134: Ten years can pass on the same pattern
What I keep seeing in people trying to launch the work that matters most
I’ve coached a lot of people through trying to land the work that matters most to them.
Almost without exception, that’s the work that hasn’t taken shape yet. They know what they want to be doing in the world. They’ve known for years. The work is alive in them. What hasn’t settled is the form. The offer keeps changing shape. The pricing won’t sit right. The messaging won’t quite hold. They’ve launched versions and pulled them back. They’ve started and restarted.
If you’re reading this, some version of this is probably you too. You’ve been working on the same thing for two, three, five years. You can feel exactly who it’s for and what it would do for them. And the form keeps moving on you.
This used to look like substantive work to me. People refining their offer. Reconsidering their pricing. Rewriting their messaging. The kind of thing that should obviously make it better.
Over time, I started seeing it differently.
The endless refining of the offer is part of the pattern. The pricing reconsideration is part of the pattern. The messaging that won’t quite land is part of the pattern. They look like substantive work, which is what makes them so hard to see. You think you’re making progress. You’re actually running a loop.
The work that means the most to you has the highest stakes. Higher stakes means more protection. The protection comes from a layer underneath your conscious mind. The part of you that’s spent decades figuring out how to keep you safe. And that part has decided in some way that fully stepping into this work is dangerous.
Your wiring doesn’t have a reference point for being seen doing the work. That’s what registers as the threat.
So you protect yourself from the very thing you most want. Not by avoiding it directly. By staying in the version of the work that never quite gets solidified. The offer that needs one more pass. The pricing that needs one more think. The messaging that needs one more iteration.
You’re not lazy. You don’t lack commitment. You’re not undisciplined. The push-harder advice that’s everywhere in this space made you tired in the first place. Whatever’s keeping this work from landing has a different shape than character flaws.
The thing you’re calling stuckness has a structure. It’s a pattern. And patterns have reasons for existing.
The reason your particular pattern exists has nothing to do with your character. It has to do with what your body learned was safe a long time before you got here.
One of the women in our community said it like this: “It’s so hardwired in my head. How do I undo that wiring?”
That’s the right question.
Most of the work you’ve done so far, the therapy, the retreats, the courses, the years of inner work, has been good for naming the wiring. It’s been less good at undoing it. Naming and undoing are different jobs that use different parts of the brain.
I had to learn this the hard way watching people try strategy after strategy that didn’t take them where they wanted to go. The strategies were in many cases good. What was in the way was something else.
I’m going to be writing about this for the next several weeks. About the five specific patterns I see most often in people who’ve done years of inner work and still struggle to put their body of work out there. About what those patterns cost. About what actually shifts them, which isn’t what most of us were taught.
If you’ve been in this loop for a while, you’ll probably recognize yourself somewhere in the next few essays. That recognition is useful. It’s also the starting point for a different way of thinking about growing your business. Recognition by itself wont fully take you where you want to go. But something else will.
I’ll get to that.
For now, the thing worth sitting with is this. What you have to offer isn’t stalled out because you haven’t refined it enough, or you lack required experience. It’s held up because what’s in the way of it is wired in so strongly that its hard to see anything beyond that way of being.
Years pass quickly when you’re stuck.
That’s what I want to write about.
If this moves something in you, the next few essays will probably keep doing that. I’m not suggesting that you take any new actions yet. Just notice what gets stirred up. The recognition is the start.
Phil
Who We are Celebrating This Week: Josh Woll
Josh Woll has been part of our community for a long time, and we’re celebrating him big right now. He’s about to head to Machu Picchu for a retreat, then jetting straight from Peru to Rio de Janeiro for a VIP In-Person experience with us. What a run. Honestly Josh, that’s the kind of trip most people put on a vision board for ten years and never take. You’re just doing it man!
He’s the first of our community members to come for a VIP experience here in Brazil, and we’re excited to host him. He’s also a brilliant cinematographer and photographer, and he’ll be capturing some of the time on camera with us, and helping us out with some photos. We are overdue for a refresh!
Josh runs The Sober Creative. For 22 years, drinking was just part of who he was. Five years ago he committed publicly to a year without alcohol and told people. He removed the exit. The work he’d been trying to do his whole career started happening. Not despite sobriety. Because of it.
That’s what we’re really celebrating. Josh built a life he doesn’t want to escape from, and now he’s out living it. Peru one week, Rio the next, the camera on his shoulder, the work he loves in his hands. That’s the whole point.
If you’ve been quietly wondering about your own relationship with alcohol and could use some support, take a look at what he’s built.
Things I’d Like to Share
Most marketing conversations stay in tactics. Billy Broas isn’t most marketers. This one started in tactics for about six minutes and then went somewhere I rarely hear marketers willing to go.
Here’s what Andrew David Shiller, MD had to say about it:
If you’ve ever caught yourself opening twelve tabs because Claude told you all twelve ideas were brilliant, this interview with Leo Babauta is for you.
Here’s what DaeEss 1Dréa Pennington Wasio had to say about it:
Here’s what Joey Clifton and Eva Chen had to say about it:
Here’s what Dr. Bronce Rice had to say about it:
Memorable Quote
Anaïs Nin — "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."
