my office forgot about ME ... [🐝U]

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I've got someone pricing out a standalone office for me right now. A real one. On the property. The place I'll spend most of my waking hours once it's standing.

& here's what hit me when the numbers came back.

The whole plan was built around the build.
Budget.
Materials.
What's quick to frame.
What fits the timeline.

All real.
I'm not pretending money sprouts up from all the pooled water around here.

But somewhere in all of that ... me.
The person who's actually going to sit in it ... day after day ... got left out of the plan for it.

Is it functional?
Is it comfortable?

Will I still want to be in there at hour 9 ...
or will I be counting the minutes till I can escape the room I'm paying to build?

We talked about rooflines.
We talked about materials.
We talked about timelines & price points.

Nobody asked about the view it would face
or the location on the property.
Or whether I'd actually enjoy being in the space.

Nobody asked.
Truth is ... I was so focused on getting it priced out & built that I missed it too.

I was so focused on getting started that I stopped asking where all the little compromises were leading.

Everybody was focused on the budget & timeline.
Nobody was looking at the person who'd spend the next decade sitting inside.
Including me.

Because if I'm honest, I've worked in too many rooms I couldn't wait to leave.
& I'm not interested in paying to spend the next 10 years building another one.

& here's the part I want to be fair about.

There's no villain in this.
No bad intentions.
No bad work.

Just a plan built from 1 side of the desk ... when it's my desk.
My hours.
My room.
My chair for the next decade.

That's the whole miss.

Not because the numbers were wrong.
Because if we'd built it exactly as planned, I'd be the one living with the compromise every day after everyone else drove home.

So what's a 1/2-planned office got to do with marketing?

Everything, actually.

Because I see the exact same mistake in marketing (& copywriting) all the time.

We build it around the person creating it.
Then wonder why the person reading it never moves.

I'm working with a client right now whose copy is all "I."

I do this.
I offer that.
I've spent years on this.
My process.
My framework.
Me. Me. Me.

& they're scared to change it.

Because someone told them that adding "you" ... talking to the reader instead of about themselves ... would make them sound like a faceless company.
Or a copywriter wearing their name like a costume.

I get the fear.
It's a real one.

But it's only ½ the story.

All "I" & all "you" lose ... just differently

All "I" reads like that office plan.
Confidently going the WRONG way ... built around the person doing the talking, quietly forgetting the person on the other side.

It doesn't land as expertise.
It lands as ego.

I know because I've done it.
I've written emails & posts that were basically a 700-word autobiography with a lesson duct-taped onto the end.

Felt insightful when I wrote it.
Not so much after nobody replied.

Even when that's the last thing you meant.

Same move as the office, really.
Optimized for 1 side of the desk ... & the cost lands on the other.

But all "you" has its own problems.
Scrub every trace of the actual human out of the copy & you get ... a brochure.
Could be anyone.
Could be any company.
Could be AI.

That's the exact version my client was afraid of.
& they're not wrong to be.

The trap’s believing those are the only 2 options.
They're not.

It's about finding the balance.
& isn't that true for just about everything?

Your story's the door.

But if all you do is stand there pointing at it… no one’s ever going through it.

You have to open it.
Show them what's on the other side.
Give them a reason to step through.

Here's the part that fixes it.
& it's way simpler than you'd think.

Your "I" isn't the problem.
Your "I" is the one thing on earth nobody can copy.

The mountains of melting snow that created flooding problems.
The record rainfall that added to it.
The stuck dump trucks.
The 18km I walked without ever leaving my own land.

That stays.
All of it.

The fix is what you do right after.
You tell your story ... then you turn & hold the door open.

I walked 18km hauling material by hand ...
& here's what that's got to do with the thing you've been refusing to start.

See it?
The story's the setup. The reader's the payoff. I go first. They walk through.

That's not "all about me." & it's not a brochure either. It's just a person talking to a person.

2 things to try this week

→ After every "I" stretch, find the door. 
Read it back & ask ... where does this turn toward them? 
If the story never pivots to what it means for the reader, you've described yourself & stopped early.
The turn is as easy as 1 line … "& here's what that's got to do with you ..."

→ Quit believing "you-centric" means corporate. 
It doesn't.
Corporate happens when you drop your voice ... not when you add the reader.
You can talk straight to someone in your own messy, specific, unrepeatable words.
Adding "you" doesn't erase the "I."
It just gives it somewhere to land.

So hit reply & tell me ... Where's your writing gone all "I" right now? & where've you scrubbed yourself out so hard it could be anyone?

Your balance is somewhere in the middle.
Somewhere between building the whole room around yourself ...
& disappearing from the blueprint completely.

Let's find it.

Make it a great “balanced “ week!
EG

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