tilt your face to the sun. You belong. You are loved.

xxT

TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and in her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.

On Boats and in Life

March 23, 2016

When I was little, my family spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ cabin. It was about an hour from our house and we would drive there for the weekend so Dad could help Grampa with the property. I think Dad likely resented having to give up his weekends to labour away, but I have nothing but warm memories of my time there. I remember how I always, always got carsick on the drive, and the smell of the canvas life jacket I had to wear in the boat, and having a bath in the kitchen sink before I was old enough to have a shower in the stall. We would play cards, roam the woods in search of adventure and chase minnows and frogs from the dock. Now that both of my grandparents are gone, these memories are particularly sweet.

After a long weekend of work, it was finally time for some fishing and relaxation in the boat. We would all clamour in to troll around the lake, and I remember so clearly being invited to sit on my Grampa’s lap and steer the boat. I am pretty sure I beamed at the very idea of doing such a grown-up thing.

I would always get excited and madly turn the wheel, tilting the boat so it looked like it was about to flip over, which made my Gramma yelp and hold onto the seat.

My Grandfather would patiently remind me:

“Make small turns, and let it straighten out.”

(I remember him being patient, but I have a feeling there may have also been some very-loving shouts.)

It turns out my Grampa was pretty brilliant.

Yes, it made the ride in the boat smoother, and kept my beloved Gramma from heart failure, but my Grampa’s message resonated far beyond our boat ride. It is something I apply now to my life, my relationships and also my work.

Do we often see what we want to be different and then dive in, too far, too fast? Do we take the wheel and make a sharp turn that can’t be sustained without tipping over?

You bet your sweet ass we do.

It’s great to want to shift things in your lifes. It’s wonderful to want to be your very best self for your relationship. And it’s never a bad idea to try and transition and improve. The key in making any of these changes is to make them gradually and at a sustainable pace.

What does this mean for your relationships?

If you want to prioritize spending more time together as a couple, start with 15 minutes a day of connecting and talking about more than groceries and soccer practice. Ask your partner what they would have you do to support them in what they are wanting to do and who they are wanting to be.

If you would like your family to be healthier, avoid the drastic changes in diet and change one thing at a time. Find something fun for you all to do together.

If you want more physical intimacy in your relationship, start with non-sexual touching throughout the day; greet your partner warmly when they arrive home and tell them how happy you are to see them.

If you think you’d like a whole different career, don’t just quit your job: that could be seen as irresponsible. Instead, be intentional about your spare time, choose hobbies that are connected to the field you want to transition into, and make incremental (and sustainable) choices.

And most importantly, remember that it’s all in the recovery. When you do over steer, gently return to centre, and then keep going. Keep that boat upright.

Get Real, like Sexy Real

Tara

Tara Caffelle is a Relationship and Communication coach. She is passionate about creating connected, almost-uncomfortable-to-watch relationships that are based in Sexy Communication and Big Lives worth rolling around in.

Tara is based in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver and offers custom-designed coaching programs. To claim your free 90+ minutes and see what might be possible for your own super coupledom (or persondom), find a time here.

Have a question for Tara? Have an idea for a Hump Day conversation? How about just some thoughts about this thing called life? Let us know here. We’ll answer back. We promise.

Intimates in Colombia

March 9, 2016

I spent the last week and a half of February in Colombia: I attended a dear friend’s wedding, and then I relaxed at a tiny resort where the biggest decision of my day was choosing a hammock in which to have my afternoon nap. It was glorious. And quiet. In more ways than one.

See, Colombia isn’t a country that speaks a lot of English. And I am not a traveler who speaks a lot of Spanish. You do the math.

What I learned: People in Colombia wanted me to eat, to be safe, to have a good time.

I survived with big smiles, excited clapping, pointing at menus, Google translator (when I had wifi), listening carefully for familiar words, and speaking loudly and slowly. (Oh yes, I did.)

My last morning in Colombia had me feeling stressed; I had complicated transfers beginning at 4 am from a somewhat-remote resort via taxi to the nearby town where I would connect with two different buses before reaching the airport that would take me to a major city for a connecting flight back to Canada.

WHEW!

Add to the stress the fact that I didn’t have quite enough cash to pay my various drivers along the way and would need to find a machine somewhere early on. An English-speaking staff member at the resort had lovingly arranged my entire trip for me, but I knew it was unlikely she would be around at 4 am to translate any further.

