I had an interesting experience today.  Called a guy about a car, and asked him questions about it.  I told him point-blank “If there’s anything wrong with the car, please let me know now before I drive out there.”  He told me there weren’t any problems.

He lied.

Now that I think of it, everything he said about the car was a lie.

He said it didn’t have problems.  When I showed up, the problems were obvious.

He said he was selling it because he has 5 kids.  Actually, he owns a used car lot.

He said the car was his wife’s.  Somehow I think she wouldn’t be driving it around with a jammed seatbelt and an airbag light that dinged every 15 seconds.

He said it hadn’t been in an accident.  It had.

The odometer had about 26,500 miles on it.  But when I was in his office, I noticed an instrument panel for another car - with an odometer on it.  It would be a simple matter to install a new panel and start the car from zero.

It was making me laugh - everything out of his mouth was a lie.  Except maybe that he has 5 kids.

Some people will do/say anything for money.  Other people will go to the other extreme - they feel bad about charging money.

As I’ve written in the second chapter of Never Market Again, there are three main hangups that stop many acupuncturists from succeeding (and marketing).  One of them is fear of charging a fair rate.   They seem to believe that when exchanging money, for them to win, someone else must lose.  (If you don’t have Never Market Again and want to see this chapter, download two free chapters here.)

Steve Pavlina’s book, Personal Development For Smart People really puts money in its proper perspective. He talks about there being two options:

The first option includes getting a job and performing useful work, running a business that provides valuable products or services, reselling items with value added, or investing in any of these outlets. The second option includes gambling, begging, criminal activities, buying and reselling items with no added value, or investing in any of these.

Here’s another way of labeling these two strategies:

1. Contribute
2. Mooch

From what I’ve seen many acupuncturists are paranoid about being a “mooch” in any way, that it causes them problems. Steve has something to say about that:

Consider the alternatives for making a living]. When you aim to meet your needs above all else, it’s easy to fall into the trap of doing soulless work to earn a decent income….

Another problematic alternative arises when you do your best to give to the world, but fail to attend to the other three areas [Body, Mind Heart]. I call this lightworker syndrome. Such people tend to be very loving and compassionate, but they don’t put forth the effort to develop the skills that would make a significant contribution possible… They have to keep putting their grand mission on hold in order to scrape together enough money to pay the rent…. You won’t do anyone much good if you can’t meet your basic needs.

You already have half the skills to make that significant contribution.  Unfortunately, marketing is the other set of skills you need to make a good living and contribute to as many people as possible.  If you can’t reach people, you can’t help them. I understand how self-promotion is a huge turnoff for most people.  But there are good and bad ways to go about it.

You can do in-your-face selling, expensive advertising, and so on.

Or you can use relationships and education to do the same job.

That’s why I wrote Never Market Again.  You CAN avoid tacky promotion and make your marketing about expressing who you are instead of grubbing for money.

Steve really puts money into perspective.  It’s not good or bad in itself.  It just is.  It’s a medium of exchanging social value.  Steve quotes Earl Nightengale as saying “Nothing can take the place of money in the area in which money works.”

Personal Development for Smart People is actually the wrong title for the book.  It should be Personal Development for Spiritual People.  It’s a good book, especially in the last half where he gets into the nitty gritty of being effective in your life.  I suggest going over to Amazon, clicking on the cover, and reading parts of the book there.

Be sure to read chapter 7 or later.  The first 6 chapters, I found tedious because I’m more interested in the “how” than the “what” - which caused me to put down the book just before it became good!  Chapter 7 onward is where it’s at.  Ideas are nice, but only applied ideas are power.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking, and I’d like to rename Never Market Again.  The title doesn’t capture the essence of the book - which is relationships, education and being true to yourself instead of marketing and promotion.

That’s why I’m having a contest.

In the comments below, please retitle my book.  A subtitle would be nice. Multiple entries are OK.  You can enter multiple entries in one comment, or if you’re later inspired, come back and comment later.  Right now it’s titled:

Never Market Again: A Guaranteed System for Attracting Patients Naturally.

One winner will get a copy of Personal Development for Smart People. I actually preordered the book, which I forgot.  Then Steve Pavlina sent me a review copy.  So I have two.  I figure Steve sent me the book because of you - my readers.  So I might as well share it with you.

I also have a secret prize that I’ll offer the winners instead of the book.  It’s not something that I’m sure what to do with yet, or if/how I’ll ever release it at all.  It will be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars if used correctly.  So, one winner will get the book, the other will get the secret prize.  Sorry for the mystery.

One more thing.  I just realized that people who haven’t read the book wouldn’t really have a clue as to what to title it.  If you buy the book and have a winning entry, I’ll also refund your book purchase.  I’ll choose a winner January 1st - you should have enough time to read it.