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There’s a particular kind of stuck that hits coaches and consultants when your next offer is emerging, but it doesn’t fit the usual boxes. You can feel it’s right, but the minute you try to market it, everything goes a bit wobbly.
You’re not “behind.” You’re early. And there’s a big difference.
In this episode, Samantha and Jeffrey Van Dyk breaks down what it really takes to build and sell “emergent work” without forcing it into a recycled funnel or borrowing someone else’s formula.
We talk about how to recognise when your old model has no life force left, how to stop looking for validation in marketplaces that are basically echoes of the past, and how to position work that doesn’t yet have a familiar label.
You’ll also hear a powerful framework that explains why some entrepreneurs thrive by competing in existing markets, while others are here to create entirely new ones and why getting the wrong kind of business support can quietly sabotage visionary ideas.
If you’ve been feeling like you’re “too early” or “too different,” take that as a signal, not a problem. This conversation will help you trust what’s emerging, find the people already hungry for it, and build messaging that makes your work land without you having to push.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- 02:33 – Building offers and strategy from what’s true, not what’s popular
- 06:07 – The unmistakable sign your business model has expired and how to let it go cleanly
- 11:55 – Why trusting energy can save you from expensive mistakes and protect your capacity for what’s next
- 14:52 – The emergent future versus the marketplace echo
- 21:09 – Balancing spacious creation with decisive action and knowing when to move
- 24:45 – How early clients reveal your next direction and show you exactly what to build next
- 29:05 – Why the new idea often becomes a bigger business opportunity
- 36:31 – Four entrepreneur types (and why most marketing advice fails innovators and visionaries)
- 46:57 – The hidden block behind “I don’t know how to say this” and how to unlock your voice
- 50:06 – How to sell emergent work without convincing by guiding buyers to the obvious yes
ABOUT JEFFREY VAN DYK
Founders answering a deeper calling turn to Jeffrey Van Dyk to give shape to their world-changing ideas. Through his Innovating the Invisible approach, he transforms bold visions into businesses that create new markets and move industries forward.
Get immediate access to this free 2-hour training now – The Pre-Sold Prospect
WHERE TO FIND JEFFREY VAN DYK
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeffreyvandyk
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeffreyvandyk
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyvandyk/
CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
TRANSCRIPTION
Samantha Riley 00:02
Welcome to today’s episode of the Business Growth Lab. I am really excited about this conversation because I chatted to today’s guest at the end of last year, and we chatted for such a long time, and the whole time over the Christmas break, my brain was just being blown with the insight that with what we were talking about, I’m not even going to stuff this up, like I’m just going to let him be in his genius. It’s such a relevant conversation, because the world is changing so much right now, everyone that’s in business knows that we’ve never experienced a time like this. So I’ve invited Jeffrey Van Dyk to come and chat about really innovating the invisible and what that means. So Jeffrey, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 00:55
Thank you so much. I’m delighted to be here. I feel like we’re old friends who just met.
Samantha Riley 01:01
You know, that’s exactly what it felt like. I don’t think I’ve ever leaned into a conversation like we did, and it was just like, wow, it did. It felt like we’ve known each other from a past life. Yeah, there’s definitely we’re in a very similar space right now where we’re bringing this business world and the spiritual world together. Both of us know that this is the way forward. We know that a lot of people that are true experts in their space have had such a, oh, how would I describe well, such a shedding year. We knew last year was a snake. We know it was tumultuous. That’s probably a better word, that’s exactly what it was last year. Was such a tumultuous year, and now we’re coming into this one year, and you know, it’s about building, and it’s the foundations for the next life cycle. But all the places haven’t just magically appeared on the first of January, right? Yeah. Can you just talk to us? Actually? No, let’s set some context. How did you land on this such deep work? Because I’m guessing you just, you know, at 21 years old, you didn’t just wake up and went, Oh, I know what I’m here to do. Everybody. Tyler Henry, such an evolution. How did you land in this body of work?
