A few months ago I was back-n-forthing with a reader who had taken me up on my offer to beta-read my soon to be released book Don’t Quit Your Job (in case you're wondering, it's still soon to be released).
I’m not sure if he wants me to name and fame him, so I’ll keep him anon. But this reader had a few suggestions for how I
could improve my book. Suggestions which were very sensible and I gave them some serious thought. We swapped a few more emails and just as we were coming to the end of our to & fro, the reader sent me an email which said this:
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The book is perfect
as it is by the way. Without a summary and with any of those titles. The reason why? Because it’s your expression. A quote I remember from one of your newsletters is very relevant here:
“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self”
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I’d forgotten I’d shared that quote in a previous daily email (must’ve been two or three years ago at least).
But my goodness there's a lot of truth in that.
No-one ever told me when I started writing my newsletter that what was at stake wasn’t the usual stuff like how many subscribers I had or how many coaching clients I could find.
What’s really at stake when I write each day is
ME.
Every day when I sit down to write, I get to decide whether I'm expressing myself or what I think my readers want to hear.
I don't know if that sounds cryptic or not. But it's not a newsletter-only
thing.
I see this in the hallowed halls of corporate too. People spot someone with the title, status or career they want and start modelling themselves on that person. So they start to act, speak, think, walk and dress like them and even adopt the same world view as them.
That might be an excellent strategy for snagging the promotion you want or the job title you long for. But the danger is that somewhere along the way you lose touch with yourself. And if that happens, you can end up with the very thing you were shooting for and still feel strangely flat.
After all, it's no good performing your way to the top if you leave yourself at the bottom.
Perhaps this is why I started this newsletter in the first place. I spent over a decade acting in my banking job and changing my performance depending on who I was sitting opposite in a meeting or who I was chatting on the phone with. And I
was so fed up with being a corporate chameleon and so out of touch with who *I* was that writing became a way to redress the balance.
Anyway, that’s enough soul-searching for one day.
Back tomorrow with another
newsletter based lesson.
In the meantime, if you feel like you’re sacrificing yourself for the success you crave, I can help you hit whatever ambitious goals you’ve set without losing touch with yourself in the process.
If that sounds interesting:
https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com
To fulfilment,
Tom