Why the easy path is a good thing…
Little pro marketing advice because you know, when you know what the pros do, you can do what the pros do. Today I'm going to be talking about the easy path because sometimes we think when we're doing something that's new or different or that challenges us. It needs to be hard and painful.
I am in the third week of teaching my new course called Radical Branding. It's super Oh my God so fun. I was on one of my coaching calls and one of my students said they have to interview part of the exercises. They need to talk with potential most valuable customers, which is always something that people are like, "Oh my gosh! I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it!"
Hint, hint. It's a really good thing to do. I strongly recommend it, which is why it's part of my course. Anyways, she said, it's a stretch. Absolutely, 100%. And I get that completely. She said, " I could do a couple of things. I could take the easy path, which is, reach out to people that I know who really know me and what I'm doing, and I can practice and interview them. But I know that I want to grow from this, so I'm going to take the hard path" and I'm like, "Hold on a second. We gotta time out and cancel that because I love the easy path for so many reasons. Okay?" First of all, the easy path is easy. Imagine this, maybe you're on a hike, on a beautiful walking path, and you come to a porch in the path and you see on one side it's paved and it's smooth, and they're flowers and they're fragrant, and it's beautiful and it goes through a part of town that you're familiar with. So it's all like really good.
You're feeling really good and then there's another path that is not paved and it's full of ruts and rocks and things that you can trip on. And they're like bees' nests, and you look down the road and you're just like, "are those actually people having a cock fight down there or something" something just outrageous, right?
That's something you would not see in every day, but it's not an easy path and you know that it goes through a part of town you're not familiar with that you hear crazy stories about. And so you know that if you went down that other path, you would end up bloody bruise. Just completely on that other side laid out.
I'm going to tell you that is not how things need to work in marketing. This is why I like the easy path, because number one, if you were really literally given the physical choice to choose one of two paths, I would hope that you would choose the one that gives you joy and ease, where you can stop and take a look at the road and see what's there, right? Because you're not in this protective, "Oh! My gosh, what's happening type of mode" right?
Number two, when you do something that seems easy, you are moving in momentum in the right direction. What my student is doing is just her easiest point of entry. It's the easiest door to open. Work with someone that you know, someone that likes you, that you like, who can help you at the end of the day and give you practice and then you can take it and maybe talk with someone who you don't know as well, or maybe even someone on your list who you've never talked to before, ever in your life.
It's a definite step in the right direction. And when you start to take a step in this direction using the easy path, the next step becomes easier, and then the next step becomes easier and the next step becomes easier after that. And then before you know it, you are so far down this road and you look back and you're like "Oh my gosh. I am absolutely celebrating how far I have come." that is why the easy Path is always the great place to start. How do you know you're on the easy path?
Well, I'll tell you, here's how you know you're on the easy path. The easy path is the kind of path that sparks a lot of ideas. This is truly how I test if I am on the right path. It's like I swallow it like a little seed, I let the idea sit inside of me and if it stays there and starts to grow like a plant, then I know, pay attention to this.
And then when I know we're onto something, it's like you spark a great idea and then that sparks an idea and you're like, "And this and this, and then we could do this. And what about this?" That's how I can tell we're in the right direction. And that is the easy path, right? And the easy path too is not necessarily simple, it's just easier, right?
You're still doing the same things that you need to do. You're still on your journey to get to where you want to go. You're just choosing the route that's going to give you the most positive momentum in the right direction. And so once you start getting that context and you start taking action, have you ever think about when we first started driving, the whole idea of sitting behind a car, it took so much thought and effort, and now, Can we be honest?
Aren't there times you drive that you're like, I have not even been paying attention or you're singing a song or something like, I don't know what you're doing. I've seen people fill out, be watching television while they're driving too, so it's something that becomes so habitual and marketing can be that same way when we just don't put ourselves in this place of resistance.
I was telling my husband yesterday after my coaching call, I said, "So interesting to me when people, and I do this too, that I think the way to grow is to take the hard path. When people stretch, they feel like it needs to be painful" and he's like, "Oh my gosh, that's so interesting because you know what, stretching is supposed to feel so good." And I thought, "oh! I'm going to totally put that in my Facebook live."
Think about this, like truly, truly, I'm a yogi. I do hot yoga. And so when you are stretching, think about how that is supposed to feel good, how you're supposed to work with your body. And it's an indication if there's pain or any sort of discomfort to stop that's like that native language that we have with our bodies.
And so it works the same in your business when you start to feel that pain or that stretch or that overwhelm that is telling you, Hold up a second. Chances are something, one of your basic elements is out of place. So take a look. Make sure you have a solid foundation. Make sure you're taking the easy path.
Find the easy way out. Remember, there was a whole campaign, a whole campaign called the easy button. That's so huge. We want to find the easy button in our businesses, 100%. It gets momentum in the right direction.
If you have any sort of easy path stories or you have a hard path story that you want to get off the hard path and get onto the easy path, put it in the comments. I would love to hear, any sort of transformation around that. Or if you're struggling with, you think you're on the hard path, how do you get on the easy path?
Put that in the comments. I will totally give you some ideas on how to get back to the easy path. Because I'm going to tell you something, it's nice and easy on the easy path. That's what I have for you today. Wherever you are in this beautiful, crazy, ever-changing world of ours, that there is someone right here in Denver, Colorado, and that is me, who's 100,000% rooting for you.
Take care, guys, and I'll see you here next Thursday, right around 11:30 Mountain Time. Take it easy. Have a beautiful day.
