Be

Be sincere, be brief, be seated

You're pretending you deserve what you have.

People would rather feel rich rather than actually get rich.

People would rather feel like they worked hard and earned their keep rather than actually do the kinds of hard work needed.

We'd rather face the pain we know rather than struggle to a better destination.

We'd rather pay the price of familiarity rather than the small cost of change.

Business as usual.... before it wasn't.

Charlie Boudreau is looking for recommendations
 
I'm looking to niche down. I am currently serving too many areas.
I'm struggling to settle in on a niche. Aside from picking a niche "I love", does anyone have any suggestions for niches that attract more clients than other niches or are easier to work with?
I'm currently debating on restaurants or cleaning services.

Sam Phelps
I could be spelling out the obvious but make a list of:
1. Businesses that work really hard to get consumers (easy to get leads and get pitches heard).
2. Businesses that have autonomy on local levels/authorised to spend.
3. Have a model which is scalable (or at least they have intent to).
4. High margins or monetise attention in other ways.
Restaurants for example tick three, hard to figure out the fourth without research.
Write down as many industries as you can and tick off which boxes they tick... The best place to start is categories actual ads you see going about your life - for example I see way too many insurance ads, way too many mobile gaming, gambling, alcohol, supplements, fitness and online courses lol so they all must have huge margins (advertising is worth the cost)
The only one I can think of which ticks all 4 at the moment is education - it's a bit of a gold rush at the moment, I think most of us will wake up in half a decade. But education traditionally, education to educators, education tech and of course... online course education.
Once you have the ones you least hate or most like, narrow down the subgenre. Insurance could be pet insurance, education could be STEM, restaurants could be local source only, cleaners could be natural cleaning products only etc.
Then go test the assumptions and get to know the people who you think matter.
Or you know, just go your original thoughts of restaurants or cleaning, because: why not.

Decision deciding?

There are no solutions, only trade offs.

Just because you feel like doing something, doesn't mean it's important.

Don't spend major time on minor things.

Who are you trying to impress? You might be doing it wrong.

History judges you by what you achieved.

Society judges you by what you seem.

Family judges you by how you make them feel.

You've got a nasty bite... what's it like?

Imagine a snake, any snake...

Do you believe this snake hunts down humans? Like it directly seeks them out? I think we can all agree, no, otherwise snakes would be banging on our doors trying to get in.

Ok, now imagine yourself as that snake... What are you doing all day? Doing snake things like lying around, looking around, finding shelter getting warm, looking for food, looking for a mate, having snake babies...

Cool, doesn't sound too far from the average human year...

Keep imagining yourself as this snake.

Now you're minding your own business and a human steps on your tail.... what do you do?

Probably lashes out and goes to bite the source of the pain yes?

Did the human do it deliberately... maybe, but maybe not too. Either way, it hurt getting your tail stood on and without thinking you wanted to protect yourself.

Switch back into a human mindset... When someone stomps on your 'tail' accidentally or deliberately, what does your 'bite' look like? What is your venom made up of?
It's really important to know how we inflict pain upon others.

If you can't figure it out or you don't think you have a 'bite' start with what you know for sure you don't do. But you have something, you do something.
And if you still can't think of anything, if you wanted to hurt someone in a socially acceptable way (where you still looked like the good guy) what would that look like?

This explains every argument ever had

What's going on when people fight, argue and disagree? I've noticed for years how many people are both right in an argument... how is that possible, how can we all be fighting over the same thing and yet all be right?
Or flip it around, the same people who could be both right are also both wrong... How can this be?

Because our fight is governed and justified by the parameters we set out for ourselves.

Here are those parameters.

There are only two platforms of communication:

1 Discussion
2 Debate

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These are filtered through four 'according to you' belief systems:

1 The world how it is (objectively)
2 The world how you think it ought to be
3 The world not being understood
4 The world 'how it is' but it just ain't so (perception ignoring objective reality).

-----

All arguments topics come down to these four categories:

1 My world (what I know and see)
2 'The' world ('facts')
3 Equality (the game today)
4 Equity (the game today, yesterday and tomorrow)

-----

These are personalised by three main feelings:

1 Why can't you be more like me?
2 Why can't you be more like what I understand?
3 Why can't you understand my pain?

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All motivations stem back to a deep original source...

1 Survival (including resources, status quo and power)

And/or

2 Legacy (including extra resources sex, extra power and purpose)

-----

Literally the fastest way to change someone's mind

If you can't 'thing/action X' 'time/space X, when/where can you?

