Venice Beach

This photo was taken in 2020 on Venice Beach California amazing bike trail.

The public demands that you tell them a story. The story is part of the product or service that they buy—in many cases, the story is what people set out to buy. But at the core of a story is the thing, the real thing, the essence of what you’ve built.

1. Total commitment to giving makes receiving automatic.
2. Desire is the seed of intrinsic motivation, the natural impulse to create, to expand, to grow.

I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.

• Henry David Thoreau

Marketing 101

The best place to start? Copy someone in a different industry who’s telling a similar story. Discover the cues and signals she uses. Do them all, not just a few. Your story is a symphony, not a note.

Telling people that they’ve believed a lie for a long time is no way to make friends. If it’s a good lie, a lie that led people to enjoy themselves or to be productive, then taking that lie away is actually hurtful.

• If you commit to a story and live that story, the contradictions will disappear.

• Make your story bigger and bigger until it’s important enough to believe.

The product is nothing but a souvenir of your trip to the store—and a reminder of the way you felt when you bought it.