#263: My Thoughts on Transformative Ideas, Detachment and Inspired Action

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, this episode is much shorter than usual rather than my typical 45 minute format. Today I'm sharing a quick tip with you. This is part of the audio insights I publish for my private coaching clients every weekday and I thought you'd find it helpful. So here we go. Hope you enjoy it. I'd like to talk with you today about three topics that are very much related. One is the power of great ideas. The other is the need for detachment. And the third one is the importance of trusting those little nudges we often get. These topics are important because I believe that success as a solopreneur depends to a great extent on how you think about and practice these concepts. You know, as I look back at my career and my business over the past three decades, some important themes have emerged. And it's just always interesting to me how Steve Jobs said it in his graduation address to Stanford University, I believe in 2005, he said, you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward. And it's so true. It's interesting that you get the answers later, not ahead of time. One of the themes, as I look back, is about ideas and what I often did when confronted with a new idea. I spent many years shooting down great ideas because I was somehow conditioned to think that they didn't apply to me or they'd be impossible to implement in my business. Now, don't get me wrong, I was open to a lot of different thoughts and ideas. I've always been a reader, always consumed a lot of books and courses. I know that I don't know everything and I would rather learn from someone who's been there and who can pave the way for me. But I'm also the kind of person who kind of just settles on a thought and idea and it's just hard to get me to think differently about it because once I'm sold on something, I'm just, I'm convinced and I'm all in on that and I don't want to be persuaded to try something different. And I'll give you some examples. One was when a friend and Colleague told me seven years ago that he was taking a three month sabbatical and he suggested that I should plan on doing the same sometime over the next year or two. And I still remember my initial reaction, which was something along the lines of, are you crazy? Are you serious asking me that? And I don't know if I told them that, but I know I thought that to myself. My thought was, there's no way I can take three months off. I got a business, I got kids to feed. And then it became fear to what the heck would I do with three months? And why are you telling me to do this? You know, why is something that you have decided to do? Why are you pushing it on me? Why are you trying to sell me this idea that's not going to fit with what I've got going on? And what's funny is that I have another very good friend who does the same darn thing. She shoots down every single idea or suggestion you give her when she complains about a big problem she has. And it's interesting that this is someone that I often wonder, well, gosh, will she ever get ahead? Because look what she does. And here I was doing the same thing to my friend's idea, but this other friend who just is constantly shooting down ideas and possible solutions to her problems. My wife and I are always privately commenting about how close minded she is and about how you just can't suggest anything to her because she always focuses on the negative and why that idea won't work for her. And what's interesting is that her problems never go away. She never seems to solve them. She's always stuck. But here I was shooting down my friend's idea about a sabbatical and even feeling resentful that he prescribed that solution to me. Why did this just. In fact, I remember being even a little bit angry that he was even suggesting that this is something I need to do. Some of the things that came to mind when he said this was, well, and this is just a defensive mechanism in me, well, of course he's taking three months off. He's single, he's got no kids, he can do that. He's got rental income from that commercial building that he owns. He's got no worries or problems. He lives in a part of the country where there's lots to see and do when you have three months to sightsee. I also wondered, what would my wife think? I mean, if I tell you I'm taking three months off, what would my parents think? What do I say to people what in the world will I do? Will I be bored after two weeks of this? So then it started kind of turning into fear and I started worrying about not only my business and income and logistics, but also what other people think, which, you know, who cares, right? But that was in the span of about 10 seconds. I had all these thoughts and concerns and that's just one example. I've spent, like I said, years shooting down great ideas because they didn't fit perfectly with my business, with my lifestyle situation, my goals or specific set of circumstances. And I mean, I wonder, do you do that sometimes? You know, you got a problem, you talk to a friend, a colleague, and they maybe offer you some suggestions or they come to you with an idea and do you find that you often either shoot it down or you immediately start having this negative self talk about why there's no way that would work. And if you feel that way, don't be embarrassed. I think that's a very common reaction. So I'm talking about it like it's only me, but I've done it throughout my career, as I mentioned. But most of us, I feel, do this. We expect ideas to be perfectly customized to our specific situation. And when they're not kind of ready made and fully cooked, it's just easier and safer to ignore or dismiss them. But I'm learning that that's a mistake. Because out of every, let's say, hundred good ideas, maybe five or ten will be a great fit for