Conventional Wisdom Is Another Name for Lazy Thinking

These days the big new thing is “Be Yourself”.

Dan Kennedy, the father of the modern direct-marketing, offers an historical experiment to track the birthing of “personality” in branding of today - pay a visit to your local library and ask for 10 years of back issues of your favourite magazine.

Here’s what you will see happening over the 10 years:

On the covers – “Thing Issues” get replaced by “People Issues”.

Whereas magazines once featured problems and issues that people wanted to know more about, today the magazine has a picture of a famous person, with a catch-copy headline about them…

“Why X finds that Y is the new cool.”

Something like that.

Today, individuals go about this in a number of different ways. 

The most extreme are the comedians - people like Stephen Colbert or Barry Humphries who create fictionalized characters. Colbert created Mos Def Colbert D.F.A. (who Colbert called his “identical twin cousin”). Humphries’ created Dame Edna Everage, a working-class Australian housewife who was knighted by the Queen (not).

Both fantasy characters with fictional stories.

And then there’s you, and your original story.

I know that many different kinds of teachers, instructors and coaches read my blogs – and for you the art of communicating means creating a narrative that is attractive to others.

But should you fictionalize or sanitize your Self? 

This is usually what people do. 

And it’s stupid.

Think of what it does to your prospects of finding love: when you try to make your Self the person who is an attractive partner, you never believe it when someone is attracted. Because you know you are faking.

Don’t they love your fictionalized self?

How about the unsensitized self that sits on the couch and burps at home – do they love that person?

Maybe not. At least, there’s a doubt.

And so we come back to being your Self – in your blogs, your lessons, your flyers, your website. Let the real you be on display. Then they won’t be disappointed, and you won’t have to pretend.

Which is always a puzzle for me.

Because the real Jeremy – for example – is a conventional-wisdom sceptic, and that gets me in trouble a lot. I go against the grain, against the common beliefs. 

Conventional wisdom is another name for lazy thinking.

You encounter this lazy thinking happening in postural restoration.

One example: because of a sore back: a corset is put on, you are told to stop carrying things, avoid doing this and avoid doing that – until there is no life left at all.

And the solution – which becomes worse than the original problem – is a solution born out of a blinkered understanding. Backs are not the only part of your whole Self. There are many more factors to consider.

Honesty will do two things – repel those that were never going to be interested in you, and attract those who are your natural students.

Be wise and present your true Self.

It’s Step 10 of my 12 Step plan to build your practice. 

First subscribe to my free email series on the twelves steps – available from the page linked below. Next, join ATSuccess Foundations and start some Conscious Constructive Thinking on how to expand your teaching practice. 

It includes three online coaching sessions with me. Or do both together, expecially if you have time on your hands…

Read more about it here:

https://atsuccess.com/foundations