Guest article by Graham White of Effective Ethical Marketing

In a recent interview with Tina Forsyth (on Facebook), she asked about the “New Rules” of having successful transformational business.

Writing one’s story of overcoming adversity or achieving a unique result is a great way to make a connection, but today the standards for how we share this have risen to an incredibly high standard of authenticity. Here’s a few tips of how to hit that level of candor and connection:

1. “Write drunk – edit sober.” Hemingway

WRITE DRUNK

What this means is writing without any kind of filter about what people might think about what you’re sharing, but don’t publish it until your editor has gone through it.

Write as though you’re writing just to yourself in your journal and no one is ever going to see it, so you don’t have to filter your thoughts. Let it flow through spirit or let it pour out through emotion. Don’t let your head in to filter and edit.

If the idea of people reading and reacting to what you’ve just let out doesn’t make you uncomfortable, you probably left some form of filter on.

Many of the most viral pieces come from a place like this where the author was simply writing something for them self, and then for whatever reason they posted it and went to sleep.

EDIT SOBER

If you’re an experienced writer, you can do much of the editing process yourself. I have written thousands of articles over the past 5 years, but only posted a few hundred of them.

Even with all this experience I still use another editor that I trust to go through pieces before they’re posted. I choose someone knows me, knows my audience and has written hundreds of articles and had pieces that have gone viral and can feel what the intended audience feels.

A good editor will make sure that both you the writer and your audience are safe, while pushing you to dig into the deepest kind of connection you’re capable of.

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TRANSFORMATION vs. EMOTIONAL

2. “Write from the scar, not the wound.” Unknown

There is a fine line between authenticity and over sharing. The difference in those two energies is the key to being able to affect a difference.

It’s when we’re still actually living in that part of our story that the emotion is too raw – the difference between an ‘Honest cry’ and the ‘Ugly cry’ is a good example. One is irresistible, the other makes us feel like we’re being assaulted by emotion.

Authenticity is critical to social media platform as the past 7 odd years we have literally been trained to spot the difference between people who want something FROM us vs those who want something FOR us.

There’s a third category as well, and that’s people who are using the process of sharing to heal their own wound. While they are being authentic in the sharing of the story, the energy felt by the reader is uncomfortable because their is still unresolved pain or bitterness in how they write.

To change someone’s life, there must be a wisdom or result we have gained that others are looking for. That is accomplished by having a unique ability that gives us an advantage, or having gone through something challenging and made it through the fire to the other side.

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THE MOST POWERFUL WRITING IS CHANNELED

My most viral writing pours out of me without me feeling like *I* am writing it. I often come across these pieces on other pages and don’t recognize it as my writing until I see my name at the end because it was my gift that wrote it, not me.

That gift is something that I feel is separate from me, but resides in me. I feel that Graham the person is responsible for living my life in a way that the gift has the greatest opportunity to be triggered and flow through. (This piece, for example is part gift, part Graham. I’m feeling it, but it’s still running out through my head.)

The download is generally triggered either by a personal experience, or something that I read. In the case of this piece, it was inspired by speaking with Tina in our interview and realizing there are things I do intuitively in my writing and with my clients that create virality that I haven’t put into words before.

There are likely many other pieces that I do at an intuitive level that haven’t come out of my head yet. If you’re a writer who’s looking for that viral piece to click and wants some support, send me your question and maybe you’ll be trigger another piece to download.

Graham White is the former Head Coach for Harv Eker and works as a branding and marketing strategist for transformational catalysts. His natural ability to understand people’s innate gifts have been instrumental in connecting six, seven and eight figure authors, speakers and trainers to audiences who can’t wait to consume their brand. His passion is supporting people with a gift that they choose to change lives with and leave the world a better place than when they arrived.