Groundbreaking fitness system!
Unique NEW product delivers results faster!
Never before seen techniques that truly [fill in the blank]!
I know it.
You know it.
Most people know it (those that don’t either don’t care or are not “our” demographic).
NOTHING’S LOST, NOTHING’S CREATED, IT JUST TRANSFORMS.
There are no new ways of doing things. While I do think there are better ways of doing things, it’s all relative anyway to your individual approach and point of view. Even then, the better ways are not new and unique, but they may be new to you or me. One of the reasons I don’t think there are new ways of doing things is simply because we still are designed to move the same. Unless we suddenly inverted how our joints operate, started literally seeing out of our fingertips, sprouted wings out of our ankles and developed an exoskeleton, we’ve pretty much covered all angles to do what we can with what we have.
WHAT AM I GETTING AT?
Maybe I’m just being clever in trying to market a product I spent years developing in my mind, and the past 10 months putting it on paper and having a physical prototype built. Make no mistakes, I didn’t reinvent the wheel. I just put a new tire on it, changed the hubcap maybe, improved the tread IMHO.
James Neidlinger, a great trainer and friend of mine paraphrased a quote for me, which I in turn will paraphrase as I remember it ” if you steal one thing, you’re a plagiarist. If you steal ten things, you’re an educator”. Every so often, somebody organically comes up with an idea that is new (at least to that person). The idea itself is spawned from observation, education and experience. It’s the result of maybe “cumulative conclusions”. Success in marketing new products is grounded on the principle often advocated by Donnie Deutsch (advertising executive and TV personality, The Big Idea with Donnie Deutsch) of “there’s got to be a better way”. But the idea is not new, it just appears in a new cycle.
OLD AS NEW
Everything’s already been done, the wheel’s already been invented, the screenplay’s the same story with different characters and settings. When things are presented as new, it’s usually because there might be new evidence or research on a particular subject, no matter the field. It can be linked to a trend, like going from high tech to low (or no) tech, from flashy to austere, from exercise machine to kettlebell.
Through my years of training and coaching, I have cycled through a variety of approaches, gleaning what I found effective and discarding what I found inefficient, via trial & error, as well as education & experience. All of it led to a path I continue to refine, funneling information I pass onto others. I may not have created anything new, but the process is no less creative. When a musician puts together notes and chords on a sheet, he/she creates a new melody (itself potentially inspired by the author’s influences). Same goes with an artist putting together colors and shapes on a canvas, giving his/her own interpretation of what their mind/eyes see(s). What matters is getting there. What matters is what you get out of it and what it does for you.
SERENDIPITY
That’s what it comes down to. Leaving a gym filled with negativity a year ago allowed me to focus my mind and creativity to hone in on developing something that’s already been there all along, not metaphorically in my mind, but physically in the real world. Words on paper, hands on body, tools in existence, obvious to a few and oblivious to many. While no work is ever finished, the artist still needs to deliver, or “ship”, as Seth Godin defines it in his book “Linchpin”. While I can’t unveil what I am alluding to in this blog, I promise you “a better way” for something “new” (to you). Stay tuned!