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Brain eating puppet masters

Don’t forget about the Zombies, chef. They wear dirty sneakers too.

I have read you post about the recent marketing guru pitches several times and have come to this conclusion. You are dead right. In fact, you are so correct that there is danger in what you say. The assault on our yearning to do better in our lives has grown to the point of annoyance, which has led me personally to burn e-mail after e-mail purely based on the subject line. That is dangerous. The spam filter in my left brain has grown too wide I’m afraid.

The strategies and tactics you mentioned, that were once designed to tickle our right brain’s curiosity,  have become the standard modus operandi. These approaches are copy/paste methods that anyone wanting to make a quick buck and get out of town are finding far too easy to use. I have seen so many of these that my left brain has taken over and filed them away under B.S. for future reference.

I have a client who is a product creation and implementation coach, as well as a personal branding coach, who is tired of all the Sneaky Sams that use lofty language designed to set the hook and put suckers in their nets. This woman is straightforward, shoot from the hip, no holds barred. She says up front that you’re going to sweat if you’re going to succeed. She also let’s you know that she has no time for those who won’t let go of the apron strings. She’ll cuss at her clients, stomp her feet, and even threaten to burn bunnies in their yards. She wants her clients to succeed and helps those who really want it.

My client is out to battle the Jim Jones “drink the kool-aid and everything will be okay” effect of most marketing gurus. She also has a real cold heart towards those brain eating puppet masters that pull the strings at our 9 to 5’s.

She calls herself the Zombie Killer.

If I would have seen “Killin’ Zombies is my game” in the subject line of an e-mail a month ago, I would have burned it.

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The Power Of Community

I’m going to become a bi-sexual. Maybe the field will open up  for me.

~ Rodney Dangerfield

Okay chef, I know you like to talk about the power of tribes. Here’s your chance, but a few words from me first, if you will.

It is hammered into our online existence that if we want to survive, we must first find a niche. The narrower the niche, the better. Then we promote our niche to gain a following, or tribe. The power of one, then gains a great snowball out of obscurity hell.

Not only does this make perfect sense, but it has been proved over and over. I applaud all niches that gain successful momentum. One of the coolest niches at Squidoo is RocketMoms. Created to serve a powerful demographic, RocketMoms has gained so much momentum during a short tenure that critical eyes have been cast upon them; going as far as calling them sexist.

A tongue in cheek thread was started at the forum in SquidU that has resulted of accusations of exclusion by RocketMoms because the group only allows women.  The real truth is, the group is catering to a niche; Work At Home Mothers (WAHM). It’s really that simple.

But, what I really want to address is a logical step not much discussed when talking niches and community structure. Every community can be broken down to subgroups, and the subgroups can be, and often are, broken down even farther.  It’s the strength of all the groups, or niches, that give power to the community.

Let’s say that someone starts a RocketDads group while embracing the RocketMoms  group instead of casting stones at them ( I for one would much rather embrace a RocketMom rather than piss her off). Chances are the RocketMoms will be much more willing to help the fledgling RocketDads group through promotion and sharing. But, if rocks are hurled at the RocketMoms group, walls will be built to guard against the direction of the attack.

On the other hand, if both groups work in harmony, chances are a third group would emerge. RocketParents would lend strength to both RocketMoms and RocketDads. Now we have three groups working together to create a stout community. The work gets easier and the gains become greater.

Roger Konopasek gives an eleoquent explanation of this in a comment attached to the post Which Lemming Do You Want To Be?

Intolerance  doesn’t rock the boat, it keeps it from making port.

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Spreading fear.
Lying

A gadzillion-moolah success strategy that has worked for ages…

• Cave men swung clubs
• Crusaders yielded swords
• Clerics burned “witches”
• Nazis gassed Jews
• Governments utilized terrorist acts for their agenda
• Marketers predicted doom

Fear.

They invoked higher authorities, patriotism, righteousness, data…

Lies. (We bought them all.)

They told us – “Jesus died for your sins and we’ll have to kill you if you don’t follow us!” (Last time I checked, Jesus rose from the grave to eliminate fear for all mankind.)

