“How did you land yourself in SUCCESS Magazine? How did they even find out about you?” My wife and I have been asked these questions repeatedly in the past few days. Our answer surprises everybody: “They didn’t find out about us. We’d wanted to be in a magazine of this caliber, and we made it happen.” In this article, I’m going to share the steps we took to get there.
Go Big!
Pursuing a lofty goal requires two things: going big, and moving out of your comfort zone. When I say going big, I’m talking about pushing the envelope. Of course, there’s a place for moderate goal-setting, and I often work with clients in that very manner to achieve gradual, sure-fire progress.
But what happens if you want to up your game and take a huge leap towards a next level goal? In our case, Amanda decided (4 months ago) she wanted to be published in a nationally-distributed magazine by the end of 2016.
Setting an audacious goal is the easy part. Making it happen is the hard part because it means moving out of your comfort zone in order to see the goal to fruition. Setting an action plan in motion is critical, of course, and in Amanda’s case, the steps were simple:
- Locate the email address of the Chief Editor of SUCCESS Magazine.
- Compose an awesome email.
- Attach a picture of a baby.
- Hit send.
Weighing risk and reward
The stumbling block that temporarily halted Amanda’s progress was a fear of rejection. I’m not going to dive into the psychology of how and why this fear often paralyzes people from taking action. For now, I am simply making the point that this fear is a common obstacle, and when you can find the strength to face it and move past it, amazing things usually happen.
A useful technique to break loose from this type of logjam involves stepping back and reconnecting to your genuine desire for taking on an audacious goal in the first place. A few questions are posed to identify the spectrum of outcomes, specifically shifting your focus away from that which could go wrong, and focusing on what could go right. This process often re-energizes one’s sense of possibility, and can alleviate fear of moving forward.
In Amanda’s case, she asked herself two simple questions:
Q: “If I send an email to the chief editor, what would be the worst possible outcome?”
A: Receiving a computer-generated reply, saying, “Thank you for your submission,” and never hearing from them again.
Q: “What would be the best possible outcome?”
A: He likes it, responds, and requests an interview with me.
Once Amanda identified the potential negative consequence of sending the email, and weighed it against the potential gain, she reconnected with the inspiration of her original idea; proceeding with the plan, at that point, was a no brainer.
Obtaining the email address was easy. Next, she needed to compose her letter and present it in a way that would increase her chances of their taking notice. For starters, the content would have to be written from the heart, and it needed to be transparent. Amanda told the editor about an inspirational article I’d recently written for RefuseOrdinary, depicting her journey of starting her own business while simultaneously raising a baby. She’d subsequently received numerous emails from people who felt encouraged by the story—and with that, figured, “If Chris’s article inspired so many people, perhaps the editor of SUCCESS Magazine would find it worthy of a read.” And he did. To push the envelope of her submission even further, Amanda attached a picture of our 3 year-old daughter “reading” their magazine. (Who wouldn’t be delighted to open an email and find a photo of an adorable toddler reading your magazine?)
So, where do I play into this story? The strength of our partnership over the years, and the support we provide in each other’s lives, was evident to the editor—not only in the way she told her story, but in all the actions that went into her submission, so much so, he replied within 3 hours of receiving it.
He told Amanda his staff had been tinkering with a new idea in which successful people who are also subscribers would be interviewed, and he wanted to feature both of us in the first roll out of the concept. He noted the success of our dual entrepreneurial relationship hinging on the support of one another while raising our baby, and was also curious about how we manage to unwind from our non-stop duties whenever we are able to catch a break.
After receiving confirmation of their plan to include Amanda and me in the feature, we found out that the magazine’s theme for the May issue was “How successful people de-stress from their busy daily schedules.” Ironically, that was the only aspect of the 45-minute interview that ended up in the magazine. Not exactly the featured article we’d hoped for, but we did manage to get a full-page picture. Not a bad consolation prize!
The ripple effect
Obviously not all goals follow the course we intend for them, but sometimes even more interesting things can happen.
As Goethe suggested: “Boldness has genius, power and magic in it,” and this mysterious effect definitely proved true in our story. Amanda made a courageous career move that, in turn, inspired me to write an article about it. My article inspired readers to write in and tell us they felt encouraged by Amanda’s story, and that inspired Amanda to boldly face her fear and reach out to the editor of SUCCESS Magazine. The editor was impressed with Amanda’s email which resulted in his interviewing her and subsequently including us both in a nationally-acclaimed magazine, thus bringing her stated goal to fruition.
That is the true magic of audacity.
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”
―W.H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition
