Prior to entering Phase 2, I was deeply involved in direct response marketing, on and off the Internet, for 18 years.
In fact, I actually grew up with Internet marketing -- playing that game way back at the beginning, before most people even had email accounts or knew about the Internet.
After my first year in Phase 2, I created losing interest in The Marketing Game, and let go of it. I unsubscribed from all my marketing newsletters, stopped expressing appreciation for seminars, courses, books, and other educational resources, stopped applying virtually all the strategies (including measurement and tracking of results), and allowed all my businesses to pretty much run on auto-pilot -- generally just sending out an occasional email to announce something new I was doing to my own email list.
I stayed in that "hands off" mode for nearly 5 years. Then I felt moved to dip my toe back into the Internet marketing waters to see what had changed during my absence, especially as it relates to using multimedia (text, audio and video) on the Internet.
When I re-entered The Marketing Game, so to speak, in that way, I noticed something fascinating I never quite "saw" so clearly before. Everywhere I looked,
all the talk was about "monetization" of EVERYTHING -- how you could/should make money from using this or that technique, resource, etc.
That's to be expected in discussions about sales and marketing, right? Of course.
What was conspicuously absent from
ALL the discussions, every single one, was any mention at all about having fun! Not even the slightest mention!
"You need to do 'X' to build your business ..."
"Use this technique and you can make twenty zillion dollars and dominate your niche ..."
"This technique or resource will get you #1 rankings in Google ..."
"Do this one little thing and you can double your sales and profits overnight ..."
"You absolutely must do z, y and z or you're leaving a fortune on the table ..."
"Time is money, so ...."
"Just do 'Y' and you'll get twice as much done in half the time..."
But NOTHING, not one word about fun, enjoyment, or what I call "lifestyle friendliness" from the doing of all of that, from the playing of The Business Game.
As a result, most of the folks following those pathways, whether they're making twenty zillion dollars or not, are NOT having much fun (even if they swear they are), and, in general, are stressed out maniacs like I used to be in Phase 1.
If you do see a rare exception of someone mentioning the topic of fun and enjoyment, in general and with few exceptions, it's just lip service -- and they're still stressed out maniacs too!
So, here are my two questions for you today:
"Where's the Joy?"
"When is it going to become a priority?"
In
Phase 2, as a natural by-product of expansion and knocking out the
cloud cover, fun and joy enter the picture, stay in the picture, become more and more of a priority, and your experience of both increases in ways you can't even imagine right now -- without you targeting or "intending" it as an outcome.
But until you get to that point, I invite you today to at least put it on your radar screen as something to track and monitor, and, if you will, an intention for a very powerful form of transformation in your experience of playing The Business Game.
