We are in the middle of launching our Rethinkers programme.
These times are a mix of excitement and anticipation in equal measures.
As this is behind the scenes kind of note I thought I’d share what really happens when you ‘launch’ or start something new.
You have been working on this concept, idea, proposition for weeks, months, years. It comes and goes. It’s a good idea, it’s a bad idea. You love it, you don’t like it. It’s enough, it’s not enough. You keep going though. Despite all the bumps.
You wear 4 hats as your idea develops.
The Developer Hat > playing, thinking, researching
The Creator Hat > learning, training, setting up, organising
The Telling Hat > promoting, communicating, selling, marketing, distributing, trying
The Delivering Hat > doing, giving, serving, running
There is always one hat more on your head than others, they all can’t be fitting well on your head but they do kind of balance on top of each other. Think Cat in Hat kind of thing.
This is where a launch can get messy. You are trying to do all the things at once. You might be doing them in the wrong order (there is no right order, you have to work out right order for you. For example you might want to wear your Telling Hat first to test your idea and grow your audience before you invest in developing and creating. You have to think what you need first and wear that hat more than the others even if it’s a bit uncomfortable).
So as your idea evolves, and as you wear your different hats, you discover things you didn’t know, things about yourself, so as well as the idea growing, so do you. Even more mess.
It is at the point of this mess that you might want to give up.
Because you think, I cant do this, I’m not good enough, this is rubbish.
But it’s just growing pains.
And just like growing pains, this feeling might never go away, but you learn to grow anyway and carry on.
You worry. You hope. You are excited. You want it so much. You panic in case it’s successful.
At some point you launch. It might be small, you tell a friend. It might be big, you bring in a marketing agency to put a billboard up on one of those trucks parked in a field next to a motorway (someone must do it).
Either way you release it to the World. And you watch as it blows around in the wind, some people like it, some people challenge it, most people ignore it.
But it’s out there and you put it there. And now it’s your job to create more wind so that it stays in the air, giving it a chance to go further.
Sometimes it’s more about sowing seeds, that might grow, might not.
So you need to know. Why are you doing this?
It will keep you going.
Through the moments when you get people interested, oh wow it’s actually working, people booking calls, people sending messages, and the moments when they disappear again, not even a thanks but no thanks, just a ghosting, they’ve moved on, and so must you. Onwards. Keep focused.
It’s not over until it starts.
You have to keep momentum when you have your Telling Hat on. It’s a big huge Hat that keeps flopping over your eyes, falling off, itching your head, it’s a great stylish hat but wow it’s hard to wear. Keep up that energy. Hold that space for success.
And then you reach the Start line. Start day. Phew success. People have connected, resonated, wanted, joined.
And now put on that Delivering Hat.
Now the work begins.
So that is Launch.
eleanor
If you are thinking of Developing, Creating, Telling, Delivering join Rethinkers, > starts 8 March
Good luck with the new programme Eleanor