Good Empire

So many good conversations came from yesterday’s Intention vs Impact post, we thought it warranted a follow-up...

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Which counts more? This is something I’ve found myself at odds with a lot over the years, particularly the last few...

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What’s the thing that’s holding you back?

Is it fear? Fear of what? Can you name the exact fear? It helps. Naming something that feels big and unconquerable can sometimes make it more approachable. Of course, sometimes putting it in a box gives you more excuses, too.

Is it because you don’t know what to do next? Pick one thing. Just one small thing. Do that. Then pick the next one. It’s not the most sophisticated strategy, but if you were needing that, you’d have already started.

Is it because you don’t feel ready? When do you think you will be ready? Now’s good.

Is it because you don’t feel worthy? Fuck that. You’re worthy. We each are worthy.

Step in.

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You may not know this, but the wine company André co-founded, Vinomofo, started as a review site. He'd had this vision to create a wine site where you could go look up a wine and see how REAL people liked it, not critics, just regular wine lovers like André.

Of course, that didn’t make any money, so he and Justin eventually launched Vinomofo.

Point is, André's thought a lot about customer reviews, the voice of the people. But it was different back then. These days, it's hard to see any value in the ratings on google, or even uber eats, because they’re too generic. You never know whether the people on there giving reviews feel the same way about food as you do.

What we need is recommendations from people we trust, people we know like the same kind of stuff as we do.

Wouldn’t that be cool?

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FOLLOW THE GOOD EMPIRE JOURNEY:

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I see plenty of “speaking coaches” talk about how to stand, what to do with your hands, and how to smile and project while you’re talking...

Blah blah. I don’t think that’s the way to go about it.

I think people get nervous about public speaking because they think it’s a performance, and if they don’t perform well, people won’t like them, won’t listen, and they’ll be stuck up there on the stage, vulnerable, failing, with nowhere to hide…

I think the most important thing is to believe, truly, that people need to hear what you have to say. That it’s going to be of value to them.

Because then it’s not about you. You’re not performing. You’re a messenger. And you can share your message even if your “performance” isn’t polished.

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FOLLOW THE GOOD EMPIRE JOURNEY:

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facebook.com/thegoodempire/

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I lost my voice last week. Naturally I had several speaking engagements exactly at that time, I blame Murphy.

But this isn’t a post about how to get your voice back. Steep ginger, garlic, chilli, honey and lemon in a pot of water and drink that through the day. And shut up for a bit.

How do we find our voice? How do we find what we want to stand for, and how we want to communicate it?

Why do we feel like we need to put a dollar value on things that are bad in our culture, to get people to want to change them?

André was meeting with a good woman building something very worthwhile to help prevent post-natal depression the other day. Her extensive research studies in Sweden had shown that post-natal depression costs “society” or a “corporate” $4000 per woman and $8000 per man as partner of someone going through post-natal depression, because men earn more, in case you didn’t realise. Let’s leave that one for now.

That’s $12,000. Therefore we should address it. Now she didn’t feel that way, but the corporate partners she was speaking to wanted to know the cost, as did the government bodies she was speaking to about funding.

Why do we need to attach a dollar value? What’s with our obsession with quantitative data?

André saw a post the other day, by Sarah Wilson, who wrote the whole Quitting Sugar thing but perhaps more interestingly, wrote an incredible and life-changing book on anxiety, called “First, we make the beast beautiful.” Which is also one of the greatest book titles in history.

She wrote something quite poignant, quite meaningful, and it was surprising when glancing down at the comments to read things like

“HOOOOOOOLY MOLY!”

And

“Looking beautiful, babe!”

Yes, it was a nice picture of Sarah’s face. But she wasn’t posting about how nice she looked, or asking people if she was looking beautiful.

She had something good to say...

I had a bad day the other day. I got an email that just triggered me. I was feeling fluey, and not just any flu, but the man flu. You know how serious that can be…

But I digress with my sarcasm.

I slept awfully, mind racing with too many negative things. They build and build and race and race like a hurricane of negativity, pulling up more negative thoughts and fears, thoughts completely unrelated...

I woke up the next morning, and as my mind cranked up again, and the first stirrings of the hurricane threatened, I took a deep breath.

And then let it out.

And I found, as all who have discovered what a god damn RELIEF it is to meditate, that I wasn’t in fear anymore.

I found stillness. Today is a new day. I get to start it fresh.

A reset.

You ever sit back and wonder how we got to be people who post about themselves all the time? And I’m owning that I’ve started to do it too, don’t worry, this isn’t a judgemental rant (though it probably wouldn’t shock you if it was).

I find myself wrestling with this. It’s why I’ve mostly avoided social media for so long. I would just ask myself “who gives a shit about what you cooked? Just cook the damn meal, eat it, enjoy! The world doesn’t want to know.”

So when it came time that I really did want to use social media to say something to the world, I felt torn. I’d follow all these people who so naturally, at least it appeared natural, shared things in their lives, and thoughts mundane and profound and everything in between, and I felt like I should do that too, but I just couldn’t help but think “why should anybody care?”

I’m not right though. People do care. Not everyone, but someone.