Do you think you have to market like that really popular life coach who is always talking about making 7 figures?
Perhaps you think you should do things the same way as your healing teacher who has a killer online business.
Maybe you think you should be a bit more like someone you know from your training in your business or marketing, because they have built something really sustainable and profitable.
It’s easy to think that way.
The Allure of Imitation
For one thing, a lot of people are marketing their business and marketing coaching programs using the lens of “Heyyyy! Look at me and what I did with my business! I’ll teach you how you can do it too!”
They do it because it’s alluring. If they did it that way, they want you to think, it can work for me too.
But here’s the thing. They’re going to be talking about what worked for them. And if you take a look at you, your business, your own gifts and talents and life experiences, you know you’re not like them.
You’re like you. Thank goodness.
For another thing, we want to believe that that’s what it takes to be great in our business - to imitate the great ones. In school we aren’t taught a lot about the creative process and innovation. We are taught principles and are taught mastery of a thing by studying the Masters. We learn about civics by studying history. We learn to write good horror stories by studying Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart.
Other People’s Mountains
In my fiction writing course last week, we listened to a Master Class with author George Saunders who talked about the mountain of other writers and the process of self-inhabitation.
What did he mean?
He said that when writers start out and they create something they’re happy with, after a bit, they’ll look at it, and it hits them. It doesn’t compare, they think, with those other writers whose work they look up to.
They think it’s smaller.
So then, they’ll set their sights on something bigger. In his case, it was what he called The Hemingway Mountain. But it could be the Zora Neale Hurston mountain. Or, if you’re like me, the Alice Hoffman mountain.
Then, he said, we’ll set about, often unconsciously, though sometimes consciously, trying to climb that mountain. To imitate that master’s work.
It’s only after a lot of hard work, sometimes minimal success, and a whole lot of exhaustion do we look upward toward where we’re heading and realize Ugh. Wait, even if I make it all the way to the top, Hemingway is already there. He’s already at the highest point on the mountain.
So, Saunders says, we’ll say forget it. Then we'll come down. And then we often set our sights on climbing the mountain of another writer we admire. Maybe it’ll be the Isabelle Allende mountain. Or the Cheryl Strayed mountain this time.
And we’ll start working again. Trying really hard to do things like he or she did or are doing. Only to have the same realization.
Owning the Usness of Our Work
Eventually, Saunders shared, we’ll get tired of all that, look around, and notice a molehill. It’s got our name on it, maybe in little cramped print, possibly misspelled even.
But it’s ours, and we choose to go sit on it. We choose to create the work that is us, truly us, and put aside imitating the masters.
In that act is when we decide to own the us-ness of our work. That’s when we really call our work our own.
So, if you’re sitting in your coaching, healing or creative business feeling bad about it being smaller or less substantial than some of the other businesses around you, don’t despair. If you’re wondering if you need to do the same things others around you are doing to market your business, you don’t.
Instead of looking to imitate others’ paths to success, forge your own way. Claim your space as inimitable.
Claim the youness of your work.
Because being you, the real you, in your business and in your marketing is what matters most. It’s what creates that magic sense of authenticity that people are looking for. It’s what helps people grow to trust you.
Once you can accept where you are, and that you don’t want to imitate anyone else, you can begin to be more yourself in your business. You can pour a whole lot of energy and love into your marketing and your business in a way that feels good to you and is authentic.
And that. That is the moment when your business will start to grow, and with time, become something larger, more significant, and uniquely, deliciously, your own.