 A wise mentor said to me one day, when I was in my 20s trying to figure out my calling in life, he said to me, George, our calling can only be understood backward, by looking backward. And that mentor has since passed, but that his mentorship and that idea has always stuck with me. So what I think he meant was that a question as big as your life's calling, it's nearly impossible to define it for the future. My calling will be this. My calling is this and therefore this is what I will be for the rest of my life. But instead, when you look back and connect the dots of, oh, notice that these kinds of opportunities came to me. Notice that I always help people with this area of life or work or relationships. Notice that I always seem to think that some things are obvious that other people didn't think so, right, that was surprising to them. So when we start looking back and look at the problems that I've had to overcome in my life and the traumas I've had to overcome and all the projects I've done, when you look back and you go, oh, now it starts to form a picture of what your life purpose is about and what you can therefore bring as strengths and as experiences for helping others, right? And so when there are these giant questions that keep us stuck in our tracks, questions like what's my niche supposed to be, right? If you're being stuck and asking that question, what's my niche supposed to be? Why not ask a smaller question? I'm going to invite you to try this. Instead of what's my niche supposed to be, why not say what's the next niche that I'd like to experiment with? Given my previous experiences, what have I really enjoyed? What have I spent time helping people with? What's the next niche I'd like to experiment with? And then do little tests, you know, offer something to your friends or your audience if you have one and see if people take you up on it and if people take you up on it, do they really benefit from it, right? Then you'll know, wow, this is something maybe I could grow into something bigger. Rather than I'm going to decide on a niche without market research, without understanding whether people would really want to use and without understanding whether I would really enjoy delivering in that niche, I'm going to decide on a niche, I'm going to create an amazing website spending thousands of dollars or spending months to do it. And then you put it out there and you've invested so much of your time and money and energy into something, of course now you're desperate to make it work and then you might then get tempted to use manipulative strategies and things like that. So that's why I recommend, and not just recommend, I do this in my own business and in my own life is I'm always trying to ask the smaller question to help me move forward with an experimental and playful mindset instead of thinking that anything is a giant decision that must spend lots and lots of time and effort on it without knowing whether it will work or not because if you've learned anything from me, you know that I always talk about this, building an authentic business, a business that truly fulfilling and from the heart is one that requires you to play and to play with others, to play with the world and as we play, we find out what we're really good at playing and what we really, what kinds of games or problems we're good at playing and then that allows us to build that into a business. So another big question people say is who is my ideal audience, George? I've got to figure out my ideal target market and then I will put Facebook ads dollars behind it and market. Okay, all right, that's a really big question and that has a finality to it. Is it not going to change? How do you know? You're just going to figure it out like just by brainstorming or journaling or even market research, yes you might discover, oh this kind of people kind of buy, okay fine, but is that going to be your ideal audience for life? Certainly not and maybe not even for a year or two. Maybe it's only going to be an experiment for a month and you'll discover it, wait a second. I realized I was thinking about serving those people but really it's these people who are responding. I always build business based on responses rather based on I think it should be this way, I think it's like this, so I'm going to force people to believe this. No, what's the response and so therefore how can I build more in that direction? So instead of who's my ideal audience, a smaller question would be, who has recently been responding to my content? What kind of person are they? Are there commonalities if there are more than, hopefully there's more than one person responding to your content in a positive and saying, wow this is helpful, find the commonalities between them and that is a clue to, and here's another small question for you, what group of people should I try advertising to next? Meaning putting your money behind getting this message out to more people. Noticing, remember, our calling can be understood by looking backwards, so noticing who's responding and then spending some more money advertising to those people, time and energy and money so that you can see, okay, am I on the right track? Are they responding well? Okay, so another question, right, what should my product or service be? You know, people who are kind of figuring out what their business is going to be asking, what should I sell? What should my product service be? And again, this is such a scary question because it sounds like my product or service is going to be the thing I am dedicated to for the next 10 years, you know, or even for the next year. I don't remember experimentation and playfulness, so a smaller question would be, okay, what have I already been helping people with? Just take a look, what's one thing that I have been helping multiple people with? Okay, that, you know, fine, then what will I try help, what could I create to help more people with this? What I've already been helping people with? What's one thing? Okay, great. What could I create then? What product or service then? Could I create to help more people as an experiment? As an experiment? Another one, what's my marketing message? How do I, you know, collapse everything that I