I thought ahead: I packed and was ready the night before, set a couple of alarms, and translated phrases I thought I might need into my phone and took screen shots that I could show them along the way.

Here’s what happened: I accidentally ordered a bottle and not a glass of wine at dinner the night before I left, and not wanting to waste it, I drank a lot of it and basically passed out. I woke up in plenty of time for my alarm, in my clothes, with the lights still on. I checked out of the resort with ease, met my driver, showed him my translation that said “Can we go to a cash machine so I can pay you?” and off we went.

I felt completely safe and taken care of. When the first banco machin-o didn’t work for my card, we looked for another, and each time, he stood outside the door and waited for me. We were a team.

Soon, I wasn’t worried about making my connections and even grabbed the tiniest of cat naps once I was safely on the bus.

It’s like I always say: we are in relationship with everyone we interact with.

For those brief moments, with my gruff, Spanish-speaking driver, we shared an intimacy that I am still talking about a week later.

I think that universally there is desire to connect, the same way our bodies want to maintain health. If we shoot Botox into our face, our muscles actually work around it and want to get back to what’s normal. This is why, if you use poison to still your beautiful facial expression lines, you need to repeat the treatment over and over again.

Similarly, we humans crave connection. When we don’t have it, due to language barriers or other zany circumstances, we find our way back to it.

Relationship wants to happen.

Stop fighting it. So many times, we get in conflict with each other and don’t realize that things just want to run smoothly. Rather than get in the way of it all the time, I invite you to consider what you can do and say that will create more intimacy with the people in your life. How can you join with the people around you to become team mates?

Try it and let me know what you discover. You don’t even have to go all the way to Colombia (although you could—they are lovely people and they will be very amused by your excited clapping when you finally decide what you’d like to order for dinner!).

Tara

Get Real, like Sexy Real

Have a question for Tara? Have an idea for a Hump Day conversation? How about just some thoughts about this thing called life? Let us know here. We’ll answer back. We promise.

Trump – We are Part of the Problem

February 27, 2016

Yes, like you, I have multiple opinions about whether Donald Trump is worth even a second of our consideration… but that is not what this post is about. I appreciate the video below for a number of reasons but in brief, here is why:

I have a real bee in bonnet about selling and the insanity in both the sales/marketing/branding profession and how we interact with it. Part of my focus on TinaOLife is to bring up this conversation again and again, calling out those of us in the sales and marketing industry to get better at what we do. In short, I’m asking if you are willing to fix something that is incredibly broken. We are indeed a blister in the sun. And something tells me we’re about to burst.

A lot of factors are contributing to the rise in popularity of Donald Trump as a contender for the Republican nomination, but I’m only going to address ONE of them – because it’s the one that makes me itchy. Yes I do squirm just a little bit, biting my cheek on the inside and jamming my toes into my shoes trying to keep from screaming. Bwahhhhh Grrrrrrahhhhhhhh!!!! It’s like I want to throw up violently but I can’t.

So I’m going stretch us a little k? I’m connecting the dots between sales, marketing, branding, message and our relentless chasing of the illusion of STATUS (and that’s all it is folks, an illusion).

We as sellers position ourselves and our message to you this way:

I know more than you.

I have more for you.

I sell more than anyone.

You want more.

I’ll give you more than anyone else can.

And then there’s the weird status thing we do around the pricing of our product, and the stories we make up to justify why people do or don’t buy our stuff:

When you say you can’t afford it – it’s not true.

When you say, I’m not sure yet – you’re just hiding.

When you say, I need time to think, – you’re making excuses.

Status. We have such a magnetic pull to it. We want it. You could say I’m doing it now by calling bullshit on sales tactics, and maybe I do. It’s still worth examining don’t you think?

Status. So then we decided that we live in an abundant universe, and that anything we want we can have simply by naming it, writing it down, and ultimately, manifesting it. Therefore, all of the customers who aren’t reaching our pricing structure are the ones who are living in a false reality. It’s their fault, they simply aren’t thinking abundantly enough.

I’m not saying that this perspective is all hooey, and that The Secret, Lisa Nichols, Jack Canfield and all the others are wrong – I’m adding to the equation another question which is: What kind of a charge (like an electric zap in the belly) do you get when you hold that perspective as true? Here’s what I mean:

Wouldn’t it be interesting to get to the place as a seller or a buyer where there is no ‘charge’ at all around a price. It’s neither expensive or inexpensive, it’s just a number. It either fits a budget or it doesn’t. It either matches the buyer/seller’s values or not. What if price wasn’t about STATUS at all? I wonder how much we would be willing to charge and/or pay.

Why am I here when I’m talking about Trump, marketing and selling?

Because money is LOADED with electric charges and then fueled by our stories.

Because how we price our products often informs how we sell, market, and brand them. Here’s a kicker, most products are sold at the price of ‘what the market will bare’.

Yet we are the market.

And we set it by what we’re willing to believe in.

Connect that back to Trump. What are we willing to believe in and why?

So let’s talk about honesty and marketing shall we? We’ve become so ‘skilled’ at positioning, so ‘smart’ at messaging, so ‘strategic’ with our choice of words, colours, audience, timing, logos, hooks, offers, calls to action, reach etc… that when somebody shows up like Trump, and just speaks ‘his truth’ – it staggers us for a second, and we’re drawn to it. It catches us off guard. And then when ‘his truth’ gets louder, with less restraint, and with more Alpha-Dog in him, it comes off kind of refreshing somehow because he’s cutting through the noise – never mind how costly his perspective may be (again, think back to pricing – same story).

We are all so EXHAUSTED from being sold to by slick campaigns with sensational promises that this guy, because he’s ‘not a politician’, because he’s ‘not packaged’, because he IS ‘impulsive’, because he DOES ‘show his true colours’, becomes appealing. This guy has STATUS because he’s being ‘himself’ and lots of people are gobbling it up.

Again, you may ask, what does this have to do with sales and marketing… well, it’s the underpinning of our mistrust because we simply can’t get away from it.

Here’s my suggestion: when people in sales, marketing and branding stop strategizing and start simply TELLING THE STORY of the PRODUCT or the STORY of their SERVICE – by SERVING THE STORY instead of the SALE, then we just may begin to trust voices of ‘reason’ again, and dudes like this won’t be given the time of day.

Imagine if we didn’t ‘sell’ being honest, we just were.

Imagine if we didn’t need to be ‘clever’ to attract an audience but instead, our straight goods became so crystal clear that the ‘right’ people could find us.

Imagine if sales people weren’t trained to overcome objections, if marketers weren’t taught how to ‘get inside the mind of consumer’, if branders didn’t ‘position’ the sale.

Imagine if the products we sold were good enough and our belief in them so deep and strong that we didn’t need to figure out the ‘formula’ to successfully sell them?

When we can all give up the insanity of trying to out play one another, perhaps bombastic, self-serving, opportunists like this guy, Mr. Trump, wouldn’t be so appealing. It’s not funny. It’s not entertaining. It’s not even scary (well, maybe it is), its really quite sad. Our culture has lost touch with it’s humanity, with our heart beat of being seen and known.

It’s time to be courageous, reclaim our power by being honest.

What do you say people in the sales, marketing and the branding industry… you with me? I’m not suggesting that we’re ultimately responsible for people like Trump getting to where he is, but I am suggesting that we’re part of the problem. The truth never needed to be clever. Good products never needed to be louder than everyone else, and consumers shouldn’t have to read between the lines in order to figure out if they can trust you and your brand or not.

Trump, with his blatant, boundary pushing and now rise to popularity is a lesson for all of us. He can cut through the noise because he’s just being him. Like him or not, he’s Trump and he’s pretty darn comfortable being that. If only we were too.

xxT

TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry. She teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.

I Love You – She said Quietly

January 14, 2016

So I’m reading Olympic Medalist Clara Hughes’ book Open Heart Open Mind this morning at 4:30am and something interesting happened. I’m up that early because I’m a hockey mom and I gotta get the boys sorted as they hit the rink before school: put something in their tummy for breakfast, pack a lunch for school, and throw in all the stuff into their pack that they’ll likely forget about. This is the to do list of a forever in training mom for sure. Our youngest is still in bed – he’s not a hockey kid yet. I’m crossing my fingers that he falls head over heels in love with the arts so we can skip the third round of early morning family insanity. We shall see. Passion is as passion does.