They told us, something is out to get us…however, complete surrender of spirit and rights will guarantee our safety. Ka-ching!

Meanwhile, the brain-washers use highly sophisticated tools…irrational fears are firmly implanted in our genes!

Marketers know that and give us the choice:

a) Pain, misery, and a living environment in brown-tones, or…
b) CELEMORONOXITIN (only $475 per month), plus: golfing, boating, running with grand kids, joyful family gatherings, daily health and happiness…things we want so badly that we even ignore the little side effects of liver and kidney damage, stroke, seizures, etc… (Hey, the first month is free!)

a) Pimples, social outcast, rejection, loneliness, or…
b) CLARIFOOL (only $49/month with 3-year commitment), plus: instant “Perfect 10”, hunk, babe, deliriously happy relationships…

Commercials come packaged with programming designed to make us feel emotionally vulnerable. Movies draw us in – right where the ads want us to be.

Ka-ching! Ka-ching!

We don’t really have a choice anymore. We watch it, live it, breathe it, believe it…we’re used to it, and worse – we use it.

Our pitch pages say -

• Do you really want to waste your time by working without my product?
• Do you really want to keep worrying about your bills?
• You’ll never get anywhere without my expertise!
• Do you want to miss out on this chance of a lifetime?

Can you feel the fear?

And then we lie -

• You’ll make the cost of this course back within the first week! (How can we possibly know this ahead of time?)
• You might not make millions but how does $4k per month sound to you? (Very slick!)
• Your life will change forever! (Probably true – we evolve.)

A Different Kind Of Marketing Thinking

Bear with me, PotPieGirl and a few other generous souls. I’m not talking about you. And I’m certainly not above the seduction of financial success! I just would like to begin to think differently…recognize and let go of my fears. I hate the feeling of doubt when I leave another pitch page with glorious promises: maybe I should have bought this one?

Naomi Dunford, top internet marketer of IttyBiz.com fame, wrote the following (excerpt) in an email to me:

…don’t ever feel pressured to buy. It makes me insanely sick when I see the pressure people put on readers to become customers. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You hang out and listen to the free stuff and learn and then maybe some day down the road you’ll buy something and maybe you won’t, but either way, we can still be friends.

No fear, only sharing. And as a consequence – no lying necessary, either. She’ll be the first one I’ll buy from when I can.

Thing is, people pay less and less attention to market criers. Seth & Co. have changed our paradigms.

Let’s take a good look at our irrational fears – as marketers or as customers.

Any ideas?

(Image courtesy of rofltosh. Thank you.)

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Pardon me, but there is going to be an echo here.

I too believe in God. And I believe that God created us in his own likeness. I don’t believe that the Holy Father loves us like a drunken, cold spirited abuser with a black heart. What would the point be in that? How can we be expected to react to the teaching of fear in any other way than by being mindless sheep? Would that be the way of an enlightened being?

Where is the love?

Two thousand years ago a rebel created quite a ruckus. This revolutionary didn’t rise up to fight against the armies and the government that oppressed his people. No, he fought against his religion. He protested loudly and clearly that his religion had given up the message of love for rules and control through the vehicle of fear. This man, the greatest of teachers, paid for his love with his life.

Since that time, many faiths have sprung forth in his name. And many of those faiths have taken up the same practices that he fought against. Man made rules on how to live like God wants us to. How arrogant is that?

Why do organized Christian religions teach with a heavy hand of fear? Is it because the message of love is too easy to teach? Is it because there is an easy buck to be made in fear? Is organized religion the ultimate experiment in niche marketing?

Most of my life I was taught to fear my actions, and now that I have learned that my actions are steeped in love I’m told I’m a sinner. Because I question and try to learn about the wonderful world God has put before us, I’m going to hell. Because I dismiss the man made laws and doctrine surrounding God, I’m going to hell.

My God doesn’t do gigs. He doesn’t show up at the same building, on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 8:00 and Noon. My God is right outside my window, right now. My God is that redbird, chirping at me. My God is sleeping in the next room. My God is the elderly black woman who was frozen by fear as she stood at the top of an escalator. My God whispered,”Bless you”, as the woman released her grip on my arm at the bottom of that escalator.

