Desire Is Contagious

Have you ever noticed how some things become irresistible—not because they’re objectively better, but because someone else’s excitement makes you want them too?

This episode started with a stack of Pokémon cards, a Facebook Marketplace bidding war, and a realization I haven’t been able to stop thinking about:

Desire is contagious.

We spend so much time trying to make our offers, businesses, and ideas more desirable. But what if the place to start isn’t your sales page, your branding, or your pricing?

What if it starts with your relationship to the thing you’ve created?

In this episode, we’re talking about:

• Why enthusiasm is more persuasive than perfect marketing.
• The surprising reason some launches feel effortless while others feel like pushing a boulder uphill.
• How your relationship with your offer shapes the way other people experience it.
• Why falling back in love with your work might be the most productive thing you do before your next launch.

If you’ve been feeling disconnected from your business, uninspired by your offers, or like selling has become heavier than it needs to be, I think this conversation will give you a completely different way to think about desire.

And who knows… it might just help you fall head over heels in love with your work all over again.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hey guys, welcome back to Brave Little Things. You know, I realized guys by the way, last week I forgot to say that Brave Little Things is officially one year old as of last week on the 15th because I launched on my birthday, July 15th. So we are officially one year old. That feels kind of insane. You know, it's one of those time things of like it feels like we're way longer than that and also way shorter, but I feel so blessed and so just amazed about the amount of content that I've created, the amount of content that you've listened to and hopefully applied and seen changes in your own life and just being together for a year. It's pretty like a pretty big deal. So just want to say happy birthday to brave little things. I'm so happy that we're it's helped us gather together and hopefully grow as humans and grow in our businesses and all the stuff. So happy birthday, everybody. Also, guys, I want to see if you wanted if you checked in and checked out the new coaching package that I've created, Scene. I shared with you guys last episode, but I got this great little new private coaching package happening called Scene, where it's a three private coaching session over a six-week period of time. We'll work on your business and your voice and your visibility and really learn the art of stopping performing and being a particular kind of person and really start to be actually you, to literally show up in the real human you form, no matter what that way is. By the way, I had somebody in my program, in my unmute program, who shared, you know, we've been doing a lot of sharing, amazing things have been happening in our Facebook group, and one, you know, woman was sharing how she's having a hard time showing up authentically her because she's kind of a bitch. And she's afraid about life, she's afraid to scare people away. And I just thought it was so interesting because I love bitches. I'm like, that would not scare me away. That would do the opposite, you know, sharing that with her. And it's an interesting thing to learn the it's really a thing to learn how to be authentically you. It's something we were born with, you know, we came into the world and we were just ourselves. Like, you know, think about toddler toddler you. Like she wasn't or he wasn't, like, trying to act appropriately, believe me. And then all of a sudden we were, you know, raised in a culture and a family, and we learned different rules, and now we're trying to go back to the basics. And so that's kind of what we're doing inside this container to really, to really re-g reconnect with ourselves and our voices so that we can really learn how to be the people we want to be online as well as offline and be able to represent our businesses and really let people know here we are, we're here to stay, our doors are open, come be with us, come hire us, come let us, you know, change your life the way it changed our lives and all that stuff. So, anyways, check it out. Okay, I want to tell you guys though, of a crazy story. Oh my gosh, such a crazy story. Basically, my kid a few days ago had come to me with these Pokemon, you know, Pokemon the cards? It's Pokemon cards that a friend of his had given him, and you know, and he said, like, I don't I don't want them anymore. I just want to I want to sell them. Can you help me sell them on Facebook Marketplace? And this is my 10-year-old kid. So I was like, okay, sure. I'm like, I know nothing about Pokemon. I'm like, okay, sure, fine. Well let's let's figure this out. So I chat GPT'd. I'm like, how much could I sell these cards for? And I gave a picture of the Pokemon cards. And she was like, yes, because you know, chat is a she. She was like $700 each one. And I was like, what? And I literally read it like three times because I wanted to be like, did she put it in a different currency, like a Indian ruble or right? It's Indian money's ruble. I don't know. I was like, I don't think she saw that. And so I and it was $700 each. And I was like, oh, you gotta be kidding me. And so my kid, of course, was like um beyond himself. And this is right before I was taking him to camp. So I said, Listen, I'm not gonna put it for $700, that's embarrassing. Take if it's if this is real, I'll put it down to $500. I'll put it on marketplace, but I'm like, but don't on any level, on any circumstance, get excited about this. This is not gonna happen. There's no one in their right mind who is going to buy that for that much money. So I like, you know, I wanted to take him down a little bit. And I then I was like, but then I was like, okay, my coach brain trigon. I was like, but be hopeful because hope's fun, but also it's probably not gonna happen. You know, it was like the mom brain fighting with the with the coach brain. Anyways, he goes off to camp. And as I'm like, you know, pulling away, I could flip over my phone, as we all do, our little scrolling before we before and after we pick up our kids. And within like three minutes of posting that post, I got seriously, I don't know, maybe like 20 messages of overexcited, overjoyed people who wanted in on these Pokemon cards. They wanted them bad. And I was like, again, so confused. I couldn't believe it. And people are people are like, I will come right now. Where do you live? Which I was like, okay, this is might be a little sketchy. What is