The boys and their dad are off by 5:30am and by then I’m too awake to sleep but not quite ready to take on the day, probably because it’s Thursday and I’ve already put in three mom mornings this week so I crawl back into bed and crack open Clara’s book. My husband bought Open Heart, Open Mind for me for my birthday, probably because her story is coloured with dark corners, her triumphs have sharp edges and her drive is fueled by fire, unstoppable, wild, raw, and almost retchingly honest fire. Okay so honesty can’t retch, but maybe that’s why writers have been known to say things like: I just gotta barf it out first, get it on the page, get into the guts of it…

Thank you Clara. You clearly got into the guts of it and that’s why it’s carrying me away.

I’m only half way through the book but if I had to sum up your message so far I’d say it’s all about ‘self-love’ instead of ‘self-loathing’ right? Hmmm… such a universal quest to heal the scars of so many. It’s almost as if getting to that place requires understanding your own Escape Room: an insane past time where people are willing to be pushed, screamed at, and even terrified as they scramble to escape simulated life-threatening situations. The crazy part about escape rooms is that we get locked into them knowing there is always a way out. What makes it so intoxicatingly addictive is the adrenaline pumping through our veins as we question whether or not we’ll actually find it. The self-loathing to self-love conundrum is just like that. The only way to rewire our brains out of self-loathing is to step into our darkest blindspot: self-love.

That’s the thing about blind-spots, they’re bloody obvious once we see them and then they vanish as if they were never there at all.

So there I was at 6am, about a half an hour in to Clara’s book , when, as I’m all curled up and warm, out of my mouth tumbles: I love you Tina.

I love you Tina.

I’m like: What?

I love you Tina.

Oh. I thought that came from you.

Okay so I’m no stranger to the self-help world. I’ve read Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life. I’ve affirmed my way into a happier disposition, I know how to talk to myself when I need to pull my sorry behind out of a crap load of poor me, or a give my brain an etch a sketch shake and redraw a nasty perspective into a positive one. Oh yes, I get the whole self-talk thing but that’s not what happened. I wasn’t standing in front of the mirror talking into my own eyes, or reading a magic yellow affirmation sticky, or even writing in my gratitude journal (I don’t have a gratitude journal shhhh..). Nope, I was in the fetal position, feet tucked under the covers, ankles crossed with one fist under my right cheek and the other cupping the edges of the book. I was in lala land and then out of nowhere, my inner me, the one who feels the same now at 45yrs as it did at 7yrs blurted out I Love You Tina just so I could hear it. It tumbled easily out of my mouth, and out loud.

My next thought was: ‘uhhhh… how did that happen? Ohhhh… and I do this to my kids all the time. I tell them I love them just ’cause. It’s not a daily do, or an affirmation, or a mindset reset at all, it’s just because it’s true. I love them.’

So Clara – that may not have been the goal for your readers by page 112, but that’s what happened to me.

I love you Tina, I said to myself without any agenda at all. I love you – probably because it’s true. I do.

How about you?

p.s. I’m at the top of chapter 14 – Salt Lake City Olympics are next. Mmmm… can’t wait.

xxT

Come in From the Cold

January 7, 2016

Yes I’m in the network marketing industry but this isn’t a pitch because that would be dumb. You’re way smarter than that. And let’s be straight here – your ‘salesperson sniff test’ would have my offer hung on a hook over your fireplace so fast I wouldn’t even have a chance to squeak out my why story. Let’s be real here. The scent of a seller can be picked up from miles away.

Two of my sons are at that age where career choices shouldn’t even be in their consciousness, but it is. They are fourteen and twelve. Let me ask you, when you were a teenager did you give two licks about how you would want to spend 40-60 hours per week trading time for money? No. You had a dream (if you were lucky), you may have had a whiff of a passion (if you were blessed that way), and you may have even figured out a couple of things that set you apart from your fellow students (if your parents or teachers saw it in you). But honestly, could you foresee that you would be doing what you are doing right now, back then? And would your profession today have made you want to buckle down at fifteen years old to get good grades in order to do it?

For a small percentage of us – the answer might be yes, but it’s complicated isn’t it? Getting to where you are today, even if you are totalllllllly fulfilled and in your ‘Vein of Gold’ as Julia Cameron calls it, was likely not as simple a process as earning As and Bs in grade ten. For a large percentage of us, our j.o.b. has nothing to do with our dreams or our passions, but instead has become that thing we do j.b. (just because).

