If you’ve spent any time at all “on my list” or following me on social media, you’ve likely come to understand just how much I love to write. Truly, the activity lights me up! And I often receive comments from clients and colleagues, and people I don’t even know, about how much they like what I write… how it resonates with them.
And one of the questions I get asked most frequently is, “How do you know what to write about???”
Over the years of being in business (goodness… it’s coming up on seventeen of them!) I have had many answers to that question.
In the beginning, I wrote about what I thought people wanted to hear.
My first business was in natural medicine (I was a homeopath) and so I would write about the natural ways to treat allergies or how to avoid infections or what to take for PMS.
But over time, I came to see that my approach wasn’t really working and here’s why…
When I used to write about the things that I thought people wanted to hear or things I thought that they needed to know (facts about how much water we need to consume in the day… how much Vitamin D was “enough” … etc.), I was giving them valuable information. And that was amazing. But…
It wasn’t “enough.”
It was interesting. It was good to know. But it was not Fascinating.
I read an intriguing article the other day about love and the success of long-term relationships. The author maintained that while it is all fine and dandy to enjoy your partner, to have fun together, to share interests, to “do life well” as a unit, the real crux of whether or not your partnership would sustain itself (happily) over time was whether or not your partner was FASCINATING to you.
Now think about that word for a moment.
To be fascinated is to be more than just “interested.”
To be fascinated is to be intrigued… enthralled… compelled to understand and pay attention to the object of your fascination. It is to be a wee bit enchanted, perhaps, and it is to be fully and completely engaged.
And you know what?
I love the idea of being FASCINATED by what I read.
I love the idea of reading something that someone writes and stopping to think, “Hey, that’s a really intriguing point of view. I never thought of it that way… hmmm…”
Because THAT is what I love about life.
I love the opportunities that my interactions with others provide for me. I am always learning, always seeking to understand… because I am FASCINATED with life… with my life… with the lives of those around me… with business… with the human body… with the ways that people tick (and what makes them function in this world the way that they do).
I am naturally curious. I came here to learn. And I learn best through others… and being fascinated by what I am seeing around me is what fuels that learning.
And so, I stopped writing about what I thought people needed to know.
And I started sharing my experiences… things that have happened to me… things that I have seen happen in the lives of my clients… things that have shifted in business and the world around us.
I started talking about people that fascinate me (hence, I began the “Spread the Love” section of my newsletter) such that you may also find them intriguing.
And I began to ponder “out loud” about things that were happening in the world around me —the final concert of The Tragically Hip, what happens to us when we experience betrayal, how to engage in real conversations with others about what we do (without expectation) — these were the things that I began to write about because these were the things that fascinated ME.
And I hoped that, in sharing them, they would inspire you, too, in that same way.
So, here’s what’s happened as a result of my “new” way of writing:
I am getting more ideal clients who just seem to “show up” in my life at exactly the right time.
And they are ready to work with me often before we even talk.
Because they “know” me… we have a shared fascination for life and business… (and for chocolate and Gord Downie, perhaps!) so they “get” Who I Am… and they “get” that my Way of Being is to want to “get” them… and they know that my fascination with Who They Are and their Business is the secret to a solid and successful coaching relationship. And what a gift that is for both of us!
So, the next time you are pondering what to write your next post about or what to say in a talk you are giving at your networking meeting, ask yourself what is fascinating to you at that moment… and talk about THAT.
Let your fascination with life and the things that intrigue you fill your client roster for you. What better way to build a business?