happening? And basically I had to share with them, okay, awesome. There is a lot of people interested, so I have got to figure it out. I gotta see like maybe who I spoke to first or whatever. And that only got them more excited. There was like a total bidding war happening in my cop my my DMs where they're like, I'll you know, I'll pay $100 more and I'll come this second, you know, no problem, I'll drop everything, like back and forth. Like it was insane what was happening there. And I was like, what, you know, these are cards, guys. What is happening here? What are we excited about? It like really that me telling them that there were more people involved and they were also really excited, just got them more and more excited. And, you know, because my brain works in like entrepreneurship and coachy and all this kinds of stuff, I was like, I have to learn something from this. There is something to learn in this moment, in this experience. Because I was what I was seeing here was how contagious desire is, right? We don't just decide we want things, we catch desire from other people. Like, really think about it for a second. Like, let's say your friend comes back from an amazing trip to Tanzania. Can't stop talking about it. The animals, the people, the sunsets, everything. And you yourself have never had Africa on your mind before. You never thought about Africa, never on the radar. Boom, you are in, you are so want to book, you cannot wait to book your next trip to Africa and go to Tanzania because like this friend is so excited about it. Right? You like borrow desire from this friend to get excited about it. It's the same thing as like, you know, if a friend's like, you know, I read this book the other weekend, did it on you go, how was it? And they're like, eh, it was okay. Like, boop, you're not gonna go and read that book. Forget it, not worth your time. But another friend who like takes you by the, you know, shirt and is like, you've got to read this life-changing book. It was so freaking good. You cannot go and buy that book quick enough. Like you've got to get in, right? That is like what contagious desire is like. But for a lot of us, a lot of us, like us entrepreneurs, when we're trying to figure out how to get people excited about what we're offering, we are doing things like we are rewriting sales pages like 12 million times. We're tweaking pricing in websites, right? We are like doing all these kind of inner things, and we're not realizing that desire and helping our people feel desire for what we are creating and offering is like a vibe. It is a total energy, right? It's like a total vibe that people can get excited about, not necessarily living like within your website, you know, if you take out this section, you put this kind of new picture in, like that's not where it's coming from. And so like it's a really interesting what what I was like trying to, you know, get here. I was like, okay, I want to learn something here, which I like, what I my brain goes to now naturally, which I love. And it was like coming back with like asking, like, do you feel lit up about you what you're offering, what you're selling? Do you want to talk about all day long? If you were not the person creating it and selling it, would you buy it? I actually love that question. I love creating an offer and being like, would you buy it? Like if you were like, this is your you're your own ideal client and you're looking for this kind of thing, would you be all in on it? Which I think is a great question to ask yourself. You know, do you think about it when you're like making dinner and you're, you know, and you can't wait to talk about it, like at parties, it kind of a, you know, might annoy people, but whatever. You're so excited about it. You know, or are you the kind of what is it what's happening is like you're it's not really fully on your mind, or you feel a bit awkward and weird expressing and sharing about it. I I personally know the both experiences. I've had both of these kinds of experiences. I've had offers where I felt like it was like I was dragging it along. Like I was this is the kind of offer that I was supposed to have. I think specifically I had like a eight-week coaching program, coaching thing, I think right after certification. And for the first six months I was like super into it. And then after that, it felt like I was dragging along with me, but I had to do this. This is what like the code, this is how it works. And like everything felt hard about it. Every email that I wrote, you know, every post that I shared felt forced. It felt heavy. And then I had offers like my national networking dance party and unmute that I just launched. And I have this three like scene, you know, and and and I had another one called Refuel, a three session package that felt light and fun and playful, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And I was trying, you know, I was like the I didn't have to work to be excited. I just was, just was the conversations I would just flow out of me. I had breakthroughs and I felt courageous and you know, it was like it just came out of me. It was not work har hard work at all. It didn't feel like selling, right? And that's kind of like what we are are going for because the bottom line is that when we talk about desire being contagious, it's going to be first something that we need to feel desire for. We need to actually spend time falling head over heels in love with what we've got to offer. And honestly, I would even say, Jess, like if you're in the middle of a launch or, you know, and you're and you're and you're not feeling this joy and excitement, I would literally take a day off of writing emails, of posting, of all the stuff you do during a launch and during a time when you're like sharing about what you're, you know, selling and literally spend a day with it and really get to know it all over again. Like, you know, we have all these relationships in our lives with our partners, with our children, with our parents, with our siblings, with our friends, and we spend time getting to know that these people. We spend time thinking about them. We spend time like loving on them, and we have to do that with our offers and our businesses and all these kinds of things. We have to feel the desire in order for it to be contagious for the people that are in front of us, that are in our orbit, our audience, the people that know us, the people that on our email list. And then what happens is this amazing thing, which is then our people help make it contagious for other people. Right? That's kind of like, you know, we're talking about referrals. Are they called referrals like when somebody else like