đ TREE 252: Faith in your faith
One.
Brenda sees the fly. Brenda wants the fly. Brenda canât jump in high heels.
Two.
Letâs say youâve thrown yourself into a thing. Maybe itâs a religion. Maybe itâs a product. Maybe itâs an email you send every weekday morning.
Do you truly believe in it?
Hereâs one way you can tell. Do you use manipulation or deception to promote/sell/share your thing? If you the answer is yes, you donât believe in it.
You can use this test on other peopleâs things too. It works on anything from a deceptive headline on an article that isnât good enough up to scandals like Jerry and Becki Falwellâs shenanigans at Liberty University.1
An example: Part of me wants to say that hundreds of people get TREE every day. Thatâs kind of factual if you half-close your eyes and tilt your head just the right way and donât look too long. The actual truth is TREE has 216 subscribers and around 65 people open each email.
I could juice my numbers to try and impress people into subscribing. But I know that one of the main reasons TREE has any value is that I write what I live. As soon as my writing separates from my real life, my integrity is gone and TREE becomes worthless. So I stick to the truth.
When you believe in your thing, you are free from the need to manipulate and lie.
One more thing. If you are part of an organisation that does business using deception or manipulation, get out. You might believe in what youâre doing, but the people in charge donât.
Three.
One of George Michaelâs most famous songs is âFaithâ, so hereâs Wham!
Grow slowly
Jeff
OMG, you guys! This podcast investigation requires a strong stomach.
Why I've left teaching in a post-secondary writing program... it ceased to be about the writing. I felt homesick sitting in faculty meetings. I walked down the hallway, and heard the word "branding" too often. I heard numbers instead of letters. I had a student who lived in books and words just disappear, with no word. It was time for me to go home and write. Too many high heels.
TREE feels to be infused with so much real-living and yes, faith. Thank you!
Hi Jeff, I donât think thereâs been one TREE that I havenât liked, or that hasnât resonated with me. I often just forget to open them⊠Then I got really behind on my emails, get totally overwhelmed and delete them all when Iâm having a meltdown. Do you tweet them as well. When Iâm overwhelmed with my emails, I can actually look at Twitter. If there was a tree link, I would probably click on it. Anyway, just want you to know that your work is appreciated. XX