Jeffrey Van Dyk 02:33
I often say to people when they ask me, like, to the degree that I’ve had success in the world. I’ve had success in the world. What do I attribute it to? And my answer is one thing, I somehow have trained myself to listen, probably more than the average bear, and have trained myself to trust the life force that shows up in my field and follow it, right? And that always guides me where I meant to go. And you know, most of the time I don’t know where it is until, not even while I’m there, I don’t know what it is until after I’ve been there and I look back and go, Oh, look at that. That’s where I was okay, right? But, like, what led me here? Years ago, I worked in technology. I don’t know if we talked about this. I used to work at Microsoft, and I went on this date with this guy, James Shank, who used a coach to start his restaurant, and the way he talked about it fascinated me. You know, it was like, yeah, the coach asked me, like, you know, how are people going to feel in this restaurant? Kind of conversations are they going to have if they leave and talk about it the next day? What will they say? And then built out color palette, branding, price point, location, etc. And it’s now what I would call my colleague, Pat calls it business from the inside out right, really deriving the emotional or spiritual landscape of the business and then expressing it externally. And I say that with this question, because that has always been the guiding force for me. I didn’t even know that. Again, did not know that was the guiding force until I look back all these years later and go, Oh, that’s what fascinated me about that. That’s the impulse I was following. And that is to say that we are creators. Yeah, right. And when we start with our truth, with our inner knowing and with our guidance, and go, Oh, this is the direction. This is what I’m supposed to create. This is the vision and follow that regardless of whether or not the people in our sphere can also see it.
Samantha Riley 05:14
What you articulated then, that it’s very difficult to see it going forward. It’s so much easier to look back and go, Oh, that’s why that happened, or that’s why I did that, or whatever that is. It’s such a messy place as you’re working forward. It’s so easy to see it looking back, yeah, how do people because let’s talk about it. This is where people are sitting right now that, you know, we said the world’s changing. How did you use that moment in the messy middle where you didn’t know what it was, where you’re following something, but you still don’t know what it is you’re following because you’re creating it as you move forward. Yeah. What did you do during those messy times to help you to put the pieces together to create that art?
Jeffrey Van Dyk 06:07
Well, I’ll use a more recent example in my world, because, you know, I’m rebranding right now. I’m literally tomorrow morning, flying to Cabo for a photo shoot for the new website and the brand that has emerged is to encapsulate the stuff that has been emerging over the last three, four years. So I’ve been in this place right after 20 years of largely working with coaches and consultants who are on a spiritual path, but also grounded in business. I’m now working more and more and more with founder owners of companies in traditional marketplaces that are bringing things that are new, innovative and designed on some level to up level the consciousness of their industry. That’s not where we start, but that is it. You know, that’s the end result. So what did I do? One a lot of noticing and following energy. So I was getting bored with what I was doing. I didn’t like the business model I had anymore. I realized I had inherited the business model from the industry without really questioning it. I built a whole funnel. I had hired this marketing agency. They did a look at my books and said, Oh, this is where the most of your money has come from. We need to double down there. I had already decided internally, I didn’t want to keep doing that work. It was old work. It wasn’t inspiring me anymore. And I acquiesced. I’m like, oh, okay, right. We spent, what, three, four months building out, like, writing the ad copy, shooting the videos, you know, getting the ads manager in place, like the whole thing. And the day we were meant to go alive, I’m at my business manager’s house, and she looks at me and she said, you don’t care about this product, do you? I was like, No, not really. And she’s like, why don’t you just not to do it. I was like, Wait, whoa, wait a minute. Like, all this money and time and investment developing the day I meant to give the green light for ad spend. Like, oh, just don’t do it. Just that, right? And she’s like, God, bless her, because she just turned my medicine on me, right? And she’s like, aren’t you the one that always says to follow the life force? Yeah? I’m like, yeah. She’s like, well, there’s no life force in this for you. And I’m like, You’re right, right? So I find that for people that are in this arc of innovating invisible, which means tuning into an emergent future and pulling through a new reality that wants to emerge through us and our business, into our industry and marketplace, right? There’s always a line in the sand, probably more than one, but one of the lines in the sand is to recognize the old thing, ain’t it anymore? Yeah, right, and to let it die, right? So many of us.
Samantha Riley 09:29
I feel like it’s not even recognizing that. I feel like it’s giving ourselves permission to do what we’ve always known like, well, right?
Jeffrey Van Dyk 09:39
Well, I feel like it creeps up over time. It’s not like the dissatisfaction goes from zero to 10, right? Zero to Three. One day it’s a seven, but then it’s a five again. But over time, you’re like this, you acknowledge this really isn’t in anymore, and then the permission to let it die. Okay, and that’s tough, because, I mean, I went home that night, I struck up the grill, put some nice rib eyes, opened up a really nice bottle of cab, and sat my husband down, and it was like, Babe, I did a thing today. Do not know what it’s gonna mean financially, right? Because it’s like that was meant to be the financial in my mind, not in reality. In my mind, that was meant to be the financial backbone of the business, but not in truth. I know for sure now, had I launched all of that at best, I would have broken even between the ad spend and the income at best, and much worse is what a lot of people experience, which is over spinning on ads and not recouping your investment, right, let alone time and the energy and that I’m not then engaged and available for the new work.
