EP 183: The Status Quo Is Hard To Give Up

I recently realized that I’ve been making a big mistake, and I wanted to share what I’ve discovered and apologize. Doing what we’re used to doing is hard to give up because we often don’t recognize we’re stuck in the status quo. That’s why I’m sharing about this mindset shift I’ve made. For those of you who enjoy hearing about my mistakes, be sure to listen up.

Mea culpa. I recognized that part of the reason I’ve been doing this wrong is that I was following advice I’d been given. We’re all guilty of doing this. It’s an evolving practice. So here’s my mistake: my guru rants. These are rants where I’m deconstructing what the gurus are teaching. But I realized I was doing it wrong. My rants come across as I’m attacking the person, as if it’s personal.

I love talking about what’s wrong with marketing and deconstructing the conventional wisdom. But something about my guru rants felt off. As I thought about it, I realized it felt off because it seemed like I was attacking my friends. I realized that what I was taught early on, that you need a villain, was the reason behind this. But this approach of creating a villain isn’t consistent with my values. We need less vs. them. But I was doing that in my marketing, and I was wrong, and I’m sorry.

Some of my friends took my rants personally. My goal wasn’t to hurt them, so I won’t be personalizing my criticism going forward. Even as I ranted about how we shouldn’t just do something because that’s what we were taught, that’s exactly what I was doing.