us right out of the box at this point in time when they come to us. But out of the other 90 to 95 that we shoot down because they're not perfectly baked right out of the box, I suspect that at least a third, maybe even half of them, have a valuable nugget hidden inside. So let me repeat that. Only a small percentage of good ideas are a great fit right out of the box. But out of the others, that may not be exactly what we need right now. The way they were presented to us, a third to half of them at least have a very valuable nugget hidden inside. There's something there, something that if we took the time to think and ponder, could make our lives and our businesses better. Maybe not right out of the box, but with some changes and adaptations or with some significant modifications. Or maybe we need to flip the idea because the best solution for us is maybe doing the opposite. And this is something I try to get my coaching clients to start practicing is this idea that. Look, not everything I suggest, not everything I teach you, not everything you read out there is going to be perfectly suited for the current situation, for your current set of challenges. If that's all you're looking for, you're going to waste a lot of time. You're going to walk away from some amazing opportunities, and you're always going to be. Not always, but you're going to be miserable more than you should. It's really about. You don't have to accept every idea, but it's about, you know what my first reaction is. That's not going to work. But let me sit on that for a while. Let me just kind of jot it down. And I need to kind of sit with that idea for a little while and see if maybe there is something there that needs to be the kind of conditioning that we need to adopt rather than shoot it down immediately and then just move on. I'll give you another example. My most lucrative copywriting client ever would have never materialized to the level that they did had I not thought about something they presented to me for another day or two and then come back to them, letting them know that, yes, I was willing to try it. So here's. I won't give you all the details, but here's how it went down. I was doing some basic work for them. It wasn't a ton of money, I want to say maybe 1,000, $2,000 a month and just miscellaneous projects. And a lot of what I was helping them do involved. There were email campaigns to generate leads for the specific product. Well, it's a big company, big software company, and they wanted some help cold calling prospects. Literally getting on the phone with a big list of prospects and just phoning them to see if they would be willing to go through a demo of this particular software system. And the vice president of the company, who I know he's not my direct contact at the time, he wasn't my direct contact, but he went ahead and called me up and he said, look, I know you're working with Jeff on this other stuff. We have this need. Is this something you'd be interested in doing? Now, here's again, perfect example. The idea that he brought to the table was not perfectly cooked. The way I interpret it is the way most people would interpret it in my shoes, which was, are you interested in spending a few hours a day cold calling prospects for us? And my immediate thought was, there's no way. That's not what I do. I'm a writer. I'm a copywriter. I don't get on the phone. I've done that before as A sales professional, I don't want to do that again. And I told him, let me think about it, but honestly I was just thinking this not going to happen. And maybe, and I don't remember all the details because this is a while back, but I think he may have said, just think about it and get back to me. And I did. And long story short, here's what happened is I sat with the idea for a little bit because I just, I was trying to think about how I was going to tell him no gracefully because I really appreciated them and their business and I think there was some growth opportunities there. But I did not want to pursue this thing that is not a growth area that I wanted. I started realizing that, well, wait a minute, who says that I have to be the one doing that? And then I remembered that I had a friend of mine who had gone out on his own doing exactly this work, basically doing appointment setting over the phone. Fancy way to say he was cold calling and his focus was software companies. So sent him an email and I told him, look, here's what I got. I don't know a lot of the details yet, but you know, we talked a few months ago. You told me you were doing this. Are you still doing that? He said yes. And he said that, yeah, he would be very interested in looking at this opportunity. And essentially what happened was I was able to go back to this client and say, yes, we are willing to take a look at this. They told me what they were looking to pay somebody else because they had been approached by a company or they had pursued a company, a vendor that provided this kind of service. And if I remember correctly, it was $5,000 a month. Okay, that, that's the number they had. So they went ahead and told me their budget. My friend wanted to charge me. I want to say it was $2,000 or $2,500 a month. Of course, he didn't know what kind of quote my client had. And I went ahead and went bold with this and I told the client that I would match that fee, that I would do it for $5,000 a month. We would do a three month trial and then if it worked out, we could expand it to a whole year retainer. And it worked. It worked. It went for it. And my friend was happy. He was doing the work that he loves to do for $2,500 a month. I was collecting the other $2,500 a month for maybe an hour or two a week of just project management, basically just kind of facilitating all this so it's pretty much pure profit, $2,500 a month without having to write a single thing. And