tells you about something? I think so, right? Like that's your people uh getting, you know, being super into what you're doing and sharing with other people and making contagious, which is exactly actually what happened with Unmute. My goal was 30 people to get 30 people in the door. 30 amazing women got in the door. And then after the kickoff call and into the first prompt, I had people knocking down my door trying to get in because they were seeing all these other women posting and sharing and being vulnerable and being brave and being so you know and being nervous but scared, excited, all these kinds of things, and they wanted in. And so what happened was that my people became the ones who were like dripping in desire, which allowed other people to get really all about it as well. And by the way, you know, just take a moment for us just to feel the difference between desire and excitement, because they are really different. Desire, like excitement is like really light and jumpy and you know, it's it's a really great feeling as well. Don't get me wrong, I love myself a good excitement, but desire is like more grounded. It's more knowing. It's kind of like a wise owl kind of thing, if that makes any sense. But it is it's a really beautiful experience, you know, to really want something and then try to figure out how to get it. And the way we do it is like is it's not gonna be in the little details of like what we're doing inside the business, but it's gonna be in the emotional experience because we humans are emotional beings. We go after emotions. That's what we want. When we're feeling emotional, we're going for it. Like I give this a com you know, comparison with somebody who's so afraid to fly. They have never flown, they freak out. Their friend, their best friend who lives across the country calls them, tells them that they are sick, they have cancer, god forbid, or some kind of illness, and they need them, they need them there. That friend is gonna get on that plane no matter what and go and see their friend, scared, nervous, flipped out, but they're gonna go see them. Right. And then on the on the flip side, on a happier note, right, might be the same type of thing. Like I I think again, I don't always this always happens, like when I when I think about this, just you know, people, you know, soccer players, it's not it's not basketball, it's mostly soccer or football. You know, they win a game. They go and they're like flipping over cars and they're like doing things that like they normally would not have strength for, but suddenly they do because they're so driven by emotion. That's how it works, right? That's what we're talking about here. And so we want to really like make sure that we are I think what I'm learning from this going back to the Pokemon cards is like interesting. There's like desire for these cards. These people create even more desire. It's the same thing if you think about other stuff too. Like, for example, those fancy bags, like I I'm not a fancy bag woman, so I couldn't actually tell you. I think Chanel has them, Gucci, right? It's like it's just a bag. But these folks, like the people who created them also most likely felt a deep excitement and joy. How how they're designed, they're like probably done, like probably they're probably created in the most incredible way. And then their people, right? Uh like I've spoken to many, many people in my industry are like huge bag Gucci people. And you can hear the way they talk. Like it's as if it's like their dog, you know, like a like in a good kind of way. They're just like obsessed with it. And so they get this contagious desire that then spreads to the next person who wants to walk into these different places and buy these insanely expensive uh bags. You know, they're just a bag, but for them it's way more than a bag. And we need to be able to learn how to do these things in order to bring our people in this way. We want to get them on board. We want to get them on this this desire train together, because there's nothing more fun than enjoying what you're doing and allowing somebody else to be excited to be a part of it as well. Right. So we want to ask ourselves, like, what do I absolutely love about what I'm selling? This particular offer that I'm doing, my program, my course, my whatever you are selling, your piece of artwork, your ceramics, whatever it is, you know, what transformation am I most excited about with it? For my people, what are the what's gonna happen when they get it, when they get their hands on it? You know, and if I were buying this myself, what would I be thrilled about? How can I become even more obsessed with what I've created? What are the ways in which I can become even more obsessed? Because I don't think desire is something we convince people into. I think it's simply something that they catch. And more often than not, it has to start with us. It has to start with things that what we're excited about. Right? How can I become head over heels in love with this thing? And then just go to freaking work figuring that out. And so I kinda wanna leave you with this because I think it's a good question for you to take with you. And I want to say that like, you know, also just like some certain relationships, certain times that like there's a time when like this relationship comes to a close and it gave you everything it could and it was beautiful and it was wonderful, and now it's time to, you know, now it's time that it's complete. And that might be true for one of your offers that you're having. If you really take your time and you try to, you know, get excited about it and you know, just really try to like fall back in love with it and it's not working, it could be that like this is the time to be like, this is a beautiful offer, and now I'm ready to to move in a different direction. And that's okay too. But you want to know because you want to feel deep desire for whatever you're whatever is happening, because I'm telling you from experience and with as coaching so many women, hundreds of women, and all their different offers, the difference between selling something that you are excited about as opposed to something that you're uh, it's completely whirled away. So that's what I have for you guys today. A little food for thought. And yeah, that's it, guys. Anyways, I will see you guys next week, of course. If you have specific things that you really want to hear on the podcast, I would love to hear them. I am so happy to speak on, coach on, teach on things that are coming up for you in real life. You can DM me on Instagram, and I'm happy to make that happen. And I am sending you lots of love. Have a beautiful day, everybody.