Samantha Riley 10:54
Yeah, right. I really, I really love this, because this is where so many people are, and I’m in business with my husband, and you know, I did share with you that we did this last October. We did a podcast on it, and I had the same thing. I just went to him one day, went, we’re burning it to the ground. And he went, he kind of went dead silent. He didn’t even say anything, but the look on his face was like, oh shit, because it doesn’t logically make sense. It’s like, we’ve got making money where we’re just about to burn it down, like, Uh oh. Like, what’s about to happen? Like, what if we can’t pay, you know, our rent, our mortgage? What if we can’t buy food? Like, what if this is the end? Yeah, but it’s having that deep inner trust that we’ve got this and that by following that energy, that that is the thing. Because what you said there was right, that energy is dead.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 11:55
We’ve got it, and we’re held in ways that we can’t even see or understand. Here’s a quick little story. In 2012 my business partner and I had a classic like event space business, two big events per year. You know, the mastermind sell the day three of the thing we were doing three quarters a million a year right out the gate, first year out, right? It was a smashing success. It was called the spiritual marketing quest. And back in like the early aughts, people were not talking much about spirit and business, right? And we went to go book the next ballroom for the next event, and both of us were like, there’s no energy for it. And we looked at each other dumbfounded, because people were like, holy shit, you guys are like, ball. So we put ourselves in a retreat and decided we were moving in different directions. And we were both kind of flabbergasted, like, why are we doing this in the middle, in the height of it, success. Lo and behold, we finished delivery to our last client mid-June.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 13:10
I think of that year, the beginning of July, her 21 year old daughter died out of the blue. And I just thank God that we listened to that, because she was able to just grieve, just to be in her process. Otherwise we would have had a whole new batch of mastermind clients with a whole slate of delivery that I can’t even imagine trying to fulfill on that right? That, to me, was such a lesson in like, oh my god, there’s no way we could have seen that, literally no way, right? And it was, it’s like, there, by the grace of God, go. I, thank God we listened and both. It led us both in really generative new spaces over time. But that was such a lesson for me and pay attention to the energy. The Energy knows our mind doesn’t, but the energy knows, yeah.
Samantha Riley 14:13
100%. 100%. You talked before we jumped on the call you were talking about, you know, we have these feelings, we have this intuition. We know something’s happening. There’s something bubbling under the surface, but we’re essentially visioning in a vacuum. You know, we’re in our own offices where we’re trying to do the work. We’re trying to extract it, pull it out, draw it out. Yeah. Talk to us about the balance between the emergent future and the marketplace.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 14:52
Yeah. So here’s what I see as it relates to innovating the invisible what. What some of us are attuned to is what I call the emergent future. It hasn’t been realized in form yet. We don’t see the indication of it out here in the world in front of our eyes yet. But when we tap in energetically and intuitively, it feels real, it feels true, it feels alive, even if we don’t have it all put together yet, right? And we’re listening, and we’re journaling, and we’re having conversations with people like you, and getting inspired and having new visions pop, right? And eventually, hopefully, a picture forms. Oh, I think this is the new thing, or at least this is the beginnings of it. This is the doorway in, right? Where people go into paralysis, is in extreme amounts of doubt. Is this bananas? Is it nuts? Is there, does anybody want this? Is there a client base for this? Where will I find them? How will I talk to them? Can I make money? Will it replace the income I have over here when I step into this, etc, etc, etc. The thing that we often don’t realize that’s happening in the marketplace is, while we’re in touch with an emergent future, the marketplace is primarily echoes of the past. It’s stuff. This is the way it’s been. This is the way we do it, etc, etc, etc. And anytime you have a calling, there’s always a sector of the marketplace that is done with how it’s been that goes. It’s not working for me. I’ve tried everything there is. I am exiting this marketplace, right? I know that what I need is not here. And so they split off as a slice of pie into this kind of nebulous yearning. They’re floating in the marketplace going, I know what it’s not, I just don’t know what it is yet, right? But I still have my needs and my yearnings and my desires and what I hope and dream for, and the problems that I might be facing that the echoes of the past didn’t really address. And so their yearning and your calling are 100% linked and synced at all times. They are never in a vacuum, right? And if we can just remember that to go, Oh, if this is emerging within me over here in the creation space, over here in the marketplace, there is an increasing body of audience that is getting prepped and primed for the very thing I’m going to deliver to them, right? And it also helps us go, Oh, I’m not going to find the market for this new work in the old marketplaces where people are still buying the same old stuff. And for some, maybe it works, right? But for some it’s not. No, I’m going to speak to the people that post that marketplace, right? Years ago, I worked for this gal, and she did stuff around. She had experienced a lot of trauma, developed a strong relationship with her spirit guides. This is a very kind of more down that track client from a number of years ago, but I’ll never forget this idea of what, what is your work come after, which is not a who question, but a when question, right? And she said, you know, around law of attraction, I got into Abraham and mix and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but when it came to the real hard questions around trauma, around stuff like the Holocaust, she’s Jewish, right? Law of Attraction was like, Well, you just attracted it, you know? What? About an infant with cancer? And she was like, this isn’t, this isn’t. Like, there’s, yeah, there’s something in this law of attraction thing, but there’s shit missing, right? And like, and I want to so she wrote, she wrote this book with her spirit guides, where she wrestled with these really difficult questions and got these insights, and that became the book, right? And I was like, Oh, your audience is post law of attraction. That is where you’re going to find them, right? Yeah, I did that, I did that, I did that. It was good, but it was missing this. It didn’t touch this. I still need this. Where is that thing, right? And all of our work lives at that intersection of not just who needs it, but when in the life cycle of. Their journey, either you’re ready for this emergent thing, right? And that is that emergent yearning piece that is connected to your emergent calling.
