Camping, Change, & Children

Dear Leaders, Entrepreneurs, Dreamers, and Creators of Great Things: I write these Love Letters each month with the hope of bringing you a little encouragement, some marketing help, and a few minutes of joy. Whether we are already friends or have yet to meet, I hope you’ll enjoy my stories from the road and some awesomely random takeaways, tools, tips, and updates.

Camping

As you are reading this, I am on my way to Michigan to go camping with my family.

Every year, my parents and siblings, with their respective spouses and kids, rent a summer camp in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This year I am joining them for the first time. (All 73 of them.) As an introvert, I am already overwhelmed by just the group chat, and I am not even there yet. But I promised my little brother I would attend this year, as long as I was not required to do all the group activities. So I am packing a few books and planning to hide out in a hammock for at least half of the next week.

Truth be told, I could use a few days in the woods. My life has been a little noisy lately. And not just because they are building a light rail right outside my door, or because they have been re-pointing the bricks on my building for the past several months. The news, the must-dos, and the endless to-do lists have been a lot lately.

All of July, I have been running my online Marketing Summer Camp sessions. These are half-hour sessions, twice a week, designed to help people get better at talking to people. And as always when I teach something, I have learned a lot. But session 7 hit me hard.

I shared the single most dangerous ingredient we can include in our marketing – and why it dooms us to failure. (Spoiler alert – it’s comparison.) And right in the middle of that session, I realized I was talking to myself. When the camera was turned off, I looked at my to-do list and asked myself, “How many of these things am I doing because it’s right for my business, and how many am I doing because I am comparing my business to someone else’s?”

Ooooof. That was a tough mirror to look into. But it was also suuuper helpful.

So, I am heading off to a cabin in the woods, determined to shake off half the things on my list and replace them with actions that are right for me – not things that I’ve guilted or compared myself into.

We are halfway through the year, friends. We have so much runway left to make a difference and build and grow and serve. I hope that you will also take some time before the summer is over to ask yourself those same questions, and maybe leave a few things behind.

I am going to go read some books, sit in a hammock, eat a few s’mores… and start fresh.

Change & Children

Maple, my cat, got a water fountain.

Well, to be fair, I got a fountain for her, as she still isn’t contributing financially to the household. But anyhoo, she got a fountain.

For all of her 7 years of life, she’s been drinking water from a dish. But I was concerned she wasn’t drinking enough, and cats need a lot of water, and people told me a fountain would help, so here we are.

Except, she hated it. She actually walked past it and hissed at it for days. I did everything short of drinking out of it myself to show her it was safe. (I considered it.) I even took her dish away for two days to try and force her to use it. (She went on a water strike.) So finally, I just put her old, familiar dish right next to the fountain.

Five days later, I hear slurping, and I look over to see her drinking from the fountain. Victory!

Change is hard, isn’t it? Even when the new thing is better for us, we often want to cling to the old, familiar way we’ve always done things. So we hiss, and resist, and put it off as long as possible.

When we come in from walks now, Maple goes straight to the fountain and drinks lots of cool, fresh, running water. And we finally retired her old dish.

I get it. There are a few things I’ve been clinging to as well. Keeping them within reach. Because it’s comforting. And the new thing is scary.

Time to start slurping, friends. We can’t move forward if we stay attached to the way things were.

********

I read this story on Threads this week, and I had to share:

“My 10-year-old son started a business today selling pup cups. First, he made a sign. Two colors, black and blue. Simple, big words: “pup cups $1” and two cute drawings of the dogs on each side. He wore this poster board around his neck. Simple branding, simple marketing.

We went for a walk with our own pup, Louie. My son told me to go by X road, and I said no. But he was right; the road he chose had a lot more dogs.

Then, I started looking around for dog walkers, but he said, “Mom, trust the process.”
He saw a couple walking their dog, and they told him they didn’t think their dog had ever had a pup cup, so my son said, “Then it’s on the house!” He came back to me excited that he was responsible for this doggie’s first pup cup. He gave three pup cups “on the house” because he was creating new clients.

He now has $2. I was going to explain the concepts of cost of goods and revenue, but I realized he was the one coaching me.”

This is where I share the good stuff

… the latest websites, books, & tools that are inspiring me, the people who are making me smile, and the stuff I have been writing on sticky notes.

If you missed Marketing Summer Camp, you can catch up on all the replays anytime.

One of the best stories I have heard this month. (And my comment is featured too! lol)

If you need to use up a lot of zucchini this time of year, instead of sneaking it onto your neighbor’s porch, make this recipe.

A news story you should not look away from. This is both sad and disturbing.

One of my favorite new follows on Instagram.

TED LASSO is back this week, y’all! That’s the good stuff, for sure!

The four books I am taking on vacation:
The Calamity Club – by Kathryn Stockett
Whistler – by Ann Patchett
Fahrenheit 451 – by Ray Bradbury
1984 – by George Orwell

I never read those last two in school, so I figure it’s time.

Thanks for reading, friends! If you want to get these in your inbox every month, be sure to get on the mailing list. And if you are looking for a speaker who will motivate your organization to get up, get moving, and face change head-on, I would love to chat.