do, integrate everything that I am, all my interests and passions into one solid message? My goodness. You know what, I don't even have that. If you forced me to say, George, what's your marketing message? I'm like, let's see, I do a lot of things for people. I teach Facebook ads. I also help people create and launch online courses. I also, you know, I'm going to be teaching people how to use Instagram. I have lots of different things. I also love talking about an alternative to sales funnels. I mean, I love talking about lots of things. What do you want me to, I love talking about productivity, and how to be more joyfully productive. That's one of my passionate topics. How do I integrate that into everything into one message? Why give ourselves so much pressure? Seriously, you don't need to. So here's a smaller question. And again, I don't have a marketing message. Hello, you can you can quote me on this. George Cowell says he doesn't have a core marketing message. Now, that is, I do have an online course called create your core message. And I, you know, through that course, I kind of figured out something I could say. But for but it's not something that I feel like I need to put everything around. It's more of a fun exercise. It might be, to me, it's more of a vanity exercise. Oh, it made me feel better to have a core message. But really, in practical settings, I do lots of different things. And to one person, I'm a Facebook ads expert. To another person, I'm a productivity guru. To another person, I teach them how to get their online course out there. I mean, I have, I'm different things with different clients. And I'm different things to each of you watching. And I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. I don't need a marketing message. If you need my help with this, great, I am that for you. Pitch and hold me all you want all day long. Because then once I help you with this, once I help you with Facebook ads, then I have your attention. And then I could tell you about other things I could help you with. But I just one thing at a time, I don't have to have an integrated marketing message, because plus, even if I told you my core message, it's so long. It's a paragraph. It's like, Oh, my God, it's overwhelming. It's hard to remember all these things, right? So instead, a smaller question would be, instead of what's my marketing message? How about what headline will I like to text? Would I like to test next? So whatever, if I'm writing an email newsletter, what's the headline I'd like to test? It doesn't have to be on my marketing message. But what headline matches this email newsletter that I'd like to try? That's it. Or what's the product name going to be based on the previous question we answered? What's something I can create to help people with something about what's the product name going to be? It doesn't have to be integrating my marketing message. But what's the product name going to be? Right? So it's just something that is always more practical. It's always experimental, knowing that experiments is what allows us to scale. When we do experiments and we see what works, then we could put more money, more time, more thought into making it showing to that to more people. So maybe let go of trying to define yourself so much, trying to figure out what your life is supposed to be about, what your life purpose is supposed to be about going in the next 10 years. So much pressure. And it's really not necessary. I have a very good business today, what I've had for 10 years, without having to like make these final decisions. Okay. I mean, look at my business name. George, what's your business name? I don't know, because I had so many things I couldn't decide on the business name. So I use my own name, George Cow. I'll have that name for a long time. I mean, you know, I got married didn't change my last name, right? So I know some of you may change your last name if you get married and change your brand. But basically your name is your longest lasting brand, right? So I just use my name.com. And that's my business is called George Cow. That's an authentic business coach. I kind of cute. It's a cute name, ABC, authentic business coach. Most people don't even understand what that means. So even my job title, authentic business coach, most of my clients don't understand what that means. Most of you don't understand what that means. I mean, I use it as a cute title. It's just cute. Something that's like, I kind of fun to say, but I don't care if you don't understand what that means. All I want you to know is I'm selling this thing next. And if it matches you, you should buy it. I'm making this video for you right now. If it makes sense for you, you know, make a comment or whatever. But if this doesn't make sense for you, no worries, I'm going to have another video for you next time. So it's always about a practical next thing, next thing, next thing. Not about the foundational message and calling and purpose. I have to align everything to it. It's so much pressure, right? So anyway, I just let it go and just keep experimenting. I have a very, very good full-time business by just D6 and it's more playful. So anyway, I hope this is helpful. Our last thing I'll say is until something becomes obvious, stay flexible. Until your message becomes obvious, stay flexible. You don't have to choose. Until your niche becomes obvious, stay flexible. Until your product becomes obvious, stay flexible. Until your calling becomes obvious, stay flexible. I hope this helps. As always, I love your comments and your questions and I'm going to give you a moment to add that below while I take a look at the Facebook live comments that might be coming through right now. Okay, thanks so much for joining me for this. Carol and Christian, Petra, Sabine, Peter, Patricia, Captain, Ben, thanks for your comments, Captain and Petra and Sabine. Alright, until the next video, I wish you a sense of playfulness, joyful experimentation, and just staying flexible, knowing that you are, your skills and your presence is so valuable to people and just serve kind of one person at a time until the pattern becomes obvious to you so that you can serve more people. Alright, be well, take care.