Marketing

When I think of marketing, I think of hog markets. I think of a bunch of pigs in a pen, snorting and grunting, herded together as they prepare to become a chop or steak or burger. “To market, to market, to buy a fat pig. Home again, home again, jiggety jig.”

The world is a market. Ideas, methods, pencils, thumbtacks, hair, eyeballs, mice, grass (you pick the kind), wind, air…just about everything is “sellable,” a commodity of some kind – or becomes a part of something that people buy and sell.

There are some things that I don’t think are commodities. Like ear wax. Toenails. Dust. Some weeds. Fog. Leg hair. Why, even they are the inspiration for a related commodity. Ear wax drops. Clippers. Vacuum sweepers. Roundup. Lights.

I know what you’re going to say now: “Mary Jo, for heaven’s sake, get a life!”

I’m really going somewhere with this, I promise!

I get lots of marketing emails (spam) in one of my Yahoo mail accounts. I’ve closed down at least one email account because of too much spam. I read some of the spam emails, however, and many are a result of something I’ve subscribed to or expressed an interest in. What I notice about so many is this trend: they go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on

STOP!

about their product for paragraph after paragraph as if the reader was going to take the time to process the original intent: “Buy my product,” said in 45 different ways, in 15 paragraphs, leading you to a website that displays a video (that automatically starts up) that gives you 25 reasons why you should check out the 54 more reasons on the web page that tell you, in 20 paragraphs, why you need to subscribe to their newsletter, which further gives you 95 reasons why you want to return to the website that will give you 28 more reasons why you will DIE if you don’t purchase their program for only…

This feels familiar. I think I’ve talked about this before.

I guess it’s something I notice, and instead of pressing the “delete” button, which would probably save me a lot of time, I sometimes take a look, and I read about how you can find out about the thing that they are going to tell you about when they get done telling you about how you can learn about the thing they are going to tell you about when they finally get done telling you about how you can get that thing for only …

It wouldn’t bother me as much, perhaps, if only a few did it, but almost all of them do.

They have all climbed upon the marketing bandwagon that I call “cliffhanger marketing.”

And then it makes me wonder if there’s anything at the bottom if I happen to jump off the cliff.

There’s no such thing as a sample. “Just give me a test run of your product.” Oh, wait! That’s what the cliffhangers are, the alleged “test runs,” the samples. The samples lead you to the edge of the cliff where you hang.

I guess that’s mostly true in the world of ideas. If you share your entire idea, you make nothing. If you give people a teaser, they’ll want more.

So tell me about it, give me a little sample, and then LET ME DECIDE without all the cliffhangers!

Life is a cliffhanger, by all means. We get a sample of something, we try, decide we like it or we don’t, and then go on and try something else.

And to be honest, most of the stuff I do try, if I have really waded through all the cliffhangers and actually jumped, aren’t as awesome or wonderful as they have been advertised to be. Not that they aren’t life-changing for someone else.

The most life-changing stuff I’ve found to date has been unequivocably inexpensive, or even free.

Not that everything has been dirt cheap, but relatively speaking, the things that have really worked, have been just pretty darned good deals.

It could be that those who promote the less-expensive ones know that they have something that really is life-changing, and they would rather help people change lives, than make lots of money. They believe that the satisfaction and joy that comes from hearing great things from people who’ve been inspired by the product or service is far greater than the money.

And the money that comes because so many appreciate it is good, too.

No, I do not believe in selling one’s service or product short. Dirt cheap can sometimes mean inferior. But not always.

There’s a balance. Saying that what I have to offer is worth something, for the knowledge that I’ve gained. But there’s also the gift of appreciation for what I have gained and what I want to share with others.

Overall, though, it’s a matter of discernment and choice. It all comes down to what really works. And after many emails promoting newsletters that promote websites that promote videos that promote more videos that promote a teaser product that promotes an even bigger commitment to an even more extensive and expensive product that I don’t want to live without…I now appreciate those who offer what they offer and trust that I am smart and wise enough to decide whether or not I want to buy.

