Creating a space for change
One of the greatest responsibilities we have as entrepreneurs with a message is to create a safe place for people to confront their own privileges, to face their own limitations, to go head-to-head with their own demons, and to offer them the room to challenge their own assumptions so they can begin to question what they believe is their own truth.
In the brilliant book “Winning the Story Wars,” Jonah Sachs stresses the importance of constructing for your followers a powerful model of how the world works - the world in which you invite them into, the world in which your values and beliefs win every battle. Once you create this world, any event or action can be explained through it, allowing for change to occur.
This is done by having a “single compelling message that turns out to be the key lesson of every communication.”
Sachs calls it your MORAL OF THE STORY - the core of who you are and the truth you hold. It’s the lens through which you see the world.
(If you want to see this in action, follow my dear friend and mentor Kylie Slavik. She lives and breaths compassion and courage while relentlessly fighting for the health of our oceans.)
It is up to you to create a clear moral of the story not only in all of your copy, but in all of the spaces in which people get to interact with you.
As marketers and storytellers, it is important to create a world in which our prospects, our followers, our strategic partners, our clients, and our team feel safe to be seen and heard. They need to know that when they challenge their own assumptions, they will be met with compassion and curiosity, not shame and outrage.
We each have a framework in which we live our lives and run our businesses. Things we will tolerate and actions we will not allow into our presence. If we aren’t also creating spaces online that reflect that same framework, we are teaching our community to not trust us; that we may or may not have their back.
Imagine not knowing how someone will respond to a question or a comment and becoming afraid to share your thoughts and/or ideas? It doesn’t lead to growth. It creates chaos. And chaos creates more chaos, not change.
So, how does that help you in creating a space for change?
Change must be positive and confrontational. Rewarding and challenging. Simple and complex. Calm and uprooting. Safe and destructive.
Creating a safe space for change is not easy. It requires simple rules and clear boundaries. It demands constant attention and limitless energy. It forces you to reexamine what unconditional compassion and fierce love look like. It takes extreme diligence and continuous questioning of your own inner guidance.
On Facebook, it looks like monitoring vibrant discussions on triggering posts and calling out those doing harm. On Twitter, it looks like blocking those who have no intentions of interacting with an open mind. On Instagram, it looks like curating your feed with only those who uplift your message and align with your soul.
Without a soft landing space, most of us would just continue to orbit our existence instead of dropping in and actually doing the work that is required to make a difference.
When you actively create a world in which your prospects, clients, and community understand, accept, and align with your truth, you can guide them to a place where they feel inspired to find their own.
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If you are struggling to find your voice or figure out your own Moral of the Story, I invite you to join me in the next round of Message Revolution. It’s 6 weeks of digging into your soul’s story so you can share your true message with the world. Get all the details HERE.
