WHY IS IT NOT HAPPENING... THE BOOMERANG THEORY
Have you ever worked hard on something, and it is still just not happening? So, you have sought advice and shared with others what you have done and yet nobody around you understands why it is not working… You become frustrated and want to throw in the towel. You can’t understand what is going on? Every indicator suggests a positive outcome and results should have appeared. Yet still, nothing is happening… you wonder what the hell you are doing wrong!
Three years ago, I started to do my coaching practice full-time. At this point there came a time when I needed to market my services. Marketing was something new to me and I knew that it would take time to learn the fundamentals. It was a totally new skill that I needed to acquire. I had been a fighter pilot and worked in Swiss diplomacy for more than 26 years. I was skilled in strategic thinking. I knew how to think ahead and see opportunities or obstacles that might appear. I excelled in planning and reaching objectives. I learned during my career to always have different scenarios ready in case things didn’t turn out as planned. I knew how to plan contingencies for every situation. All these skills were very useful and applicable to my coaching practice. But when it came to marketing, I had very little knowledge and no practice. For me, it was like learning to fly a new advanced fighter jet and so I approached marketing the same way I would plan missions, with different strategies and contingencies in place. I tried different modalities to market my business. I gave each strategy a 90-day trial run. I analyzed the data, tweaked the strategy accordingly, launched again, and then analyzed again when I would see that it was not bringing the result I was expecting. My close friends in the same industry and my mentors didn’t understand why it was not happening for me. I got frustrated and I threw in the towel. “I am done; nothing works, I give up” I said to my marketing mentor. I stopped everything for two weeks. During that time, I decided to spend as much time as possible hiking in nature or walking on the beach to clear my mind. Then, during one of these walks, I had a lightbulb moment… a boomerang picture came into my mind.
Boomerang concept
The concept of a boomerang is that when you throw it in the air it will make a big arc and come back into your hand because of its aerodynamic profile. This is the idea of a boomerang. You throw it out, wait, and a few seconds later it will come back to your hands. So, what does this analogy have to do with my marketing problem?
I was so used to being on the go all the time, thinking at a supersonic speed and working really hard. I was throwing boomerang after boomerang nonstop. What I didn’t realize is that I had no time and no hands free to receive the ones that were coming back. Not all the boomerangs came back. But some of them did and I didn’t see them because my hands were busy throwing more. I decided to slow down, observe, be on the lookout, and wait for my boomerang to come back. AND IT DID! Suddenly, things began to click. The phone started to ring and people appeared in my life. My inbox began to fill up with positive emails. I ended up finding amazing clientele. My business took off. Finally, I broke through the clouds and reached the level of success I had envisioned.
Now, you wonder what are the key elements for manifesting success, to make things happen for you. What have I learned whilst waiting for the boomerang to come back? I found out that there were 5 critical factors that helped to have as many boomerangs as possible back in my hand:
Skills
Expectation
Strategy
Awareness
Patience
1. Skills
I don’t know if you have ever played with a boomerang. If not, do it! Not only is it fun, but you will learn a lot from it. This metaphor will sink in even further.
Being a student of life and curious about learning new skills is one of the common factors of the most successful and influential people in the world. Learning to throw a boomerang is a skill. The way you hold it in your hand, the angle that you throw it, the rotation of the momentum that you create, and the direction you launch it against the wind are all parameters that you need to consider. As with any new skill, you will mess up at the beginning. Probably 80% of your boomerangs will not come back. You will need to persevere and continue practicing until you have 80% success. Be comfortable with the idea of struggling at first. It is normal. The most difficult part of throwing a boomerang is predicting the effect of the wind on the trajectory of your boomerang. As you may know, you must throw a boomerang against the wind… so what could the wind represent in this metaphor.
Wind is the outside world that interacts and influences the idea, project, or goals you throw out (boomerang). Everybody has a different meaning for the boomerang. Is it a marketing strategy like I used in my example? Is it a new project, a new business you want to start? Is it a goal you want to achieve like running a marathon or losing weight? What is it for you? What do you want to achieve? Whatever it is, there will be a wind out there that will challenge you. So, what is the wind? It may be the feeling of stepping outside your comfort zone. It could be the marketplace or economy that will influence your business. Maybe it is your competitors. Or your limiting beliefs?
Whatever it is, the most important thing you need to learn from the wind is that you must face it. Did you know that to have a boomerang come back, you must throw it with a 45° to 60° angle to the right of the wind? This detail is important. Why? You must never face an adversary or a challenge face on. Come into the fight with an angle where you can have a better perspective, less resistance, and a way to come back to your initial position if needed. You don’t want to be blown away and fall back hard on your buttocks!
The wind is not your enemy. Without it, your boomerang will not come back. It is necessary! Learn to evaluate, interact, and play with it. Step outside your comfort zone, face the challenges of the market or your competitors, recognize your limiting beliefs and tackle them with your left cheek feeling the wind. Turning your back to challenges, ignoring what is happening around you, and/or fearing to step up is like turning your back to the wind and throwing your boomerang with the wind - you will fail. Instead, stand tall, face it, and go for it.
