Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China
Making the decision to promote my workshop singlehandedly ‘in the field’ was a tough one to give birth to. But I did take a bundle of flyers and handed them out to people. It was more an exercise in courage than an effective campaign. I admit that I totally suck at the elevator pitch and I feel very unnatural when trying to deliver one. Which of course brings up the fear that I am doing more damage to my cause than good. Oh, and I was rejected harshly! Two ladies didn’t even give me the chance to open my mouth. Me! The dude with the charming smile! Funny enough is that not the type of rejection that makes me insecure. I just think “pffff.. Whatever bitch, I don’t even want you in my workshop”. Probably not very B.C (Buddhistically Correct) but fuck that. Apart from that I did have one cool conversation with a nice English couple. The guy (a recruiter) said he wanted to talk to his boss about my stuff and would drop me an email on Monday. Let’s see, who knows.
It was a bit of a victory and it wasn’t. I learned that promoting a kick-ass party in bars and clubs (like a did many years ago) is a lot easier than promoting a personal growth workshop when people are drinking beers. I also learned that I really want to change this situation and that my short, middle and long term goal is to become a better writer and speaker. I really want to get good at my elevator pitch and I realized that I should make the wisdom of the Way Of The Warrior into a fascinating presentation and not just a workshop. It will allow me to speak to larger audiences. Being on the street doing something that was outside my comfort zone transported me back to the bigger picture. My mission is to contribute to the growth of human awareness. All the awkwardness of my sales attempts did remind me of that. That made me feel very strong.
One of the occasions that lead me to the idea of writing a book was a visit to a conference on innovation and technology. I saw keynote speakers who had done amazing things (like founding Kazaa and Skype and selling Skype twice) but had a utterly boring presentation style. I realized that if I would write a relevant book and thus had something to talk about I would get interesting opportunities to get my message of devoting ourselves to the opening of our hearts across. I will never invent Skype but I do feel that I can deliver a message in a way that the audience will feel inspired.
There is something about being tested that feels empowering. When everything goes wrong but I still believe in my ideas there must be something right about them. It feels as if I am being polished. I am not coming out better or smarter but with a stronger inner conviction of being on the right path, as if my inner light shines stronger. Every defeat makes me want to give myself more.
Tomorrow I will lead a 3 day seminar. Today I put the program together. I included decision-making: I will have my participants think about what is an important decision and prepare them to start making them. According to research that was mentioned in a book I’m reading successful people are good at making decisions fast and sticking to them where unsuccessful people make decisions slowly and let go of them when there is a bit of headwind. It is a very good thing to practice. I don’t know if I am good at making many decisions fast (I think a do ok) but I do know that I stick with the important ideas.
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