It's 1962. In the upstairs bathroom of a modest middle-class home in Bowie, Maryland, a young girl crouches in a bubble bath lathering a bar of Ivory® soap. She mixes in a handful of foam from the froth that surrounds her. Examining the silky, slithery results
critically, she composes aloud a letter to the makers of both soaps: are they aware that their products, when used in tandem, produce this deliciously luxurious result? Do they realize how many millions of bathers NEED to know this?
You laugh, but that girl was me, and I still find myself asking, "Does everybody know about this? If not, why not? Let's tell 'em!" To this very day something in me leaps with excitement at the prospect of sharing good news.
It could be that Marney Makridakis, editor of Artella, a magazine and support network for writers, artists, and creative individuals, chose my article, "Be a Big Space for Big Thoughts" for this issue.
It could be that there's a simple system for clearing off your desk
It could be that you can get hundreds of hours of music and audio books on an iPod and listen to the dialogs at Integral Naked or to daily excerpts from the Wall Street Journal for eight hours without recharging it. (How cool is that?) Or it could be that even the timid and middle-aged can scale northwest hills on a bicycle with the help of a good trainer and a team.
The point is that there's virtually no limit to the good news that makes me want to shout, "Did you guys know THIS?"
It isn't easy to be a spreader of good news in the marketplace. After all, this kind of shouting from the mountaintops is also known as marketing, sales, advertising. When shouting out the good news became a commercial art form, it lost a good deal of dignity, credibility, even respectability. Nice girls (and boys) don't market.
That's sad. If nice people don't market, only not-nice people will. That doesn't help anyone, and it sure doesn't spread the word about the good work that YOU can do in the world. Whether or not you are a born shouter like me, I'm betting that you have good news to share, too.
Whether you're a philosopher or a car salesman, an artist or a hairdresser, sharing that news is part of your job. When you accept that and step up to your responsibility for spreading the word, you are well on your way to doing good work in the world and thriving while you are at it. It takes attention. It takes persistence. And it is entirely doable.
What's the good news about what you do? Who are you gonna tell today?
Stumble It!
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