Topics: Financial Freedom, Personal Growth
Think Your Way to Freedom
May 7th, 2010 by Josh BillingsWhen most people talk about freedom, they talk about altering their circumstances so that they can feel free without having to think twice. They want a lazy freedom that can be handed down to them by life, rather than a self-actualizing freedom that is created through their mind.
It’s easy to feel good about being able to afford anything you want when you already have the money to do so. It’s harder to feel good about being able to afford anything you want when you actually have to get creative to attract the money.
It’s easy to feel good about being able to do whatever you want when you don’t have to make a living to support yourself. It’s much harder to feel good about it when you don’t know how you’re going to make a living yet, but choose to do whatever you want anyway.
People who feel free are people who think beyond their circumstances. They don’t try to change their circumstances to find freedom, they exercise their freedom to change their circumstances.
If you want more freedom, think more freely. Stop accepting your lot in life and start accepting your ability to create it. The freedom to get to where you want to be is less about where you are now, and more about how willing you are to get behind the wheel and drive there.
We all have drive. The question is, are we using our circumstances to fuel us to where we want to go, or to remind us of where we don’t want to be?
You’ll find your freedom in the former.
9 Comments | Posted on May 7th, 2010
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Hi, Josh! I found your website through some comments you left for me on another site regarding a business idea of mine. I’m very much enjoying going through your archives — great stuff you have here!
Just had to comment on this one because I couldn’t agree more heartily. At one point, I had actually registered the domain name “ThinkYourWayFree.com” and was planning to start a project around it. It has since expired, and my plans have changed — but just wanted to share that I’m a kindred soul who is 100% in agreement.
Well, I’m going to get back to reading more of your posts now. I’m happy to have “met” you!
Haha! (I often begin my sentences with a laugh because I’m responding to something that has raised my energy and I actually physically laughed in response to the sensation. And yes, explaining this as I’ve just explained it is leading to further laughter (though this time it’s much more subdued as I’m questioning whether or not it’s relevant to explain this. Although lately I’ve been finding it very helpful to not try to dictate what is or is not worthy of being shared and to make a general commitment to just share more, trusting that I was prompted to say something for a reason and that to squelch that prompt would be to deny myself the opportunity to discover why.))
Let me first say that I found your comment on my business idea very thought provoking. I spent about 3 hours attempting to articulate a response, trying on many different “angles” in the process. Then my girlfriend came over and I found my energy shifting to other things so I just let it sit.
I find that if I push myself too much I’ll run out of energy and not want to continue at all, so I usually give myself permission to do what feels best. The path that feels best doesn’t always get me to where I *think* I want to go (and, honestly, I can’t guarantee where I might end up), but the journey has been rich with experience and uniquely my own.
Anyway, as I was writing above about sharing more, a thought came to mind that I recognized as something I might not normally share. I have stopped writing many times throughout typing this comment to tweak my punctuation because I want to communicate as clearly as possible. I know there are many grammatical nuances that elude me and I’ve yet to find an enticing way to grow my understanding. I’ve picked up a little along the way through the Grammar Girl podcast, reading Elements of Style, noticing good grammar in other people’s writing and general trial and error; but I still feel like I’m not entirely clear on how to best organize my words with paragraphs and punctuation. Even colorful explanations like The Oatmeal’s “How to use a semicolon” http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon have failed to completely sink in for me. What I really think would work best would be to have someone edit my work and show me where I’m making mistakes and how to clean them up.
(Writing that out has given me another idea for who might benefit from your services: people who are natural speakers who want to capture the power of their spoken word in writing, but struggle to communicate the nuances of their natural speech with written word. I could niche it down for you and say, “Professional speakers who want to reach more people via the internet and know that nothing travels faster than text but find the act of writing for publication tedious.” That’s not the best niche-down, but it’s a start. And niching things down is actually a lot of work, so I’d rather find something that really resonates with you first and then help you niche it down, instead of just niching everything down all willy nilly. Although it might be good practice to let myself run with it.
