What Did You Do With Jill?Jill Whalen's healthy lifestyle transformation                                               

[Jill’s Note: If you prefer to listen rather than read, please scroll to the bottom of this post for the audio version.]

How much of what you do is because you’ve seen others do it first?

I recently saw a Facebook post from someone running an online program wondering what she might use as a bonus incentive to register. My initial reaction (which I posted to her) was something like: “Why do you need a bonus incentive? Shouldn’t your program’s content itself be the incentive to sign up?” She replied that she did believe her content was valuable enough, but that everyone else always has bonuses so she felt she needed to as well.

I found her answer to be curious.

Doing stuff in your business for no other reason than because you think you have to is just plain silly.

While it’s smart to try out a variety of ways to market your business to see what works and what doesn’t, it’s important to know the reasoning behind what you’re doing.

Another example comes to mind. I have heard from multiple people that they know they need to create videos in order to market their business, but that they aren’t comfortable and/or don’t know how to do this. My response is “Why do you need videos?” The answer is usually either that some marketing guru told them they needed to, or that it’s what they’ve seen other apparently successful people doing.

Neither is a good reason.

Just because others are doing something doesn’t mean you have to.

It also doesn’t mean it’s the cause of their success. If videos are helping to market someone’s business, it’s because for them it was the right thing to do. They were comfortable being on camera and created something that would resonate with others. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing for YOU to do. If you’re not comfortable being on camera, it’s unlikely your videos will help your business.

There is no ONE thing you HAVE to do.

There are zillions of ways of marketing a business, and none of them are “must do’s” other than simply being your authentic self. As long as you stay true to who you are and not try to be someone you think you should be, then how to run and market your business will come naturally.

The key to being successful is to come from a place of inspiration, passion and fun!

When you come from there, what might be called work feels completely effortless. When you’re inspired, your work just completes itself.

I’ve known for decades that effortless success is a real thing because it’s how my old business ran for 18 years. In all that time it rarely felt like work. It may have helped that it started out as me just fooling around on the computer when my kids were little. But even as it grew into a “real” biz it generally felt effortless. My kids thought I just played on the computer all day, and honestly that’s what it felt like to me as well.

Except that the money kept rolling in!

A couple of days ago, I was reminded again of how work can be effortless. I met with a local non-profit organization whose mission is to try and teach our school children to make better decisions when it comes to drugs and alcohol. It seemed like there might be some synergy between what I’ve seen for myself about addiction, and what they’re trying to accomplish. However, when I was speaking with the outreach coordinator it wasn’t yet clear to me how (or even if) my knowledge and experience might fit with their goals.

A few hours later while taking a shower (of course!) I found myself reviewing the conversation in my head. Suddenly in a flash, I knew exactly how my understanding could be useful to them in a way that exactly fit their mission. So I hopped out of the shower feeling totally inspired to write it down.

Here’s where it got interesting.

The document WROTE ITSELF! (I want to say that it “literally” wrote itself, which obviously couldn’t happen. But I swear that’s what it felt like.) From that one quick shower flash, as soon as I started writing it just flowed, and flowed and flowed. And it was also pretty brilliant if I do say so myself!

Now, this kind of writing is nothing new to me as it used to happen all the time when seeking inspiration for my old SEO newsletters. And most of the blog posts here have also “written themselves.”

Our best work comes when we are in the flow.

Effortless work, be it marketing our business, writing proposals or anything else that we need to do, is definitely real. And the beauty is we can access it any time!

Whether or not the non-profit I met with will be a good fit for what I wrote up, is still yet to be seen. But even if it’s not, what came out of my inspiration is a good start for something else that might be pitched directly to schools or other organizations. Because it was written from insight, it was simple, clear, direct and logical. It’s also provided me with lots of other inspired ideas.

So go forth and “do nothing” my friends. Let me know what you create from that space!

–Jill

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Jill Whalen

CONTACT JILL WHALEN to learn how she may help you be the best you can be.

Jill is the author of Victim of Thought: Seeing Through the Illusion of Anxiety

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For the past 20 years, Jill has consulted with companies big and small, and spoken at conferences all over the world. She is currently a transformational speaker and mentor to businesses, individuals, coaches, leaders, groups and organizations. She helps them uncover their natural well-being and happiness so that they can operate from a clearer state of mind and take their lives and businesses to a higher level.

Jill's blog, What Did You Do With Jill? is a personal account of what she's learned throughout her transformational journey. Jill has many "viral" articles on LinkedIn and is a contributing writer for P.S. I Love You.

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