That’s not a hog market at all.

Desperation does not entice me. Confidence and brevity does. Sell the darned product, trust me, and leave me alone. Thank you very much.

Spelling

I’m a pretty good speller. I also like to cast spells (just kidding), but right now, I’m under the spell of my son’s spelling words. Third grade. You know, I don’t remember what I was learning when I was a third grader. But was I really learning to spell words like “absence,” “coarse,” and “population?” Maybe — but something tells me not.

The funny part is imagining Benjamin having a discussion with one of his friends, using some of his spelling words. “Yes, I think I’ll go over to the acreage and put some liquid fertilizer on it so that the population of the proper soil nutrients will be restored, so that I will have success in my effort to preserve the integrity of the soil.”

I guess the word “acreage” made me chuckle.

Those are not easy words! How many of you can, just off the top of your head, spell the word “absence,” anyway? Can you spell “mischievous,” and can you say it correctly? I learned in fourth grade as I was reading, that the word is pronounced “MIS-chuh-vuhs,” not “mis-CHEE-vee-uhs.” Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it.

Whazzup?

It’s raining!

There are blizzards in the part of the world in which I used to live – Wyoming; South Dakota. Are they on their way to these parts here in the corn-fed boonies?

Currently, I am on a voluntary layoff from work. Yep, I suggested it, my boss (bro Brian) agreed, and I’m glad to be able to keep Powercom going by not being there, ironically.

Meanwhile, the adventuresome sort that I am (in some ways), I’m digging around in some internet ventures that I hope will enhance my income. You never know how they’ll go – I am going to do my best and trust for the rest. Of course, I have to get a round tuit.

I will post more about them in future blogs.

Many of my close friends and loved ones know that I have had my share of lows and strangeness in my life mental health-wise. Not so that I have walked around doing the “Thorazine shuffle,” though there was a time a couple summers ago when Brian would round the corner as I sat at my desk at Powercom, say something to me, and I’d jump a couple hundred feet out of my skin, even while slightly sedated. That is a long story in itself that I really prefer not going into, though it could be educational at best.

So in my quest, I have sought out a thousand different perspectives, methods, modalities, insights, medications, treatments and crazes in order to get myself to a better place mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually, primarily in the quietness of my own home and mind, lest I drive everyone else to the state of wacko-ness. I learned early on that trying to convert everyone simply does not work nor is it even practical or necessary to do so.

Oh – why we separate all those “parts” of our lives – mental, emotional, physical and spiritual – is curious to me. They are all inextricably intertwined. So let’s keep it simple. Let’s just get BETTER, feel better, BE better. Yeah.

If I listed everything I’ve dabbled in and you read it, it would be lunchtime before you got up to get a sandwich. (It’s 10:01 a.m.) And even then, you might not be finished.

So just grab a cup of coffee and a scone and sit down with me for a little bit. There. Thank you. Oh, could you bring me a napkin, please?

One of the things I’ve been doing that I believe has helped clear out a lot of the cobwebs (thanks, Brian, for that metaphor) has been something called “The Healing Codes.”

Now, this is unlike any standard healing modality that I have ever encountered in my lifetime. The closest I’ve come is acupuncture, because it has to do with energy flow in the body, though it is not inspired by Chinese medicine and meridians and Chi. I keep hearing a sitar playing in the background — why? The Chinese do not play sitars, do they? The alternative medicine mode, the alternative spiritualities; incense and peppermints, essential oils, meditation, Beatles, Ravi Shankar, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Fairfield…no. That isn’t me.

The Healing Codes were actually developed by a fellow who is a Christian, and from what I know (he does not push this at all though I have picked up tidbits of information from here and there) his faith has inspired the development of this modality. But it is not limited to Christians nor does it require conventional prayer (though there is a prayer or request involved). His wife was struggling with severe depression. He was desperate, and prayed once again, “What do I do?” This method poured out to him as he sat on an airplane on his way home from somewhere, to his despairing wife, and it was the thing that brought her up out of the darkness of that frustrating state of mind.