How about, “Personal development speakers who have a product to sell and want to start (or improve) a newsletter to convert one-time visitors to their site into paying customers.” They have a very authentic voice / message, so having someone else do their writing is out of the question. Writing is awkward and at times frustrating for them, so their site is mostly videos of them speaking, but they’re not getting as good of conversion rates because the text around their writing isn’t enticing people to explore more. You could say to them, “I help professional speakers in the personal development field quadruple their audience and double their product sales by capturing the authenticity of their voice with written word.
OK, all that aside, the idea I had that I might not normally have shared was “We should do a trade!” I could help you develop an amazing service and in the process get to experience and benefit from that service myself!
I’ve always wanted to be a business consultant, but I’ve always been hesitant to call myself that because I don’t have the experience. I could help you connect the things you love and are naturally great at with a market who’s more than willing to pay for your services. I believe that something you have to offer could benefit me tremendously. I’m not entirely sure what it is, but I don’t think “meeting” you like this is mere happenstance. I will hold you to creating a paying service that you really love, not just settling for the first service that people will pay for or a starving artist gig that never pays.
I should warn you that sometimes I come on a little strong because I see how things could be and just run with it without really checking in to see if the other person is on board. However, this isn’t a rigid, take-it-or-leave-it vision. It’s just what I saw when I glanced in this direction and then allowed myself to go a little deeper (and in my case, a little deeper often leads to a lot deeper).
As you mentioned above, we seem to be kindred souls, and I’m always looking for opportunities to work more closely with people who’ll benefit from me just being who I am, and who I’ll benefit from as they be who they are. In other words, we obviously have gifts each other can appreciate. Why not share and grow those gifts together?
I am in! And want to write you a much more thoughtful and detailed reply, which I can do from work tomorrow — I’m about to the kiddos to bed right now, and then crash myself. Synchronicity is awesome!
About to PUT the kiddos to bed…sigh…so much for showing my mad skillz…….:)
I read your comment late last night and my only response (other than palpable enthusiasm) was to IM my girlfriend “Lynn is in!” with a link to your comment.
BTW: The reason your comments were held from moderation even though I approved your first one is because you technically changed your name (i.e. omitted your last name) and wordpress doesn’t recognize you as someone who’s pre-approved.
PS: I was going to delete the second comment because my mind filled in the blank on the first missing “put” and so I thought you wrote the second comment because the first one didn’t show up (hence the above explanation). I chose not to delete it because I have a tendency to want to hide errors and thought that no harm would be done, and I might learn something, by trying things the other way. However, I’m now just realizing that you noticed you missed a word and corrected yourself.
PPS: In stumbling over the writing of that final sentence, I remembered that sometimes I stumble over my words when trying to verbalize something aloud as well. Even though speech seems to come a lot more naturally to me than writing, I’m starting to grasp that it’s not the huge gap in results that drive this perceived disparity, it’s largely that I perceive myself as a better speaker than a writer and most often remember the times where words just flow so eloquently from me in person and compare those to the times when I struggle to punctuate and organize my words. Upon reflection, I recognize that I’m just as amazed by things I write out as things I speak aloud when I’m in that flow state and riding the wave of an insight. The true disparity is that when I write I often notice things that feel “off” and giving them my attention which disrupts the natural flow that occurs when I really hook into an idea.
This sheds light on another potential benefit for the professional speakers niche I outlined above. Perhaps the reason many speakers turned writers struggle over it is because their errors become so conspicuous while writing. When I reflect upon my sentence of “In stumbling over the writing of that final sentence”¹ I notice that it’s passive and unnecessarily verbose. If I can find a way to improve that sentence in writing, I will have taught myself a way to improve similar sentences while speaking. Many professional speakers are able to mask overly wordy explanations with their intonation and deliver even relatively flabby sentences without drawing attention to their flab. But imagine how much tighter their speeches would be if they could cut that flab out. Every word would hit with more crispness and they could deliver more in less time. Near minute long digressions that take people’s mind off the topic long enough to dislodge their short-term memory could be replaced with one or two liners. Speakers who always write out their speeches already receive this benefit, but there are many ab libbers who rely on the value of their insights and the strength of the storytelling alone, rarely writing out their speeches and choosing to improve by recording them instead.
