Ride the worm of social
I am beyond pumped. It feels like I have waited a lifetime for this experience (because I have).
I wonder what else we have in our lives that we maybe wait too long for?
I recently went through the process of cementing my business vision.
It’s a stark reminder to me why I do what I do. It now sits on a whiteboard next to me at my desk. My good friend Lizzy Parsons helped me create it.
This is my business vision -
"Story scale is committed to the idea of helping business owners and employees discover their voice. To empower their culture. We facilitate this through creativity and play. Changing the way people perceive themselves and impacting the world around them for the better. Through unlocking the gift of their FEARLESS voice."
Here are a few tips to help you discover yours
- Keep it simple and digestible
- Avoid metrics – these don’t belong in your Vision
- Be specific in your wording and make it relevant to your market
- Make it inspiring and ambitious
- Align it to your culture and company’s core values
Your vision and WHY can (and should) come from a deeper place.
The first film opens with a simple line - "Dreams Are Messages From The Deep”.
This is a reminder that all human experience is locked away inside you.
We have to go to the deep parts of ourselves to unlock it.
And that is a scary place to look (trust me when I say, it was more for me than most).
The work (the real work) is looking inside yourself for the answer. Because all external validation, all noise and everything you think you know falls away against it.
In myth, this was the descent into the underworld. The point in the story at which you faced your dragon. The dark and scary part of your subconscious. And when you emerged, you were changed.
It’s only through this process can we begin to understand who we are.
Frank Herbert understood this significance when he wrote Dune. He compared the sand worms to the dragons of ancient myth.
"Elements of any mythology must grow from something profoundly moving, something which threatens to overwhelm any consciousness which tries to confront the primal mystery. Yet, after the primal confrontation, the roots of this threat must appear as familiar and necessary as your own flesh.
For this, I give you the sandworms of Dune ... the extension of human lifespan cannot be an unmitigated blessing.
Every such acquisition requires a new consciousness.
And a new consciousness assumes that you will confront dangerous unknowns - you will go into the deeps" — Frank Herbert, 1977
Overcoming our own fear and discovering your voice is a necessary component to building your personal brand and story. And it requires a degree of bravery and courage.
There is a scene in the books and in the film where Paul (our Hero) must face his fear and ride the worm. This is the moment where everything changes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12n5APZhf4U
It takes courage to step forward. To be fearless and plant a thumper in the ground to call forth that gigantic sandworm!
That’s the feeling you’ll get from your first post.
Knowledge gaps create fear, once we understand the context and bigger picture of a subject we start to close that gap.
The reason your company won’t approach social and see some of the negative connotations associated with it like, things like fake, toxic, controlling, dangerous, scary, addictive.
Now imagine if we started to own this, close the digital divide on social and understand just how powerful these mechanisms are when we start to take control of them. We might start to use these kind of words instead. Creative, fun, force for good, life affirming, future, sales, conversations, influence.
Because of knowledge gaps, we have a perceived risk and uncertainty. As that gap widens the fear become greater. So we start to rationalise it by telling ourselves the thing is alien and creating barriers to stop us accessing it. Our rational mind then compartmentalises it which makes it safe to move on.
But what if we could overcome our fear? Especially our fear of social? We can through repetition.
Repeat the activity until you start to feel the fear dissipate. Over time, repeated exposure to a safe, non-harmful version of whatever made you afraid can reduce the negative association and replace it with a neutral or positive association. For example, repeatedly seeing other people climb without falling may begin to overwrite your negative association with heights. And the more you fly and land safely, the less dangerous flying is likely to feel.Not only does it help strip away the fear until the exercise becomes enjoyable it also (and this is the important part) embeds the neural pathways needed for healthy habit formation.
The easiest way to do this on social is through content. The beauty of a platform like LinkedIn is the sheer mix of content types available. We have video, images, photos, text, audio (both with Linkedin audio rooms or audiograms embedded into posts). Find a content lane you're comfortable in. This will help embed that habit of repetition (how all good habits are formed). You can then slowly push yourself out of that comfort zone and embrace different mediums. If you like writing start there and
Once you move past that fear you’ll start to get braver and slowly, day by day find your digital voice. When this starts to happen you start to step into owning your space.
It takes courage to step into the light. Marianne Williamson said it best.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
The question is, are you ready to do the work that is necessary for change?
If you are, you might end up changing the world.
But it has to start with letting go of fear....
"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
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