I think J.O.B.’s are given a bad rap in the network marketing industry. I think running your own direct sales organization, serving clients and supporting new team members to reach the heights of their potential is also a j.o.b. and it’s just as challenging, time consuming, frustrating and as wildly fulfilling (often more so) as it is to go to ‘work’ each day.

I started in this industry over ten years ago and while, just like any j.o.b., I’ve loved it, been frustrated, been enamoured and crushed, felt purposeful and useless, been side-swiped and blessed… this is my j.o.b. and shhhh… listen closely because I’m going to whisper this… selling and recruiting is not my passion. Sometimes I feel like I’m bad-mouthing the industry when I admit that selling isn’t my “it” because there is such a push out there these days to Live Your Passion, to Be Your Genius, to never Sell-Out on your Dreams… Here’s my big aha that smacked me silly a few years back: Why did I ever believe I had to choose? When did having a job = bad, and living a dream = good? What if having them both = peaceful? = happy? Being a network marketer is my skillset and not my soulset. It requires my mindset to flex positively like a muscle I’ve trained to respond, and this j.o.b. asks only of my body that it do what it’s designed to do: eat for fuel, sleep for repair and breathe to live. It’s not romantic or dreamy eyed, yet it’s warm and it’s just as real as any job I’ve ever had.

The network marketing industry isn’t weird, it isn’t a cop-out, and it sure isn’t a short cut either. It’s a j.o.b. just like everything else we can do to earn an income. I love it because it fits me. Would I have chosen this as a profession in grade ten? Ummm absolutely not. Would I have studied for it in college? Are you kidding me? No no no no no… most definitely not. Funny eh? Somehow I ended up here and this overlooked, highly judged and wildly misunderstood industry has grown me up like nothing else I’ve ever done has.

In it’s simplicity, network marketing or direct sales is just another way for people to come in from the cold. I earn a good, honest living, and my needs are being met. I’m peaceful and that’s all that truly matters to me.

xxT

Really Okay Being Okay Being Okay Being Okay

January 4, 2016

This started out as a little Facebook update and became so much more – so here it is for you.

I’m back in the saddle… This year I choose Joy. This year I work 9am – 3pm only. This year as mama, I nourish the little boy inside my 6 year old who thinks he needs to be 15yrs old to matter. This year I honour the athlete inside of me. Bring on my first real triathlon – and not to reach my absolute pinnacle of best, but rather to enjoy cycling, running and swimming. This year I date my husband. I laugh, I love, I fall into deep gazes without glancing at my to do list. This year I juice and eat slowly at a family table because it feels awesome, not to avoid the c-word, and not because of it either. This year I take on my financial ‘story’ as the main character instead of reading it like it’s ‘happening to me’ – the good stuff and the hard stuff. I’m the main character. This year I write my books… I own my story and I give it away, neither proudly or meekly. I give it away because it’s what I’m designed to do. This year I’m a proud Arbonne consultant and Network Marketer and I make a difference in the world of selling, and home-based entrepreneurs. I care that there is another way for those who don’t do corporate, who aren’t designed to do the education/profession thing, who can’t find peace in the 9-5, who don’t experience joy in the Entrepreneur Game. I care deeply that not everyone fits in this big box of paths and professions that keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger with all the labels that we think is our identity – is what’s safe. Nahhhhh I don’t think my way is any better – it’s simply an alternative and it works for me. What works for you? This year I’m willing to champion that. This year I’m really okay being okay being okay being just okay. This year I am TinaOLife, all connected under one umbrella: Selling isn’t slimey, Marketing isn’t make-believe: Authenticity is the New Spin. Your Life is your Living Story, and the alignment of your Mindset, Soulset, Skillset and Body way to live = a perpetual motion machine. Life isn’t doing, Love isn’t running, and Family isn’t a place to hide-out. This year I stand. This year TinaOLife is what I do because I share who I am as we all do. Come with me. It’s Monday Morning and I’m starting today.

Big Love to the mentors who at various forks in the road stood and simply smiled at me because they saw my story before I did. Chris Dierkes,Carolyn Nesbitt, Cindy Schreyer, Jacqueline Samuda, Shelley Klassen,Andrea Wray, Miel Bernstein, Mary-Jane Mehlenbacher, Nicolle Nattrass,Meribeth Jasmine Deen, Tara Caffelle, Diana Gilbert, Isabelle Mercier Turcotte, Mr. Todd Ingram and more I’m sure. So much more. Today. Here we go.

xxT