The blunt truth is that flabby sentences make for flabby content. If you have good success speaking in person but have failed to fully translate that success into products involving written word, it’s because you’re succeeding primarily as an entertainer — not an educator. You know you have something worthwhile to say; that the passion that fuels you when you’re speaking is more than just filler sprinkled with glitter, sparking in the spotlight; but to really convert that passion into something that JUMPS from person to person without a charismatic spokesperson such as yourself delivering it, you’ve got to get into the nitty gritty and rebuild your work from the words up.
Foot notes:
1. I’m not sure if I should end that quote with a period (because I know I haven’t completed my sentence) or perhaps a comma (even though there was no comma in the quote), so I’m just letting it hang out there hoping the quotation mark is enough punctuation. If I were to speak that sentence aloud, there would be a short pause between finishing the quote and continuing to make my point. It would go, “When i reflect upon my sentence of [ultra short pause and slight change in tone] ‘In stumbling over the writing of that final sentence’ (short pause and return to normal tone] [finishing my point]. I know to me, the quotation itself is enough to convey some change in delivery style — because, like any good storyteller, I alter my tone when reading quotations aloud and the same thing happens, though much more subtly, when I’m reading someone else’s writing silently in my head; but I prefer the creative control of being able to deliver the words myself and intone everything I intend with my own voice. Either way, I’m not sure what is proper grammar / will most effectively communicate what I intend.
This reminds me of another caveat about this group of people: People who are good showmen really appreciate showmanship, and learn best from methods that contain showmanship.
The creed of the showman is, “Show, don’t tell.” By correcting¹ their writing for them you are SHOWING them how to perform better, not just TELLING them what to do differently. This is why even colorful and entertaining things such as The Oatmeal semicolon comic didn’t register as well with me as I believe someone correcting my writing firsthand would. Because, as flashy as that comic was, it didn’t SHOW me directly, it TOLD me what was proper and left discovering errors and correcting them entirely up to me.
Foot notes:
1. I originally wanted to avoid using the word correcting, but found it was the most accurate / concise term. I think my resistance lies in my concept of the word correcting. I believe that many of these creative-type professional speakers didn’t like being corrected by boring teachers growing up, and focusing on uninteresting things such as proper grammar. Not that grammar itself is boring, but to someone with this type of focus, they’re much more interested in other things. That seems to be the case for me. I don’t consciously recall disliking grammar in school, but the payoff of learning to improve my grammar isn’t as enticing as discovering a new insight that can improve my outlook on the world. However, by learning to improve my grammar through having someone else review my work, I don’t feel like it’s so off-topic anymore. I’m re-reading my stuff, potentially seeing it in a new light, and learning to better deliver it, on the whole.
If we reach out to this kind of person and let them know that we’re not trying to drown out their creativity, but arm it with the tools to change the world, then they can really get on board and get excited about new learning opportunities.
PS: A lot of what I’m talking about may seem to require wearing the hat of both an editor and a coach. You may be much more comfortable / experienced as a proofreader / editor than an in depth coach, but that’s nothing to fret about at this point. When you deeply understand your clients, you will naturally touch upon and learn from the depths of their work. If you decide this sort of niche might be right for you but would rather stick to the nuts and bolts word work, I’d be willing to explore some sort of partnership. My hope is that we might learn so well from each other that we could take on the other’s skills and be able to solo the operation, if we so chose, in the future. Or that working together on this might lead to other exciting opportunities to work together, or find someone else to work with, and further expand our growth.
The bottom line, though, is that this is just one possibility out of the many that we may now choose from. I love to run with my ideas and strike while the iron’s still hot, but I do believe it would be wise to hash out all the opportunities we have, as individuals and together, and then move in the direction that feels best to us.
There’ll be a learning curve no matter which direction we choose, and by pre-testing our ideas for profitability we’re likely to quickly start profiting or realize that the market isn’t there and pursue more promising prospects.