it was wonderful. This actually expanded into, after a few months, they wanted to see if I would be interested in helping them follow up with existing customers. They just, they knew that this is a software as a service, a SaaS product, and there's an annual renewal. And they knew that if they kept in touch with their customer base more effectively, the renewal rate would be much higher. So they wanted to know if I'd be interested, if I could find someone I actually knew someone who I thought would be great for this. She said, actually, I can't take it on, but my sister has done that kind of work for Hewlett Packard and she's very experienced there. And I, anyway, I talked to her sister, worked out, we did another, I want to say, five, six thousand dollars a month retainer, same deal I was collecting. In this case, I think I was collecting even more than half of the fee. So we're talking about five, six thousand dollars a month pure profit in my pocket for essentially facilitating all this. And by the way, and I was still doing writing for them, a lot of the writing that I was doing kind of complemented these efforts with people who were in place, who were doing what they love to do. I was basically making it happen. This client didn't want to hire full time employees to do this kind of work. So they just went to me. I was a turnkey service. It's one of these examples of right place at the right time. Is this something that you could package and put together and sell? Yeah, you could. But I find that many of these opportunities, coming back to the original thought that I started with, many of these opportunities come to you serendipitously. And the big takeaway for me was we all need to be a little bit more open to these ideas and not taking them literally at face value and instead just thinking about it and wondering, okay, let me look at this from different angles. Let me flip it. How can I make this work? Is there an element of this that could work? Maybe the whole idea is not going to work for me, but is there a lesson here? Is there an element? Is there something that would be useful? Because look, we have ideas, we have insights, we have opportunities coming to us from every direction every single day, every single week. Yes, really, every single week. But we don't see them because we're not aware. And most of the ones we see, we ignore because again, they feel irrelevant or they feel like they Might be a part of poor fit on the surface. Well, what can you do about that? Well, I'm telling you what I'm doing because I'm very much a work in progress when it comes to this stuff. What I'm trying to do to make sure that I don't shoot down ideas that could have value is I'm conditioning myself to react differently to ideas, even the really wild ones. So now when I hear, read, or see something interesting, I just. I'm training myself to just stop and think about the idea. I try to not shoot it down immediately. I may jot it down, journal about it later, think about it and listen. I'm not perfect with this, but it's something that I'm being very intentional about. More specifically, I want to share the questions that I'm asking myself as I ponder an idea that on the surface, may not seem like it's going to work for me. And here's my list. What's the core principle here? What if I stripped away all the veneer? What's beneath all that that I could apply? What about the idea? Could I use or borrow? How can I modify it so it would work for my specific situation? Could I try a simpler version of the idea? Could I try something similar, but with a different service I'm currently offering? Could I take a small step this week in that direction? What if I did the opposite? What if I broke down the idea into steps and implemented it in phases? Maybe the problem is that it just feels overwhelming and I don't have the time or the bandwidth to be able to implement it. But what if I broke it down? Could I chunk it down and take it one step at a time? What have I tested a small version of the idea, or at a small scale, or with just one client or one prospect, or a small set of prospects? How could I mitigate the risk of doing something like this, like this idea? And finally, what am I afraid of? I feel like I'm making progress by just asking myself these questions. Because last fall I had a conversation with that good friend of mine I told you about earlier in this episode who was taking these sabbaticals. And he told me that, yeah, he was still doing this every year. In fact, he was taking another sabbatical from December through March, and he was doing it again for another three months in the summer. In this time, I found myself not shooting it down rather than dismissing the idea. First of all, I told him how happy I was for him. And then I asked myself, you know what? How could I do something similar. And then I asked myself, what if I did a smaller, shorter version of that? You know, what could I do with that? And you know what? That's exactly what happened. This internal conversation that I had with myself led to an idea on how I could implement something similar. It's a baby version of what he's doing, but I came up with just something that I started implementing in January this year. And it hasn't been perfect, but over the past few months I've improved it to the point where it's working really well for me. And what's interesting, not to get too meta with you is that by doing this, by implementing this version of his sabbatical concept, I'm learning so much about myself. So the intended purpose is not always being manifested, but just putting myself through this process, just putting myself through the process of thinking about what version of that idea could I do? Or could I do it in a smaller scale, or could I do something different with it? Just that alone is helping me grow, which is just I find very