Samantha Riley 20:08
I love that. How do you balance either you or with your clients? Balance that place where you can’t quite put your finger on that, like maybe it’s before it’s when even and you’ve got this thing, how do you balance? I need to move forward and just do it. And it’s not quite where it’s at. Do you know what I’m trying to say? I do. I do, I do because it’s not just like, you know, this one day, it’s I’ve got this idea, and tomorrow, like we’re running with it, and there’s this space in the middle where we’re too afraid to get it out, but I almost feel like there’s this part that it has to come out because it’s like, this constant feedback that helps you work through that messy I keep saying that messy middle it’s messy work. It is.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 21:09
Yeah, so I’m not going to be blowing smoke up anybody’s butt and saying that like, oh, abracadabra, I don’t, it is messy. And I don’t think there’s easy answers to that question, Sam, because I think there’s this music producer called Rick Rubin, really famous producer, and he wrote a book a while back. And one of the distinctions that he shared, that I loved, is he said, in the creation cycle, at the beginning, you need a lot of spaciousness, like, don’t rush it, don’t push it, don’t force it. Let it come to you, play with it, let it evolve and grow. Right? And he said, but then there is a time in the production cycle where you actually need a schedule and due dates and deadlines and launch, right? You need to ship. And the two are, the two live in different worlds. So when I put the kibosh on the funnel that I threw in the trash, something magical happened, and it’s something I see with others often as well. In that universe, throws you some gimmies. Yeah, they give you some like, Hey, look over here. So that summer, I had private clients like high end five grand a month. Private clients just show up, one after another after another, out of the woodwork. I mean, our mutual friend, Taki, right? I had a few people in Takis group saying, like, because I’ve led some different trainings for black belt, who found my trainings from like, three years earlier in the black belt vault. And we’re like, I have to work with you, right? Referrals. I was at a cocktail party and met somebody who’s like, I have to work like they were everywhere these I mean, and they were all very high end clients, and it totally replaced the income I thought I was going to have from the funnel, which was fabulous. But more than that, they showed me who the new client base was. Hey, see this. Hey, look at this. They all showed up with the same need. They all showed up in a roughly similar place. The framework for what they wanted and what I needed to help produce with them was the same. I was like, Oh, this is the new thing that I didn’t have a word for it. I didn’t know what to call it at first, but it was like, right? It had a different scent. And so it was like, the universe putting this mirror up in front of me, saying, this is the direction, dude, are you picking it up right now, my experience with my own life and with others is that the gimmes don’t last forever. Nice. The gimmes are there to show you the way and for you then to get to work.
