Know Your Place

Tybee Island, GA

When you first read those words you may be like me and feel a tinge of contraction. Maybe it conjures up memories of someone telling you to stop asking questions or being provocative. That you should know better. That your time is not now and dial yourself back a bit until it comes. But today I find myself reflecting on these words differently, in relation to our markets, as entrepreneurs, and ourselves, as human beings.

To know our place in the market can be a long time coming. We may start out offering everything we can to anyone who appears interested. And pretty soon we exhaust ourselves and confuse our audiences with the endless costume changes. But slowly, as we really listen, and measure and record inner and outer responses and results, we begin to hone in on that sweet spot where we are generating something original as well as it being something that is needed or desired. We no longer feel as though we are dressing ourselves up in some weird suit that makes us itch when we talk about our product or our service. Using clear and natural speech, we help uphold the core tenants of our brand’s identity. And our market is at ease because they perceive authenticity and that is the core value that is most likely to set your audience at ease.

But to know our place as human beings: This is the true unfurling that many of my clients find to be the real work in which we engage along our entrepreneurial journey(s). Where does the real dis-ease lie? For many, its in the reconciliation of the numbers. It’s in the perpetual sense of disorganization. It’s in the seemingly ever-present sense of wanderlust or disillusionment. It’s in the unapparent misalignment that keeps us putting stress on a part of the body, mind, or spirit that leads us to debilitation.

And so how, and where, do we find our own sense of place? The place where we feel most alive, clear, and unencumbered? For me, as of late, it has been through exercises of the senses. The word I am exploring deeper this year is embody. By slowing down to do the work of comprehensive listening, and taking notes as to what comes up, I have begun discovering a new richness of place that some refer to as the space between. The pause between idea and action. Between the craving and the satisfying. Between dawn and sunrise and then again between sunset and dusk. Between the pilot phase and the full launch. Through this active listening, I learn to reset the proverbial table for the next feast, amidst a new generation of faith that I truly know my place, and maybe even more importantly, what no longer is.