It involves using one’s hands to energize the healing centers of the body by holding them in various positions in respect to those healing centers, in various combinations and lengths of time – hence, Codes.

These Codes address, access, and clear memories, beliefs, and mental images that block cells from opening up and healing, allowing the natural health that is already ours to once again flow.

Kinda like allowing the flow to burst through a clogged-up water hose. Or because I think of cells, I think of something like a pea (bear with me here) that has developed a hardened shell around it so that it is no longer a healthy, green vegetable but all that makes it healthy is trapped inside. The Codes open up the hardened stuff and allow the healthy part out. Not the greatest analogy, but it’ll do.

So I am doing these Codes.

The website (I’m providing a link here) offers testimonial after testimonial. Confession: I love testimonials. They always excite me. Yes, I can be gullible. I’ve gotten plenty of those marketing mailers that show bright and shiny faces along with quotes that may or may not be fabricated. And in many cases, the faces portrayed there look a heckuvalot like stock images to me (look up images on google and you’ll see stock images). Like fashion models pretending to be real people, walking down the beach in soft, white, flowy clothes, chinos, maybe, suntanned, glowing, smiles so big you could travel from Walla-Walla, Washington to Bangor, Maine on them.

I digress.

So there are many testimonials of instant or speedy physical healings, which are often the end result of doing the Codes. The Codes heal the cellular memories based on emotional stresses and trauma, which frees the cells to then heal the physical ailments of the body. One of the primary promotors of the Codes, Dr. Ben Johnson (not my second cousin who plays the harmonica), was completely healed of Lou Gehrig’s disease. Look that up. There is “no cure.” I had a conversation with him on the phone the other day. He sounds pretty good to me.

The testimonials always crow about the instantaneous, amazing, remarkable, blatantly noticeable things, but there are always those, tucked away in their own little pocket among the biggies, that report gradual changes that are noticed over time. Like looking back and seeing that the thing that used to be, is no longer. Like noticing that I used to get real super-sensitive when I thought people weren’t listening to me. I’d feel bad. Or I’d get upset. Oh, I still do get a bit gnarly – but I usually just laugh, or realize that whether I get to finish my sentence or not is just not a huge deal. That’s just an example. There are a passel more.

And so for me, it’s the gradual stuff that I notice. I know it may well sound totally insane to you to imagine me holding my hands in a certain position and believing that by so doing I am going to find relief from my own stuff. And you may indeed think that I should check in with my cobweb doctor and request some serious Thorazine treatment. But let me ask you, which would you rather see? Me walking around, drooling, my slippers skiffing the carpets of a Pine-Sol-scented institution somewhere (LOL)? Or me truckin’ around Washington and across this great U.S. of A. (and someday over the ocean – my plan), laughing and having a good time and smiling at you, wearing a sign that says, “Thank you, Lord for thinkin’ ’bout me, I’m alive and doing fine!”?

What kind of insanity would it be to find healing without so much medication (though it is a great tool as well, I can vouch for that!!!)? Not that I advice anyone to quit any meds and wing it. No way. I haven’t done that!!!

It’s about time I have the kind of life I desire, and I’ll do almost anything to get it.

Anyway, so, I am promoting these wonderful Codes. I have a website that does this, and offers you just about all the information you need, if you are interested in finding out more about them, or even launching into your own research (via experience) into the joys of healing and freedom. It offers an opportunity for you to purchase, or to become an advocate for them. Take a look. Can’t hurt! Remember, the page talks a LOT about the advocacy program, which I’d love for you to explore – but to the right are links to more information about the Codes themselves.

And, well, before I forget, in the box/column to the right is a link to “My Healing Codes Page.” Take a look!

Silly Me

I’m sittin’ here writing a new post as if there were lots of people reading, and I’ve only let one person know I have this blog. So much for publicity!

It’s Sunday; it’s raining outside, Benjamin spent the night with a friend last night so I have some lovely quiet moments…

CHILDREN.

