Be Don’t Do

It’s not rocket science, you know. We like to make it rocket science. But really, everything you need to know about marketing, running a profitable business and living a great life an eight year old can do.

We just forget how to do it. And then we have to learn it all over again.

We like to make things too complicated. Should I do this, should I do that? We get all caught up in the 9000 ideas we have in our heads instead of just doing what’s in front of us to do.

Writing is like that, art is like that…marketing is like that. It’s really just a monologue, just ask James Altucher.

It’s Being, Not Doing.

Someone asked me, “how do you get so much engagement on your Facebook feed or other posts?”

My answer is, “I write whatever comes to my mind.” Actually, I’m not that great at it. I’m working on getting better. The best writing (and thus marketing) is a endless stream of raw thoughts that people can connect to, because they are thinking the same thing but they haven’t yet found the courage to say them out loud. A writer just writes them. They write the sh#t we’re all thinking.

I used to be very afraid of what people thought of me. I lived inside of a prison that I put myself in. Inside that prison, I wrote all the shoulds and shouldn’ts of my life on the walls. I carved them over and over and over again until they were like etchings in the concrete walls. It was exhausting. For decades I did that and then, one day, I just became so tired that I couldn’t even lift up my hand to write anymore.

So I stopped.

I stopped writing about what I should do, because what we should do doesn’t matter as much as what we do. Who we should be doesn’t matter as much as who we are.

In Hebrew, the language is not like English. It’s very dynamic. Every word in Hebrew is underlaid with action. You don’t just lay down, you ARE lying down (picture stretching out your body, lengthening it on the couch). You don’t take the trash out, you are taking it out. It’s an interesting language, funny that it’s one of the most ancient being that it’s about Being instead of Doing.

That’s the key, you know; the key to gaining an audience, to making work that matters, to living a life that touches people.

The key is: Being not Doing

Kids do it all the time. They’re great marketers. They make up some Koolaid, take it to the curb and ask every single person who passes if they want some. They don’t think about how they should present the Koolaid. They just ask. They put the packet in the pitcher, stir in some sugar, get some cups, set up a table and sell.

They market organically without thinking – by being themselves. That’s how they make $10.23 in an hour on a blustery Tuesday. By thinking, “who wouldn’t want this Koolaid – it’s awesome. I’m awesome. I want to buy a pack of gum and a Snickers so I’ll offer this Koolaid I made to the world.”

And really, that’s all the more complicated it is.

Be don’t Do.

It works, ask my 8 year old.