2. Expectations
Before you throw a boomerang, envision the path it will take. You expect the boomerang to fly a certain curve. You predict which turn the boomerang will make. You visualize in your mind how you will receive it back into your hand. You set clear expectations for the process.
When I started my marketing journey, I didn’t have a very clear expectation or outcome. I was trying things randomly. I was in my learning phase. Later, I understood better how it worked. I was able to pinpoint what I really wanted. Most importantly, I clarified what was working best for me and which marketing tools or strategies suited my style. Everybody talks about social media platforms. So, I joined them. I spent time on them (way too much time). I didn’t see results. Why? Because I wasn’t clear about the outcome. Was it a strategy to brand my business, get followers, or generate new clients? I didn’t have a clear vision on the message I was sending out into the Universe. After a while, I came to the realization that social media was not the marketing tool for marketing my brand or finding clients. You may disagree with my statement, but it was my personal observation. I saw that everybody was joining because the marketing agencies says that we should. However, my niche and the clients that I want to work with are not on social media. If they are, it is mainly to follow their close friends, their kids, family members, or seek distraction. They are not looking to read personal development posts on social media. I expected them to be there, but they were not! I went in with the wrong expectation. Once I recognized this fact and developed the “why” of my marketing plan, I switched my strategy. I focused on more personal face-to-face interactions. I met people in person. I volunteered for philanthropic organizations - I went out where they are. And guess what… it worked!
Now, whatever is your goal, your project. What are your expectations? If you want to lose weight, maybe you have an amount in mind. Starting a new business, what numbers do you want to reach? A better question to ask yourself is - what is the purpose of what I want to achieve? How is it going to serve me, my business, my clients, or the community? Think about it. Picture in your head the outcome you want; set a clear expectation. Do it before you start, before you launch your boomerang!
3. Strategies
In my marketing mess, I had too many strategies. Yes, I was very analytical and let them run for a 90-day period but I did too many of them at the same time. I would implement an email marketing strategy, social media, events, webinars, clubhouse, meetups, you name it – I did it! There were too many too fast (well, I told you I was used to flying supersonic!) The way I planned my strategies didn’t work. Why? Too many strategies launched at the same time. I couldn’t digest and have a clear picture on how to move forward. When you learn to throw a boomerang, you throw one at a time and wait until it comes back (or not). You don’t throw three boomerangs in a row and catch them back in sequence. I was doing that. Too many, too fast. Technically, it is feasible to have three boomerangs in the air and get them back one after another. But it wasn’t possible with my level of expertise and my skill set. I was doing what experts in marketing do after 10 years of experience. Too many boomerangs going too fast cost me time, energy, and money. I was not throwing them properly because I had to be fast. The third boomerang had to be in the air before getting the first one back. This mistake had two consequences: either the boomerang never came back (lost, no result or a partial result if the boomerang came halfway) or my hands were still busy launching the third boomerang when the first one came back (I then missed an opportunity).
What I have learned in this process is to slow down. Being excited, passionate, and committed to reach your goal fast is great. However, sometimes what you need is to slow down. If you are starting something totally new, choose one thing that you want to start first. Focus on it for a while until you get better at it or get results. Then, initiate the second one. Take the time to plan, execute, and debrief your strategy. Consider what is working or serving you and move on to the next. Maybe you only need to tweak the initial strategy slightly to get a better result or outcome. At some point, when you will understand each specific strategy, you can try to launch multiple strategies at the same time or in sequence. But first, start small. Take baby steps. If you have a million-dollar budget for marketing (and you are not an expert in marketing), do you spend it all on one strategy, split it into multiple strategies launched simultaneously, or take a portion of it and launch one strategy at a time? Think about it? If you want to lose weight, do you implement one single strategy all in (e.g., exercise only), multiple strategies at the same time (e.g. exercise, diet, supplements, …), or start with exercising first until you find a good exercise routine that suits you, then incorporate a better diet and later add supplements that will be complementary to your diet? Reflect on this!
4. Awareness
Do you remember what I did when I threw in the towel? I spent as much time as possible every day hiking in nature or walking on the beach. It is during one of these walks that I had a lightbulb moment… the picture of a boomerang.
Spending time in nature allowed my brain to have a break, to see new colors, forms, and shapes. It activated my senses. The feeling of the wind on my face. The heat of the sun on my skin. The smell of the plants and trees around me. The salty taste on my lips when I walked on the beach. The feeling of the beach stone and sand under my feet. All those sensory inputs brought me back to the present moment. You know you live in the present moment when you are aware of your feelings, emotions, and bodily sensations. You cannot feel a future feeling or sensation. This simple experience broke down my thinking patterns and my habits. It brought clarity to what I was doing in my marketing.