Wow, Joshua, you DO have a lot of ideas – and some very good ones, I might add. Several of your points jumped out at me right off the bat:
– “I find that if I push myself too much I’ll run out of energy and not want to continue at all, so I usually give myself permission to do what feels best. The path that feels best doesn’t always get me to where I *think* I want to go (and, honestly, I can’t guarantee where I might end up), but the journey has been rich with experience and uniquely my own.” This is precisely what I was referring to on Ramit’s thread – sticking with my “sweet spot,” and focusing on short copy like blog posts, websites, and newsletters. While I have the skills to edit and organize books, that is something I only enjoy doing on an occasional basis. It takes a lot more focus and concentration, and therefore energy. On the other hand, I find editing short pieces FUN – it energizes me. If I were to win the lottery, I would do this kind of work for people for free. To me, that is kind of a litmus test – the famous coaching question. While it’s tempting to alter what I want to do because there may be more money in it (and, after all, it would still be better than sitting in a cubicle for 40 hours) I suspect that I’d be likely to be more successful and provide better service doing the kind of editing that I truly love – and definitely enjoy it a heck of a lot more (the “journey that is uniquely my own”).
– I hadn’t considered the professional speaker angle as a niche, but it makes a lot of sense. I have the exact opposite problem: I can express myself pretty authentically in writing, but stumble mightily when speaking. I agree with you that great speaking has as much (or more) to do with entertainment as it does with content. It sounds like a lot of fun to take someone’s inspired storytelling and entertaining delivery and turn it into a written product!
– I’m not sure whether I agree or not with the premise that showing people examples of how I would “correct” their writing would teach them better writing. I have always believed that a talent for grammar, punctuation, etc. is largely a natural skill – kind of like spelling. Whereas it comes easy for me, for other people it will likely never be anything but a chore. Not that people can’t improve – but if it’s not what they love and are naturally gifted at, wouldn’t their time be better spent honing those things they DO love and outsourcing the grammar to me? My guess would be that they’d be glad to not have to worry about it any more so they have more energy to concentrate in the areas in which they naturally shine and have fun.
– “If we reach out to this kind of person and let them know that we’re not trying to drown out their creativity, but arm it with the tools to change the world, then they can really get on board and get excited about new learning opportunities.” LOVE that line! That would be a great line of copy – something like “When you hire us to hone and perfect your written work, we won’t drown out your creativity – we’ll arm it with the tools it needs to change the world!”
– “I’m always looking for opportunities to work more closely with people who’ll benefit from me just being who I am, and who I’ll benefit from as they be who they are.” As far as I’m concerned, that’s what it’s all about! Every time I’ve relaxed and been open, I’ve been led exactly where I need to go and met exactly the people I need to meet. Sometimes the reason why doesn’t show up until much later – but it’s always an interesting journey. Who knows why, out of all the posts on that gigantic thread, you chose to comment on mine – but, clearly there was a purpose to our connecting.
– I’m certainly interested in brainstorming ways to refine potential niches and different ways of offering and packaging my services. I’m also open to trading expertise, and to possible collaboration. Let’s explore and see where this idea takes us. You mentioned pre-testing ideas for profitability, and I must admit that’s one of the places I get stuck and overwhelmed. I don’t even know where or how to start doing that. Ideas? (And, incidentally, are you signing up for the class? I would like to, but won’t be able to swing it financially before tomorrow’s deadline. I’ve sent an e-mail to see if they’ll defer payment until I get my tax refund, so we’ll see what happens.)
Well, that’s it for now…time to get back to the work that currently pays my bills! Oh, and incidentally – please don’t ever worry about any kind of grammatical or punctuation errors when you write to me. As far as I’m concerned, the level of “correctness” for blog comments, Facebook, personal e-mails, and things like that is completely different than it is for writing for publication or for sale. I post my share of awkwardly expressed, typo-filled comments every day. Some of my friends say they’re paranoid because I’m an editor – but I honestly don’t examine personal writing with my editor hat on. I have even learned to text using society’s new “text message” language – though I will admit I had to overcome some resistance the first time I texted “What r u doing?” to my daughter!
Oh, and if you would like to move this discussion to regular e-mail for ease (and so your blog readers can comment on your post!), I will send you my e-mail address via Facebook message.
Hey Lynn, I sent you an email to the address you put in your comment bar earlier today. Just thought I’d let you know in case you don’t regularly check that email.