Play all audios:
From a recovering evangelistEmma Hill-FrenchFollow4 min read·Dec 2, 2016 --
Listen
Share
Do you share the things you love? I don’t just mean physical things like halloumi cake or fancy bath oil; I mean ideas, stories, songs, philosophies — intangible things that have made an
impression on you and your life. Received wisdom is that sharing is excellent. Sharing is generous. Sharing is thoughtful. Sharing is a benevolent virus that spreads love and goodwill and
offers immunity against self-absorption. I think this is right. But what happens when sharing spills over into a more aggressive kind of endorsement? I’ve recently realised that I am an
insufferable endorser of ideas. Exhibit A: this blog. Exhibit B: the countless book/article/workshop recommendations I give out every week.
Propagate no more I’ve been thinking about endorsement because while I was in India last month, I was told in the clearest of terms to stop propagating yoga. This instruction was something
of a headscratcher for me. It flatly contradicted previous advice (spread yoga from door to door and shore to shore); it also challenged some of my long-held beliefs about how to help people
by promoting ideas.
The dangers of being helpful Most of us know people who struggle with different things, and many of us have ideas about the best way to deal with these struggles. Often, the solutions we
want to offer are things that have worked well for us. Bob needs therapy. Sandra needs a hamster. Jane needs to try trampolining and get a decent haircut.
You won’t be surprised to hear that for a long time, I thought everyone I knew needed yoga. If only Rhonda (not her real name) would do yoga nidra, then she wouldn’t be stressed any more. If
only Terry (not his real name) would come to kirtan, then he wouldn’t be so repressed. I can see now that this was both arrogant and absurd. Who was I to say what people’s problems were,
and what would be right for them? That said, the impulse to advertise what was working well for me was a strong one. I think this is true for many of us, so I want to consider why it rarely
works.
What I now see after a year of sporadic teaching is that the people who come to something through their own searching are markedly different from those who come because they’ve been
persuaded to by a well-meaning loved one or a marketing promotion. Those in the first group tend to become committed students; those in the second group tend — after some time — to
disappear. Promotion ultimately doesn’t work unless people come to something because they really want to. This is as true for yoga as it is for any other type of self-development:
counselling, weight training, piano playing. The interest has to be authentic and self-generated for it to work.
Attract rather than promote Let’s consider for a moment an organisation that does no type of external promotion: Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). This massively successful programme, which has
millions of members all over the world, has a public relations policy based on “attraction rather than promotion.” It neither “endorses nor opposes any causes”. The same goes for various
support groups modelled on AA.
So, how do these groups recruit new members and spread their message without advertising themselves? Relying on people to simply find groups to seems like a pretty risky marketing strategy.
And yet, it somehow works. There are fellowships flourishing all over the world, not to mention millions of sober addicts.
It strikes me that AA’s approach to promotion isn’t just about protecting members’ anonymity (although clearly this is a factor). It’s also a way to safeguard the integrity of the tradition.
Members don’t come because they’ve been enticed; they come because they need to. This means they’re much more likely to take things seriously. This is what my yoga teacher (the one who said
to stop propagating) wants: serious, sincere students.
Stop trying to rescue So what are enthusiasts to do? Stop recommending the things we believe in and love? The message I was given while I was in India was to channel my energies into
deepening and enriching my own experiences. Don’t become a proselytizer. Don’t try to rescue people. Trust that they’ll come to whatever is right for them in their own good time. If this
happens to be what’s right for me, we’ll be drawn towards each other naturally.
I think this is a good approach for life generally. It’s not that we shouldn’t talk about what’s worked for us or what’s important to us. But there’s no need to proactively sell our
interests like ad men. If we’re living what we’ve learned, we’ll broadcast something without even trying. Let people be attracted by this quality and ask us about it when they want to.