Break Through The Blocks

“‘Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time.
Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.”
–M. Scott Peck

In Issue #

Editor’s Note: My hard drive crashed this morning—taking with it my only copy of today’s issue of Copy Protégé. I know, I should have made a backup copy. What can I say? I didn’t. So I had to dip into the archives to cover my mistake. The following essay struck a chord with many readers when I wrote it last year at about this time. I hope you enjoy it as well as Laurie’s next installment in her scroll calls.    

Break Through The Blocks
by Krista Jones

Lately I’ve been juggling so many things that I feel like I’m not doing any of them well.

Last week was a perfect example. I put in 70 hours doing this and that. I worked on paid writing assignments for three different clients here, did some consulting there, and worked on developing products over there. Plus I spent several hours studying a correspondence course. I was mentally running in circles.

Sometimes it’s exhilarating when I overbook myself like this. Everything moves from point A to point B so smoothly it feels like I’m hardly working at all. But this time I feel resistance at almost every turn.

It’s gotten so bad that just thinking about one of my clients tilts my body temperature up several notches. And I wasted a couple of hours Thursday night pulling out of my private pity party.

Over the weekend I decided I had had enough. I put away my computer, turned the ringer off the phone, and slipped into the stillness of my favorite room in the house.

Before long I got to the root of the problem: working with two of my clients. I dread working on their projects; I get bored while I’m doing it; and I’m in a bad mood when I finish.

One client is pompous and likes his marketing materials to reflect that. It forces me to write academically, much like I used to write before I became a copywriter. That style of writing actually feels foreign to me now and it makes it hard for me to write freely.

The other client is a small business owner who really doesn’t understand the value of direct marketing. So there’s a huge educational curve as well as some serious hand-holding involved.

No matter how I looked at it I realized that working with those two clients stifles me. And what’s worse, the negativity I generate over working with them casts a shadow over my other projects—and even my personal life. It mows me down and I never even see it coming.

Now that I have a name for the resistance, I have to do something about it. The solution announced itself loud and clear about 9:30 yesterday morning…

When I returned home from a walk with my dogs, there was a voice mail message waiting for me. I checked Caller ID and saw that the call came from the city where my pompous client is located.

Instead of being excited that I might be getting more work—and thus a hefty fee, my heart sank. I was so anxious I didn’t even want to listen to the message. When I finally played it back, it turned out the call wasn’t from my client after all…it was someone trying to solicit donations to a charity. Man was I thrilled!

The feeling I had before I played back that message confirmed what I already knew in my heart: I need to cut the cord with this client. And the small business one too for that matter. So I’m dropping Mr. High and Mighty as soon as I finish my current assignment. In a few weeks, the second one will go too.

Deciding to drop two clients would have scared the crap out of me several months ago. And I’m guessing that right now the thought of losing clients probably makes you a little uncomfortable too.

But believe me, as you grow into your copywriting business, your focus will not always be on getting as many clients as you can get, but on getting the right clients.

Not too many copywriting gurus will tell you this – and I realize it might sound a little touchy-feely for some – but how you feel about your clients and their projects matters more than you think. Sure, everyone hits little bumps in their day-to-day level of motivation. But when you feel the kind of overwhelming resistance I encountered in working for these two clients, it’s a sign to slow down and make a course correction to get back on track.

It doesn’t have to be a bummer client necessarily – it can be anything. A product you don’t feel good writing about. A company that holds beliefs you don’t agree with. A marketing tactic that just doesn’t feel like a good fit for your personality.

If anything is holding you back from feeling good about your copywriting business, try the process I worked through over the weekend:

  1. Start by looking into your own heart. Yes, that means you’ll have to stop “doing” long enough to hear the stillness. Sometimes you can’t see the enemy that’s right in front of your face until you stop moving around it. If you can get still long enough, you’ll see it.
  2. Take responsibility for your current situation and make the emotional and psychological adjustments required to confront and then bury resistance. (I’m dropping two clients. What action are you willing to take to quiet that small voice inside?)
  3. Swing for the fence! Millions of people have wonderful plans to live out their dreams, but very few act on them. Don’t cheat yourself. Give the world what you’ve got.

It feels great to break through blocks when you’ve been stymied. I’m excited about the week ahead. I hope you are too.

Resource Referral: Achieve More With Less

If you wish you had an extra hour or two in your day to more actively pursue your copywriting career—or other things that you’re interested in—I highly recommend an audio program called The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success By Achieving More with Less.

I listened to the program years ago, and I was reminded of it as I wrote today’s essay. When I thought about the program, I realized that my decision to give up my two clients directly relates to the Pareto Principle, which states that 80% of results, rewards, or outputs are generated by 20% of causes, efforts, or inputs.

In other words, when it comes to getting the results we want, only a very few things we do really matter. The rest…well, they’re a waste of time.

You’ve probably heard about the 80/20 Principle in the corporate world–80% of a company’s profit comes from 20% of its customers, 20% of the staff generates 80% of the company’s productivity…blah, blah, blah. But you may not be aware that studies prove that the 80/20 Principle is a universal phenomenon.

What that means to you and me is that it also has an impact on our personal lives.

Knowing how this principle affects you lets you use it as a tool to transform your life by finding, focusing on, and exploiting the most important 20% of your resources in every situation in your life.

If you’re serious about learning how you can use your time more wisely, click here.

Scroll Call # 9: Have No Regrets…Nurture Your Inner Child by Laurie Cauthen

There’s no erasing the fact that I’ve always been a clown. Since childhood, I entertained my family at parties by doing imitations of Lilly Tomlin and Pepe Le Pew. But more than just being the life of the party, I simply love to laugh, and making people laugh is one of my favorite things.

Hearing children’s laughter is like owning a treasure chest full of gold and silver…

And that’s just one of the reasons why I enjoy sharing laughter with others. But lately, I’ve repressed the spirit inside, for fear of not being seen as professional enough in my new writing career.

In writing these Scroll Call Journals, I have been on a path of learning and self discovery.

I’ve learned that writing is another one of my passions and I must pursue it in every form possible. It’s like I have a hunger for words that I must feed with writing. In finding this writing passion though, I realize now I must keep my jester alive, in order to be the most creative writer possible.

My dreams require my inner child not only to live, but to flourish and grow stronger because…

As much as I’ve tried to deny my more colorful side, I am a professional clown entertainer as well as a writer. There can be no separation of the two because I need both skills to accomplish my goals. 

My dreams are ambitious, but the value they will bring to the world is laughter, a most precious gift.

As a copywriter, I am creating a clown course to teach people how to become a clown entertainer and start their own profitable home-based business for less than a $100 dollar investment.

This is the first step of my plan, but eventually I intend to create a not-for- profit clown academy where people can be trained to become professional clowns, and go out in troupes and entertain children who are  in hospitals, and the elderly in retirement and nursing homes.

My clowning business was inspired by my father and my Uncle Belvin, who were Shriner Clowns. Every year we went to The Shrine Circus in Miami. It was always a thrill to see them riding in those tiny little cars at the Orange Bowl Parade wearing their burgundy tasseled, Fez hats.

As you can see, laughter has always been a cherished part of my life, and now I want to share the magic of clowning with  the ones who need laughter and a little bit of goofiness the most.

I can’t deny my funny side any more than I can deny the writer in me. But I can embrace the two as one, and create something valuable that the world can certainly use much more of—the healing power of laughter.

As the old story goes, no one on their death bed regrets the things they accomplished, but only the things they did not.

Until next time …