87. The cure to "I don't know what to say"

Has this ever happened to you?

You're looking at a blank screen, you need to write copy... and your brain comes up with a big fat NOTHING. 

You think to yourself: "I don't know what to say!" And the more you try to wrack your brain trying to come up with something, the bigger the block seems to get?

Well, here's the good news. This happens to all of us. Even me! 

And the better news? There is a cure.

Listen to this episode.

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I’m Simone Grace Seol. Let me help you build community care, social responsibility, and spirituality into every part of your business.

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Transcript

Hello, hello, my friends. You are listening to Liberatory Business. I'm Simone Seol, and I'm your host. Thank you so much for being here.

I'm bringing back some episodes from my archived podcast that I think really stand the test of time and are just as useful now as they were back then. This one in particular was exactly what I needed to hear right now, so I'm really appreciating the chance to revisit and bring some of these back.

Just so you know, this episode is about a handful of years old, and in a lot of it I'm talking to life coaches — whom I love, and of which I am one. But just know that the general principle of what I'm saying truly applies to any kind of business you have. So listen and enjoy.

Today, I have a quick tip for you.

I get a lot of people in my community — some of my clients occasionally come to me and say, "I just don't know what to say. When I write copy, when I try to show up online, I'm just at a loss for what to say." And this whole not-knowing-what-to-say thing happens as a result of just general blah-ness, as well as: now that I changed my niche, I don't know what to say. Now that I'm on a new platform, I don't know what to say. Now that I am fill-in-the-blank, I don't know what to say.

This is something that happens to all of us, even me. Sometimes my brain's like, "I don't know what to say." So just know that this happens to literally everyone — even the copy queen, which I think of myself as being.

So here's what's happening when you think you don't know what to say: you forgot who you are. You forgot that you are a highly skilled life coach who has the capacity and the power and the wisdom to help so many people in pain. You forgot that you are a leader who knows what your people struggle with, who knows what your people's pains are, and who knows the way forward — who knows the solution, who knows how to point people in a better direction, who knows how to connect people to the truth of who they are and what they want.

You are a leader. You're not a follower who is looking for cues from other leaders. You're a leader in that you are the one directing the conversation, right?

Imagine that you're the mayor of a city. Can you imagine being the mayor of a city and going, "Oh, well, I don't know what to say in this speech, because the people of this city — I don't know what they're thinking, I don't know what they want to say to me." No. A mayor is like, "This is my message, and my people are gonna hear it."

Imagine you're a community organizer. Imagine you're an activist. Imagine you are that — would you ever be like, "Well, I don't know what the people wanna hear today," or, "I don't know what kind of message to get out there today"? No, of course you know what kind of message you wanna get out there today. You are leading the conversation.

Imagine being Beyoncé and being like, "Well, I don't know what kind of song people wanna hear. I don't know what to write. I don't know what kind of dance. I don't know what people want. You know, it's not a conversation. I don't know." Can you imagine Beyoncé saying that? She might, on a really bad day. But when Beyoncé's being Beyoncé, it's like, "The song that people wanna hear is whatever the F I make for them. They're gonna watch it and love it."

Here's the last example I'm gonna give. If you're a teacher, you don't sit and wonder, "Well, I don't know what my students are gonna wanna hear." You tell them. You educate them. You lead them, so they can follow. You're the one directing the conversation. You're the one with the power — not power as in you have power over them, but as in you have the power to compel. You have the power to direct their imagination, to direct their thoughts toward what you think is in their highest interest. That's what a leader does.

So any time you think you don't know what to say, any time you feel confused about that, it's just a sign that you momentarily forgot that you are a leader who is here to direct the conversation.

Now, you still want to be in conversation. You don't wanna be lecturing at people. You don't wanna be delivering monologues that aren't interesting. So that's why I say: be in conversation with them in your head. But even if you're a mayor giving a speech, even if you're a community organizer sending out messages, it's all gonna land so much better when you're speaking to people at their level — kinda meeting them where they are, speaking to their concerns, speaking to their realities. Come on, politicians know this really well.

And so that's the principle we have to adopt as marketers of our own businesses. We can't just be in our own heads. We have to think and speak at the level our clients are thinking and speaking. So we can't come at them with these complicated concepts — we have to speak their language. And at the same time, that does not mean you leave the direction of the conversation up to them, just sitting there waiting for them to say something so you know what to say back. That is not how a leader thinks, right?

I know that you got into this work because you had an important message to spread. I know you got into this because you knew there was something you really wanted people to know. You come here with an agenda. Don't pretend like you don't.

I often use the word agenda in a negative way — like we're attached to them. You know, we want them to act a certain way for us to be happy. We want them to be interested in our business so we can feel validated. That's the bad kind of agenda, the kind that does not serve us. But the good kind of agenda is that you know where you want to lead people, right? So even if all somebody's thinking about on a given day is sitting on the couch, eating cookies and watching Netflix — if that's all that's on their mind — you have the power to step up and be like, "Hey, listen, what about your creative projects? What about this other thing you said you wanted?" That is what I mean by claiming the power to redirect the conversation.

So every time you think to yourself, "I don't know what to say," ask yourself: What do I stand for? Who am I being right now? Am I being a leader? And if I am being a leader, then what is it I'm leading people to? Even if they're not saying anything back to me — if I have the power to direct the conversation, if I have the power to influence their thoughts — what do I want to say to them? What do I wanna propose? What do I want to seduce them into? What possibilities do I want to introduce them to? What do I want them to soften into?

All of these questions are going to get you into so much more curiosity. And when you do this, I really want you to dip into your heart and access the love that's in there — the love you have for your people, the love you have for where you want to lead them, whether it's healing or transformation or whatever it is. I know you would naturally be bubbling up with ideas when — and only when — you remember who you are. You have the power to shape and direct the conversation. Don't you forget it. And allow me to remind you every time your brain does forget, which happens, 'cause you're human. It's fine.

All right, my friends. I hope that takes care of this question of "I don't know what to say." So get out there and spread your message powerfully, and I'll talk to you next time.