I don’t fear my God, I love him.

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Don’t get me started on religion, Alex! Okay – too late…

A religious experience

I am somewhat religious. I love a nice big celebration like Christmas Eve in a huge church with a gigantic choir…moves me to tears. I like the energy of a community united in purpose: goodwill toward all people. But really, I consider myself a spiritual seeker without any religious affiliations. Don’t go to church anymore, except the occasional ‘new thought’ joint like Unity or Religious Science.

I don’t like dogma, rules, and prescribed ways of living according to…um…whom, actually?

Don’t say God!

If my God is like some human vision of a wrathful old guy, I need to get rid of that chicken-shit god and get myself a bigger GOD! If God is not the most benevolent, mysteriously forgiving, and generously rewarding force in my life – I’m ready for the compost heap, 6 feet under…now!

Now, why am I babbling about religion? Because it changed everything in my life, especially during my formative years. Mainly it taught me to be afraid. See where I’m going with this?

I’m not bashing religion. I’m trying to forgive those who (without asking God first) brainwashed me into a man with severe limitations. I believe they did the best they could, though…

But first, they told me that I’m a child of God, created in His likeness. And then, they told me…

• If I touch this divine body in certain places – I commit a sin.
• If I don’t come to church every Sunday – I commit a sin.
• If I follow my yearning heart and engage in a loving, physical (and spiritual) activity with another human being, outside of marriage – I commit a sin.
• If I learn from folks of a different faith – I commit a sin.
• If I miss to confess my sins – I commit a sin.
• If I keep sinning away like this…I will go to hell.

I believed them with all my heart. And I kept sinning, of course – wouldn’t you? What happened…I lost my self-esteem because I was a worthless sinner. And since there was no way for me to catch up on my redemption – I gave up. The pain remained, I was scared shipless, and I began to drink myself into oblivion. (Not with water – I’m sure you suspected that…)

That’s just the way it is, they said. Who were “they”?

Many years later I found out that “they” were human beings just like you and I who created these rules to oppress us…to keep us in fear, and thus in line with their interests. They even took text passages out of the original Scriptures because those endangered their power status. CEO’s and lobbyists of the Middle Ages, so to speak. In robes – why not?

That’s not the way it is!

Guess what? When 20 years later a friend handed me a Native-American spiritual book on a God who loves everything because that’s all He is – about reincarnation (“lost” Scriptures) and sin redefined as ‘mistake’…I was done drinking! I had lost my fear of death and eternal damnation.

A spiritual experience

After decades of fear and self-destruction, a simple change of thought completely recreated my life for the better.

I went to AA and therapy, attended self-help seminars, participated in spiritual workshops, did some yoga, freestyle dancing, meditation groups…and everywhere I went there were people working through their fears. Fears that someone had installed in our operating systems right after we’d entered this world – armed with unbridled enthusiasm, courage, and creativity.

Who gave us our fears, and under what authority?

Fears are thoughts and thoughts can be changed. However, we need to take actions to change our thinking – actions of courage! We must face our critics, once and for all…

If someone or something or our own mind tells us -

• You’re not talented enough
• You’re too stupid
• You will fail
• You are fat/ugly/too thin
• You were never a writer… why now?
• Don’t speak your mind – it’s safer that way
• Who’s going to be interested in what you have to say?

…we reply: “Thank you! Is there anything else?” And then we affirm the opposite, positive version of these statements for us. We know that the power of thought will create our destiny, and the thoughts for our destiny are within us – nowhere else. We also know that our thoughts for someone else will create our destiny – not theirs! Pity our critics…

No more fear! We’ve got to make a difference in this world…not by being different from anyone else – that’s too easy: grow/shave our hair, tattoo our butts, rip a few holes in our jeans…

In order to make a difference in this world, we’ve got to be different from our old, useless fears!

Who gave you your fears?

Which are useful keepers?

What are you going to do about the rest?

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