interesting because it's pushing me. And I think for me that's progress. So that leads me to another insight that I had recently. I was purging paper and clutter from my office a few weeks ago and while putting away some books, a stack of papers slipped out of one of them. It was a book about financial prosperity and it was a set of notes that I had taken 10 years ago, summarizing the books key points. It was interesting to reread those notes and to revisit my take on the material. And one of the things that really stuck out was the idea of detachment from specific outcomes. And I'll read you what my note said verbatim. It said, be detached from your desire. You can't need it when you need it. The belief is that you're not complete without it. So it will become a self fulfilling prophecy. You have to let go of any addiction to the end result or it happening in a certain way at a certain time. Give yourself permission to relinquish control and be open to inspiration. Tell yourself that it would be wonderful if I had it in my life. But it won't be devastating if I don't get it. It must come from a place of peace. Focus on taking inspired action. Act on my nudges and on inspiration. I want to make three observations on this note. The first is that intellectually I understood this idea of detachment even back then. But looking back, I was definitely not practicing it at that time. In fact, I didn't start getting better in that detachment department, if you will, for a few more years. And, you know, it is what it is. I think detachment is one of those things that we will always, many of us at least, will struggle with. Okay, I know I still struggle with it, but I'm much more aware of it these days. I'm not going to beat myself up for that, especially for back then and how I was really struggling with attachment. I just feel like, you know what, I was doing the best I could with what I had, and that's all I could have asked of myself. And same thing. Right now, I'm doing the best I can with what I've got. So the second observation is that this idea I noted at the end of my note about taking inspired action, that was a new concept for me at the time. The idea that when you're practicing detachment and you're at peace, what happens is you start seeing the opportunities more clearly. And with clarity comes inspiration, which is when you need to take action. And in other words, you need to trust your nudges. Looking back, things started getting better for me a few years later after reading that information, taking those notes and going through that thinking process. But it only started happening once I started taking inspired action, once I started paying attention to random thoughts and nudges and random events that were pointing me in one direction or another. One key to all this, as you could probably already discern or see, is developing practices and habits that help you get and stay in a more relaxed and mindful place. It's not the only thing, but for me, I think that was a big part of it. I think another element was just exhaustion. I didn't want to keep fighting that hard, and I didn't want to just depend 100% on me and my efforts. And through that process of, let's just call it capitulation, I found peace because I felt a huge weight lifted as I told God or the universe that I had done all I could and it was no longer all up to me. I was just, look, I've done my part, now you got to do your part. So that's the second insight. The third insight or observation was this bit about timing and how we can just get so hung up on when things must happen. Because we all know that not everything happens on our dictated time, on our timeline, our timeframe. We can't always control all the details of the outcome, how it's going to happen, and the timing and conditions of that outcome. That's not how life works. So again, Back to detachment, and in this case, detachment as to when our goal is will be realized because it's not always going to be when we say it's going to happen. In fact, this idea about trying to control every aspect of our lives and our businesses and what we manifest and when that happens and how something is going to materialize, that's something I think about often. It reminds me of what long distance hikers have to deal with. Ever since moving to the state of Georgia in 1997, I've been fascinated by the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail is, if you haven't heard of it, you're not too familiar with it. It's a 2,200 mile hiking trail that spans from north Georgia to central Maine. It goes through, I believe it's 14 states. And it takes, if you do complete it, it takes an average of about six months to do the whole thing from end to end, assuming you make it the whole way, of course, only about 10% of, I guess, I think last time I read the statistics, about 2,000 people attempt it every year and only about 200 make it all the way. I've hiked and backpacked portions of the trail. I have no desire, at least not at this point in my life, to do the whole thing. But I enjoy reading about the people who have done it. And one of the things I learned is that there's no way you can take everything you need for the six month trip. Not only would you not have the space in your pack, but the weight would be unbearable. I mean, it's just impossible. So you have to plan your trip strategically and you have to have supplies such as food, spare socks, batteries, other items. You have to have those mailed to you or you need to buy them along the way. And the way this happens, one of the most common ways this happens is there are several post offices and small towns along the way. They're not right on the trail, but they're close. And if you do it right, you can prepack. And this is what a lot of these hikers will do. You can prepack these supplies and then have a friend ship these boxes to