Review of Reviews
and is anything truly "free"?
I rarely remember posts or news I see these days, even the ones I Like and Comment on. This one stood out though, so I’m sharing it here:
“Just recorded a free training on how I craft Magick Sigils. Want it? No email required.”
This guy has written books on funnels but he’s a minimalist at heart. I appreciate this because I’ve given my email out via private message before, assuming I was getting a one time offer, only to find out I’d been quietly and manually subscribed by the owner to their email (and other types) funnel.
There’s so much “free” flooding the market now. Free groups, free training, free videos, free templates, free gatherings, free product samples, etc.
Yet when we look at it through an energetic lens, it isn’t really free. Even if we never end up spending a cent on the owner’s products or services.
It’s not free because it wants attention. That’s real currency there. Click inside and give it a few seconds of our attention, and energetically speaking, it’s not free anymore.
There’s a lot of talk about freedom out there. But when we collect too many “free” offers, our freedom is lost because our attention has been given out.
What I respect about the post mentioned above is that he’s well aware of this. He’s making it clear that he wants attention, and is willing to forgo money and email storage space. Most businesses are not so conscious of boundaries these days, as they’ll take all social media accounts, phone number for texts and calls, home address, emails, bank accounts, etc.
There is also much talk about embracing our divine feminine. What they don’t mention is that the feminine is about “being,” while the masculine is about “becoming.” Too much selling is done on the “becoming” end, as in “let’s help you become abundant. Become a better version of yourself. Become healthy. Become a sexy goddess.”
Sure, it’s easy enough to put on copywriting hats and switch out the “become” in those sentences to “be.” But the thing about being is that while it doesn’t strictly require isolating, it does encourage a certain comfort with silence and being by ourselves. When our attention goes elsewhere, when our auras are mixed with others, it is harder to embody the being.
So no matter how many posts and ads businesses send out using the word being, the more activities they suggest you engage in, the more advice and habits they try to have you adopt, then the more attention they are taking from you, and attention is energy. Without that energy, being, in its pure essence, is difficult. We don’t end up with much inner capacity to embody it.
Very wealthy people often value their attention more than their money. One of my friends told me about her wealthiest client, who is an architect. He paid her tens of thousands upfront, supposedly for the same services she gives to all her clients, but then didn’t take most of it. He didn’t have time. When she complained, instead of setting up 1:1 time to have her deliver her services, he paid her a few more thousand up front, so she could stop bothering him. Even when he answered her calls, he’d be driving and texting several people at once. He also paid for a Reiki healer to live at his house, for the same purposes of “having people on retainer and on call.” He wanted the feeling of being able to have these people available. Their energy would always be available to him. But his time was so precious, he was not willing to part with it.
Yet for the majority of people, we give away attention so quickly, easily, unconsciously. Why is that?
Today my other thoughts are on reviews. Product and service testimonials. They’re not bad of course, as in I use them all the time when checking out mass market items at scale. Like AirPods. Like baby laundry detergent. Like hand cream.
However, those reviews are mainly useful to weed out the “horrible” products. The ones that get zero stars or are returned right away, or are deemed unsafe, or are inoperable.
Most products/services don’t fall in the above category. They have a bunch of good reviews and perhaps a few not so happy ones sprinkled in here and there. Which means, most reviews out there are about the same. Which means…they don’t mean much.
At this point, minus the cost being affordable or not, the rest of the decision-making lies in whether the all around marketing, advertising, and presentation can evoke strong consumer emotions.
For me, I go by intuition.
Now examining non-mass market items, intuition also plays a key role. And each individual’s intuition is different. If each person listened to their bodies, they’d choose differently from the next person, because no two people’s needs are exactly the same.
This is why while I’ve been in the entrepreneurial space for years, offering a variety of products and services in vastly differing niches, I can count on one hand the times I’ve asked for a public review. While good intentioned on all sides, I’ve recognized that being swayed by external opinions hasn’t done my well-being (or pocketbook) any favors. It doesn’t matter if one hundred people wrote a glowing testimonial for a product/service. Nor does it matter if my best friend’s name is attached to a testimonial. None of that has much bearing on whether it will help me. Only my body knows that.
What I do value immensely is referrals. More specifically, introductions. To get the word out there that “XYZ is available and here it is.” That’s all. They don’t need to say they’ve used it and it’s life-changing…because I mean, why share if it’s not? Just give the intro, and let each individual’s body and intuition decide then, if something is right for them. This way, there is minimal peer pressure and societal conditioning. Minimal FOMO. I’ve given out plenty of referrals to friends myself, and they never followed up or used the product/service. It didn’t bother me one bit.
Because I rarely ask for public reviews, I also rarely give them. If my review is just one of several hundred or thousand, then it won’t matter and nobody will look or care. If my review happens to stand out, and people are drawn to it for any reason, and they make a purchase based on it, and the result happens to be mediocre, it’s attention and money that could’ve been better directed elsewhere.
I’ve already talked about attention as currency in the previous section of this post, so I’ll say a brief word on money here. Although most people are too kind to go knocking on a reviewer’s door when the results don’t work out, I still don’t like to be part of a system that parts people with their money based on external (mine in this case) opinion rather than encouraging them to listen to their own bodies. Because I know that for most, money is hard-earned. And for most people who haven’t got the energetic foundation plus financial muscle in place, asking them to risk their money is asking them to go on a steep dive that they will struggle to recover from.
Along those lines, it’s also hard for me to back up courses and trainings at scale. I’ve written about this topic so many times already. Ever notice that superstar teachers and guides almost never get students that surpass them? Or even come close? So why do they enroll so many students? It’s the whole “throw everything at the wall and hope a few stick” philosophy, coupled with “I’m here to save and change the world” mentality. Add in the disclaimer that “results are not guaranteed” and “you are responsible for your own results” and we get borderline gaslighting. Because at the end of the day, the initiator is the one who birthed a certain idea that turned into a certain offer. There may be no magical remedies to this, but a partial refund should at least be on the table.
In summary, “free” is a word that is used so much, it’s running counter to freedom. Attention is energetic currency and it isn’t free. Worth pondering on before putting out tons of “free” offers or collecting them.
Those who claim to embrace the divine feminine, leave people some space to themselves to just BE. Don’t fill up their capacities with endless status updates, activities, advice, events, and products. Even if all of those are in the spiritual/personal development niche. If you value your own alone time, quiet time, and time to just BE, have the courtesy to extend it to others.
Most products/services out there are average, even the expensive or name brand ones. It’s because too much of it was copied from others rather than being creative/innovative. It’s also because it didn’t provide to the right audience, only a “semi-right” audience, which makes the results…average. Something I’ve noticed is that the more exceptional the product/service, the less it relies on public reviews. Its own internal energetic base is so solid, it doesn’t need external columns to prop it up.
Someone brought up a question to me recently, on how I would define luxury. To me, it’s when something’s energetic foundations are so strong it attracts everything it needs to grow organically. There is so much depth and mastery within it, that words are no longer necessary. Even in silence, it shines.