Someone on our community call last week made a list of about a hundred warm contacts. Past clients, old colleagues, people who would be glad to hear from him and probably glad to help. Then he told us how many of them he’d actually messaged.
Zero.
He wasn’t confused about how to send a message. He’s a grown man with a phone. Sure, he had a few strategic questions we addressed, but he knew the names, he had the contact information, and the list was right there in front of him. And the list just kept sitting
If you’ve got your own version of that list, this is for you. There are two parts we are going to unpack together. Paid subscribers will receive the outreach method, which I think you’ll find is very simple to implement. The second is the reason the outreach often sits there undone, and that’s the part I’m hoping you’ll get some fresh perspective on here.
The Outreach Method
It’s four simple steps, and none of them are hard to get started with:
How to bucket your list so 100 messy names sort themselves into who you should message first
The one rule for matching the channel to each person, so your message lands warm instead of like a pitch
The exact one-line ask I send, the kind you can answer in three seconds and so can they
The opener to use when you reconnect with someone, instead of asking for a referral, which feels productive and quietly goes nowhere
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now the part that’s actually in the way ...
Everything above is simple to implement once you have the system in place. I’m sure reading about it took you only a couple minutes. So why does the list often sit there with no forward movement?
Because sending the message means being seen as the person you’re becoming. And that person doesn’t feel real to you yet.
A woman on the same call gave us the clearest picture of this I’ve heard in a while. She ran into someone on the sidewalk. Well connected, sociable, exactly the person who’d love what she’s building. And the person asked her, friendly, “so what are you up to these days?” The single best opening she could have been handed. And she said nothing about the work. It didn’t even occur to her. In her own words, it’s still not real to her what she is creating. She walked half a block after the end of the conversation before it landed:
“I can’t believe I didn’t say anything.”
And that’s the nervous system doing its job. Freezing on sharing is a form of protection. The moment you stand up and say “I’m the one who does this now,” you’re on the hook for it, and often there’s still a part of you would rather keep you safely unseen than let you carry that weight.
This is the half of the work that lives in the body, the part Carolina holds with our work in Radiant Flow, and a better outreach script simple won’t touch it.
What starts to create the shift is what I would describe as a practice. You can’t think your way into something feeling real. The conscious choice to reach ou in spite of feeling the fear or wobbly feelings is what makes it real. Being seen as the new person, again and again, is how you become that person.
And guess what?
The steady stream of booked clients are downstream of that. The first job of the message isn’t to land a client. It’s to simply let one more human being know this is who you are standing for, and that the message exists
the one you’re most afraid to message
So here’s how to pick where to start.
Run down the list for the name that brings up the most fear. Maybe you’ll feel it in your solar plexus, or your gut. For me it’s a fiery feeling in the chest.
Often the name that comes up isn’t the most logical one. Again, look for the one that drops your stomach a little. Steven Pressfield built a whole body of work on this. Resistance shows up strongest right where the most opportunity often lives. The contact you least want to message is usually the one who could change your entire path forward in getting traction with your business.
You can play this guy two ways, and both are perfect.
Warm up on the low-stakes names first and build some forward momentum.
Or walk straight into the fire with the “scary” one, because once you pull that band-aid off, every other name on the list is going to feel so much easier.
try this this week
If this is a challenge for you, don’t aim to message a hundred people this week. Open the list and pick the one name you’ve been avoiding. Send the binary ask. One message. “Got an idea I thought of you for. Can I send you a quick note about it?” Something that small.
Then watch what happens to the other ninety-nine after you do. They tend to get a lot lighter.
I still feel the freeze some days myself, especially around anything new. It doesn’t fully leave. It just stops running the show once you’ve shown yourself, one sent message at a time, that you can do the thing and survive being seen doing it.
You’ve got the list. You already know which name I mean.
if you’d rather not do this alone
If doing your outreach feels heavy, do it with us instead.
Next Tuesday at 11am pacific / 2pm eastern, we’re running a live workshop inside our Radiant Flow community. Carolina will open us up by settling the body, because the freeze we just talked about lives in your nervous system.
Then I will walk you through the method. We’ll make our lists together. Then, with the power of having a community doing this work alongside you, you’ll send one meaningful message that needs to be sent.
And you’ll leave with clear next steps for the next ones that need to be scheduled. Those who attend live will also walk away with a claude skill workflow to help them organize their personal outreach on an ongoing basis.
Radiant Flow is our embodiment membership, $67 a month: twice-weekly sessions, a vibrant heart-connected community, and live workshops like this one. If you’d like to be there, you can join here:
And if you’d rather just send the one message on your own, do that. What matters most is that you take the next step forward from here.
Phil (& Carolina)