you one at a time on designated dates to post offices along the way. And this is just an interesting metaphor that I've been kind of mulling over because the other day I was reading a meditation from the Language of Letting Go by Melody Beatty and it just really spoke to this idea of you can't take everything with you on a long journey. You have to pack what you need now and for the Short run. And then the rest will just come to you later. So let me read it to you because you'll see how just immediately when I read it, I thought, oh, my gosh, that's just like the long distance hikers. That's exactly what they have to do. What a beautiful metaphor for how we should maybe treat this journey we're all in. So let me quote here. We can trust that all we need on this journey shall come to us. We will not get all we need for the entire journey today. We shall receive today's supplies today and tomorrow's supplies tomorrow. We were never intended to carry supplies for the entire journey. The burden would be too heavy. And the way was intended to be light. Trust in yourself. We do not have to plan, control, and schedule all things. The schedule and plan have been written. All we need to do is show up. I don't know about you, but I often get anxious about all the things that I need to do. And when I think of a goal I want to reach or something I want to accomplish, and I see how far away it is from where I am today, I get stressed, I get anxious. Sometimes I get discouraged. Not sometimes. Very often I get discouraged. Sometimes I just won't even get started because I just tell myself, what's the point? I want to be there now. I want to change my situation now. But this little meditation for me was a reminder that you can't travel the whole Appalachian Trail with all the supplies you'll need. The burden again would be unbearable. In fact, it's just impossible. If I'm going to do that, I have to take what I can now and just trust that that what I'll need next month will come to me then. The journey was not meant to be a burden. It was meant to be light. It was meant to be fun and fulfilling. Life was not meant to be a burden. It was meant to be fun and fulfilling. So if this is resonating with you, remember this metaphor. Remember that you don't need to plan or control or schedule every little thing. Yes, sure. Have a rough sketch of a plan. Have a vision, have an idea. I think a vision is fine. Know where you want to go, or at least have a general idea of your next destination. The general destination for the long run is fine. And trust that the details of the plan will unfold as you keep moving forward in faith. I find that we get too hung up on trying to figure it all out today. As if you can even possibly map out every single detail for the next 10 years at least at this point in my life, I'm not big on these 20, 25 year plans, even 10 year plans, and frankly, even a five year plan seems like a stretch to me. I spent a big part of my career and my life feeling this burden of I have to figure it all out. I have to know my path right now. And what's interesting is that all that time and energy I put into that and it just didn't unfold like I planned to. And you know what? That's okay. I'm totally okay with that. And I'm not going to say that that was a waste of time and effort. The way I think of it today is I needed to do that to learn the lesson. And I'm okay with that. But my message today hopefully is not. Look, I don't want you to make mistakes. You are going to make mistakes and you need to make the mistakes to learn these lessons. And I'm sure many of you learned these lessons long ago. I'm still learning as I go. Have a vision that's okay. Know where you're trying to go. But and here's the key, be okay with it unfolding differently. Be okay with maybe a different flavor or version of what you had intended. Be willing to course correct along the way. That's life, that's business. And in this business, when you're on your own, you need to understand that and you need to practice that if you want to be successful. And by the way, when I say successful, I'm not just talking about financial success. If you want to be happy, if you want this business to really be something that makes your life richer, then you need to be willing to detach. You need to be willing to look at ideas differently and sit with those ideas and like I said, look at them through different lenses and you need to be willing to let things unfold as they will. So I hope that my sharing these thoughts and ideas with you today has been helpful. As you can see, it's a collection of different but connected thoughts and ideas that I've been mulling over recently. For me, it was really neat seeing these notes from 10 years ago. It was like a different person almost was writing them. I now see that it took me a long time to let go. I'm still working on that. But the things that I wasn't willing to let go of back then, many of them I have let go of. It's still a work in progress. But my message today is a simple reminder of something you already know. Be clear about what you want, then do the very best you can with what you've got. And also remember to pack light and enjoy the journey. Trust that the right ideas, insights, tools, people and support will come to you when you need it most. And then just try to let go. God or the universe rewards those who do their part and who trust in a higher power that's helping them. This has been Ed Gandia. I hope this message was helpful and I wish you a wonderful rest of your day. Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode and just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book Earn More in Less Time the Proven Mindset, Strategies and Actions to Prosper as a Freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com where you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.