Changing your environment will help you to get a different perspective on what you are doing. If you sit at the same desk, during the same hours of the day, looking at the same screen, you will probably stay stuck for a long time. To create new perspectives, you must break the thinking patterns that keep you stuck. The best way to do that is to stimulate other parts of your brain. Doing analytics, creating strategies and logics, you mostly use your left-brain. If you want to be creative, you need to engage the right-brain. Maybe for you, it is listening to music, painting, reading a fiction book, or being in nature. These actions all create feelings, emotions, and sensations. If you notice them, it means that you are living in a moment of awareness, engaging a higher level of consciousness in your brain.
To be successful in catching your boomerang, you need to be aware of your surroundings. Look at the leaves on the tree to see where the wind is coming from and how strong it is. Maybe you watch the birds or the waves in the ocean to get the same information. Where is the sun in the sky? Are you throwing the boomerang in the direction of the sun, meaning that it will be hard to see it when it comes back (fighter pilots use the sun to hide from the enemy by flying in the line of sight of the sun)? The trees, the birds, the waves, and the sun are signs of your environment. They are metaphors for all the cues that will influence your project or the goals you want to launch or reach. It represents the opportunities or the obstacles. The more you are aware of the parameters around you, the better your chance of throwing your boomerang with the best probabililty of getting it back.
If you want to sharpen your awareness (i.e., develop your intuition and mindfulness), spend time in nature. If you live in the city and do not have easy access to a park, just walk in a new neighborhood. Be curious. If you are used to taking the same roads, ride, or walk to work, take another route. If you like to go to restaurants, try new ones, try new foods. Challenge yourself, engage your senses. Create new feelings, emotions, and bodily sensations.
5. Patience
The last factor is patience. It is probably the most critical one. We all want to have a rapid success or reach our goal fast. It is human nature. Nothing wrong with it. However, in our society, we have pushed this to the extreme. Everything must go faster and faster to the point that people become overwhelmed, fatigued, depressed, and burnt out. I will give you two crazy statistics that will probably blow your mind:
Article written by Sabine Heim and Andreas Keil (Copyright © 2017 Heim and Keil)
“Scientists have measured the amount of data that enters the brain and found that an average person living today processes as much as 74 GB of information a day (that is as much as watching 16 movies), through TV, computers, cell phones, tablets, billboards, and many other gadgets. Every year it is about 5% more than the previous year [1]. Only 500 years ago, 74 GB of information would be what a highly educated person consumed in a lifetime, through books and stories.” (Article link)In 2011, a study revealed that the amount of information we received was the equivalent of 174 newspapers a day. In 2011, an average American was exposed to 5 times more information than 25 years before (1986).
Isn’t that crazy? It is no surprise that we all have become impatient. When I reflect on what I was doing with my marketing, I was like a hyper-achiever throwing one boomerang after another, keeping his hands busy all the time, afraid to miss something. Well, guess what; I missed them and let opportunities pass me by. I had to learn to be patient. The Universe does not run on a 24-hour clock. We, humans, created it because it is convenient. We call it Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Isn’t that interesting? The Universe has its own timeline. Our time is not universal! When you understand that we, humans, and the universe work on a different timeline, you will see that patience is your best friend. The Universe will bring back to you whatever you have thrown out there. Things will happen for you (and not to you) if you let the Universe reach you. For that, you need to be patient and maintain a receiving attitude; have your hands free. Stay still, be aware, observe, and be ready when the opportunities land in your hand. Yes, you read that correctly. Opportunities may land in your hand if you create space and time to let the Universe reach you. Don’t let the overwhelming overload of information and the fast pace of the outside world (often dictated by others) disturb your walk, change your own path. Center yourself on what you want to achieve and be patient. Things will come to you for you. I know, it is hard to believe if you never experienced it. Try it. Slow down, be patient and be aware of what is happening around you.
Final words
Skills, expectation, strategy, awareness, and patience are the critical factors you need to master the throw of a boomerang. It is the same for any aspect of your life or anything you want to achieve. The most important factor is patience. Don’t be so busy that your hands can not receive what you have asked for. Two last things to consider: choose wisely the size of your boomerang and the energy you give it. If you are a beginner “boomeranger,” it is wise to start small to learn the technique correctly. Then, when you feel comfortable, use a bigger one. If you plan to start a new business or project, start small! That’s okay. Then, think about how much energy (speed) you want to give to your boomerang. If you miss the shot, do you want to walk far away to get it back? Can you afford to waste time and energy doing that? Smaller throws will give you more opportunities to practice in the same amount of time. If you start a new project, how much money do you want to invest, how many people do you want to work on, or if you are a solo entrepreneur - how many hours? What is the best use of energy and resources for you when you start? My suggestion is to invest a small portion of your money and time to have more opportunities to try different strategies. I am a strong believer in baby steps and consistency. It is the best way to create momentum without taking too much risk.
I think now is a good time for you to buy a boomerang and practice. Go outdoors. Play! And remember, be patient and keep your hands free to receive back. You may be surprised at what might come back to you… what the Universe may offer you…
- Hubert
YourHPcoach
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