Now that Benjamin is nine and I’ve moved into a big house, the kids all want to be here. Most of the time. I’m the taxi, the pizza maker (that or chicken nuggets), and my pantry is raided every ten minutes. The 24 Kool-Aid jammers I got not long ago are gone…

Though I kinda love it, I also find it a bit hard to adjust to after years of being On My Own.

When kids decide they can get into my fridge and cupboards…h-m-m. Time for a conversation or two.

When kids TP my entire house (indoors) one night…and use up at least 6 rolls of toilet paper…I told them it was funny once, but now, they could go TP someone else’s house, and then they start up with it again a weekend or two later…but I catch them in the act and put a stop to it right then and there…

When they want to videotape a YouTube event with my video camera, and they’ve been using it as if it were theirs, so I insist on doing it myself (and it is fun), I run out of tape; then I get another tape and later discover I recorded over some stuff I’d video taped a while back. Oh-oh. Oh, well.

Yeah. It’s an adventure.

I would never trade it for anything.

I remember being a kid. I think of the things I wish I could have done, or wanted when I was his age, and I get permissive. Within reason. I know many friends and relatives think I’m a pushover. They’re right. I am. But I know my limits and I know when I’ve had enough.

A lot of the adjustment is done within me. I know that when I resist things, they feel worse. If I go with the flow, things feel better. And it is SO MUCH EASIER.

Some will say that easy just isn’t the way to make it in life. But then I say, and where has DIFFICULT gotten you? Are you any happier doing DIFFICULT than you might have been had you decided EASY was the road?

I know that many equate EASY with LAZY.

This isn’t about LAZY. If you would enter my house, you would rarely see me lying around on my couch (not that doing that necessarily has to mean one is lazy, either. I don’t like the word “lazy” anyway — more on that some other day). It means that I am really wanting to react less, push against things less, and allow myself to enjoy more. And gee, hard work can yield a lot of satisfaction…but the hardest work I’ve done IN THE FLOW, without resistance, is the kind that is so satisfying. That’s the kind of hard work I want to do.

Pushing all the time against kids and plain old randomness in life so that I can have an orderly life and feel somewhat in control doesn’t always result in happiness. It just results in me having to push hard to keep it that way. Why not stop pushing, and get happy with things as they are?

I’m still playing with it. I’m not an expert. I say “playing with it,” because if I say, “work at it,” I contradict the very thing I’m setting out to do.

I look back at my life and see that I’m sure a lot more comfy with the chaos than I used to be.

There is a difference, I’ve found, between what I think I am supposed to be (and still would like to be sometimes) and what I am, or let’s say what my life is like.

But I’m learning that as I get happy and OK and even find things to appreciate in WHAT IS, the “what I’m supposed to be” or, better yet, what I’d like to be (or do or have) is a lot more possible.

I’m not well-practiced at it. But that’s what practice is — doing it so that one gets better and better and better and better…

Life is just practice every day, and I can choose what I want to practice. I’ve had enough of practicing resistance and frustration with everything that happens (almost) and trying to get everything around me to be what I want so that I can finally be happy. Now, I’m going to be happy first.

Why does it have to seem so hard sometimes? DUH! OK. So let’s go play!!!!!

Hello world!

Greetings, friends!

What fun to have my own blog! I have so much to say! Those of you who’ve gotten acquainted with me as one who’s posted on the Powerful Intentions website or written you emails, know how “talkative” I can be when I sit down in front of a computer and put my hands on the keyboard.

I used to send out e-blogs. Because I didn’t have a website, I’d write out my latest thoughts and send them off to friends. I remember writing a little story once complaining about the length of cords that come with certain appliances. I’ll post that here some time. Meanwhile, there might be some complaining, but I would rather write uplifting things that I hope will resonate with you in some way. I’m not into the complaining as much as I used to be.

But I love to have fun, so if you have comments, feel free! I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for being here.

Mary Jo – Wholenote