It's really difficult for people to think one thing then immediately pivot to what you think.
Almost without fail there's a sentence which swings and I accidentally use it all the time.

Silly examples
If you can't close a lighthouse for painting during social distancing and winter time, when can you?

If you can't fart while going to the toilet, when can you?

In other words it challenges the person to go 'think of something better' and it's amazing how many people roll over and accept in that moment like no other phrase can.

Real examples might be you want pizza but someone else thinks that's unhealthy...
"If you can't have pizza on a Friday night after a hard week and home cooking all week, when can you?"

THE MOST IMPORTANT EPIPHANY EVER

.... and it's gone. I may never know or remember... I hate that!

Write everything down in the moment or get being ok with not remembering.

Are you worried about making the wrong decision or doing the wrong thing?

Most of the main problems come from not the choices you make or the things you do, but the choices you don't make and things you don't do.

Feel the opposite of uneasy

Match your temperament to the demands of your environment.

The way to make all of life safe...

'Help me become more courageous, help me forge my sword to slay the dragons along my road'.

Surprising confidence hack

Confidence is the acceptance of vulnerability.

You're avoiding something... it won't go away.

What you resist tends to persist.

You physically can't speak the truth?

Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.

And if you you're not sure of the truth, at least don't deliberately lie.

They are stealing

When a person or place screws you over, not getting what you pay for like bad food at a supermarket. Then they offer you a refund....

Here's the thing...

You stole my money, you stole my time, you stole my energy. When you offer me a refund you've still stolen my time and energy.

It's an explanation, it's not an excuse.

A comment to 'when men raise their voice, it's because they feel they aren't being obeyed'.

There might be two different things going on here (we're going to leave nature debates out of this, super complicated), sometimes these two are combined, sometimes not.

One is conditioning based on culture, upbringing - just seeing it as that's just how it is. There's no rhyme or reason.

So the good news is we rebel against about 1 in 5 nurtured habits as we become adults, so 20% have a chance to break free 'easily' while the other 80% will need social cues and relearning, which is really difficult, but not impossible.

The second is much worse because it comes from a place of fear. Fear of what? Being found out. Imposter syndrome. How is that relevant in relationships and interactions?

Lucky you, you're about to find out - this is a pattern amongst all people across all sorts of genres, it just so happens this genre and these people are far more damaging in the now, and across generations. So what are they afraid of exactly, what are they hoping no one finds out about?

Let me ask you this? Do you love yourself? Do you even like yourself? Would you enjoy spending all week with you?

For some, they do like themselves, cool! For others, they don't, at all. When someone likes or even loves the person who hates themself, after a while they start to feel like they have to keep up an act, because if the person truly got to know them, they'd see what you always feared.

Fear. They are in a way, incompetent of being themselves. Think of an incompetent boss or manager, same behaviour, but not the same level of personal destruction (usually). We're not very good humans when we're scared. Fear - it's not rational, it's not considered, it does not pick up on subtlety and it does not conform to social expectations. It's not an excuse, it is an explanation.

Explanations are needed to inform the direction of change. Don't get furious, get curious. And yet furry let's us know something is wrong, so the path for some is furry, it let's others know things are not ok and that's just as important... But furry can't explain why, curiosity does.

When someone doesn't know who they are, what they stand for, who their identity is, they are always going to feel like they're pretending, and for many, they will lash out when they feel like they're being exposed as the fraud human being they feel they are.

So the next time anyone yells at you, see if there is fear in their eyes while they're getting angry over 'nothing'.
It's only an explanation, it's not an excuse.

"Sam, please, we're just having some observational truth bomb pitchfork media meme times." #DontBringFactsToAFeelingsFight

Business is dating

Sales is asking someone out on a date.

Marketing is the reason they say yes.

Branding is the reason it lasts.

You're getting old

As you get older your body talks to you, the order you get, the more it raises itself.

Is why an important question all the time?

Suspend your need for understanding.

What if we had movement's to let things exist without the need for it to make sense?  If only for a little bit.

Dumb people outsmart smart people all the time

What's the best thing to do if you want to one up a smart person? Make them feel stupid. How do you do that? Not through logic but the nonsensical. They will try to decode the situation to something logical and go crazy trying.

Work, education, money, status - thought about investing in this?

Invest in relationships.

You should be grateful.

People put up with our shit all the time, if only we could be grateful, so why aren't we? Sometimes we don't have the awareness to notice and even if we do, we don't have the right feelings to drive us to gratitude.