Believe Nothing Beware of Everything
April 6th, 2016 // 2:20 pm @ Scott Manning
My mom always told me “DTA Scotty – don’t trust anybody.”
Well I have to say, my Mom was and continues to be very wise and I’m grateful for all she’s done for me. But, even my Mom could have never predicted just how important this message would be still today, decades later.
Of course, the worst part about this is, she was talking about ‘bad people’, strangers, dark alleys and things like that.
She really had no idea just how much her healthy (though I often thought unhealthy) paranoia would prove to be spot on. This applies across the board of humanity, civilization, and society in all shapes, sizes and every other person, place, and thing you can think of. Seriously.
We live in the land of lies. Anymore, nothing is as it is suppose to be or as it seems to be. Every place you turn there is someone with another agenda that is either in complete opposition to yours or at the very least completely inconsiderate of yours.
There is no responsibility in America anymore. Nor is there in business or marketing or selling or healthcare or anything else. And there in lies your grand opportunity.
Plain and simple. Embrace it and exploit it or be and the mercy and manipulated by it. You don’t get to choose neither or both. As I often repeat: straddling the fence – hurts.
As a business owner and entrepreneur (and more importantly as an influencer over others) you get to make a stand for the good, the right, the positive – even though and still – your definition of good, right, positive may not be someone else’s.
This is why you must learn to become loyal to your principles, committed to your own philosophy, and guided by your compass. Let no one else distract, distort or direct you away from your own path, journey, agenda, mission, purpose and passion.
You must protect yourself.
You must protect your people.
You must protect your customers.
You do this, in my opinion, by arming people with six things –
1. Truth
2. Transparency
3. Positivity
4. Prosperity
5. Education
…and finally clear and specific direction, advice, guidance, strategy as to their honest to goodness best decision and course of action for themselves.
Another time I will walk you through each of these and explain how to integrate them into your marketing, selling, messaging, relationship and experience for your prospects, clients, patients, customers and anyone else.
This will become and should be your differentiating factor. You will provide a safe zone for people to be sheltered from the onslaught of others trying to woo and sway and con people into falling victim to what someone else tells them they should believe.
I have been watching several historical documentaries about past elections and a really fascinating show called “Road to the White House” on CNN…not news, something they would know nothing about. This show is one of the best things I’ve ever watched on TV. And you know what ,what’s happening today in politics is nothing new but the media is most certainly worse because they have more mind control over the audience. It wasn’t that there was no biased over the past 100 years – of course there was – but today people see media as “entertainment” and therefore they believe it even more so than the concept of “reporting” before. The anchors have star power and the analyst have opinions; there is no factual premise of “reporting so you can decide” as Fox News likes to pretend. More like opinions from both sides fighting to convince you they are right, instead of true journalism free of bias (which has probably never existed).
Why? Because we and they, are all humans.
So why talk about this right here – not because of politics. Because of the reality you live in with your prospects, customers, patients, clients and everyone else. You have to find ways to overcome skepticism and (I have to be very honest with you) very few people I know, including those reading this, do a good job.
Most of you are in the justifying business. You wait until it’s too late to start earning trust, to start being transparent, to start influencing in a positive way and helping to build the deserve and prosperity of people’s decisions. You think education is selling where instead selling should be education. And all of this would give you a healthy advantage in your business because you are creating an environment where your clients, patients, and customers feel safe and where they feel safe they will wish to stay.
I do not have ‘one’ thing I can point to that has led to my success. But, I can tell you this, creating a business platform where I can be honest and build real relationships by protecting and empowering my readers, followers and clients in a way that their money and decisions are not directly linked to what I say or share has allowed me to grow and build our business on a foundation of integrity, that is second to none in the industry we serve. It allows us to be our best selves because we never have to do anything that compromise what I believe your business should be based on to begin with.
Your principles.
Your philosophy.
Your purpose, passion, and mission.
And when you construct something that clients, patients, and customers can engage and immerse themselves in, where all of these things are in alignment and congruent they can’t help but want to give you money to be around you and to live in a place they respect, appreciate, and find as they wish and desire all other places to be.
There’s a lot here to digest…to think about and act on…I hope you do.
Here’s a thought for you for next week – before you can make sure you are doing right by your customers, you have to do right by yourself – and make sure you aren’t drinking the infested, poisonous, mutated koolaid in the form of opinions of others filling your mind space throughout your days.
Protection begins first with yourself, not by ignorance or neglect or denial or naivety. Rather by filtering, controlling, informing, arming yourself against these forces and establishing your own foundation, fortress, and agenda that guides your life and business by the things I’ve listed here.
Category : Blog