Samantha Riley 24:33
Yeah, I love that so much. It’s like we have to clear the space to let something else in, but then, okay, I’ve shown you the way. Now, yeah, go do that. Now, go build it.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 24:45
Yeah. And I will say the hardest part for me was navigating this at that point. After 20 years of working with the coaches and consultants, that’s my list, right? That’s who’s primary. Only on my list and some people who have literally followed me almost since the beginning. A bunch of my world are people who followed me for 18 years, 15 years, 12 years, seven years, like that kind of thing, right? I was like, none of these people are on my list. These were all founder leaders of decent size companies and traditional marketplaces, they weren’t practitioners, right? That’s not the audience I’d been in front of. So I went into a bunch of, kind of existential crisis of like, and they’re all needles because here’s what was true about all of them. They all privately had a spiritual life. They were all pretty darn intuitive, but that was encapsulated in private life. And then over here, they were a business leader, yeah. And the two worlds didn’t really mix for most of them. And then in their spiritual life, they were getting these taps on the shoulders with these messages saying, You’re here to do this thing in that market. And they’re like, what? That doesn’t fit my business model. That’s not right. One of the guys who says, I may have mentioned him before, this guy, Peter Stewart, who came to me and I’ll never forget our first call, he said, Yeah, I keep hearing this message that I meant to develop a new form of real estate that helps people self actualize, right? He is a traditional, high level real estate developer, right? Like not on the surface. Woo at all. And he’s sitting there going, I don’t even, she’s like, Jeffrey, I don’t even know what the hell this means, but it won’t leave me alone, right? I’m told you can help, can you? It was people like that in really traditional markets, going, I am here to bring something really radical and new to this field. How the hell do I do that? And that really became the foundation for the whole new body of work and new frameworks, and now, new brand, you know, because I’ve seen now there are these seven stages of innovating the invisible, and the first stage is vision clarification, right? This is where, for a couple months, I did what with him, what I did do with a lot of my clients, which is teach them to mechanisms, to listen to the life force of the calling and essentially download the essential ingredients that they’re energetically attuned to, for him and for him, as for a lot of people, it was even understanding, how does my intuition work? I’d have him tap in, let’s say, ask this question. He goes, I don’t know. I just see this picture, right? And I say, okay, ask. Ask him what that picture means. And he goes, oh, they say this. Oh, that makes so much sense. Great. Now ask this. And he goes, I don’t know. I just see this picture. And he kept throwing it away. And I’m like, Dude, you literally make buildings like big, large scale urban apartment buildings. You work in pictures. Doesn’t it make sense that your intuitive mechanism is image first, right? Totally. It never crossed his mind, so he kept discounting it, but when he started to take ownership of it and then learn mechanisms for decoding the pictures, then after over a little period of time, we were able to step back and go, Oh, I think I see what this thing is, right? Which was very cool, very inspiring. However, like me, like anybody else in this, he was like, but what the hell is this? This doesn’t fit at all neatly into my existing business model, right?
Samantha Riley 29:01
You hate it when that happens.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 29:05
Yeah, right. Here’s a little secret that most people don’t realize in that moment. Well, almost no one realizes in that moment. Routinely, what I’ve seen is that the new thing is actually far more expansive than the old as a bigger business opportunity, bitter. More opportunity for reach, more opportunity for income, more opportunity for influence. Like the whole field of the new thing is bigger. So for him, what it turned into is working with some of the top researchers in the world to pull together everything that’s known, as far as he could find, about using the built environment to help people come home to themselves, translation, helping their nervous system regulate right, regulating sleep, all that stuff we’re seeing. Seeing so lighting that works, there’s circadian rhythms. Color Palettes throughout the apartment that does certain things to start to down shift you when you move from the outside to the hallway inside, turn the corner, go into your apartment. Worked with a researcher at the University of Oregon who studied the role of sacred geometry, or the impact of sacred geometry on our subtle nervous system. And then this company, Mohawk home, created carpets with these shapes in the carpets that are in the flooring of these apartment buildings, so that even walking down the hall, your nervous system is slowly being subtly regulated, right? And so the whole like, Wouldn’t you love to live in a place where just the act of living there optimizes who you are as a human right? How sexy is that? So that’s what the business became. And he was like, you know, I’ll never forget. He flew in for one day with me. At the end of the day. He’s like, Jeffrey, there’s something really wrestling with. Is this a new company, or is this part of my development company, real estate development? And I said, I don’t know, but the life force knows. Let’s tune in and ask. We quiet down. We tune in, he goes, Oh, it says it’s a IP company with a consulting arm. That makes so much sense. I can only build so many apartments, but this could be proliferated from developers all around the country and all around the world. And then he got down for a minute. He said, Oh, but what about my existing real estate development company? What do I do with that? I said it has its own life force to remember. Let’s ask it so we tune in. And he goes. It says it’s here to be the perfect partner to the IP company, to be the kind of testing ground for all the ideas so that we can flesh them out and bring them to market. He was, oh, this makes so much sense, right? And last time I talked to him, he was talking with the Viking Cruises. He’s had some massive contracts, and the company is only a couple years old now. Best of all, right, so we can move from Vision clarification to market positioning. Where does this sit in the market? How do I talk about it? Oh, quick thing on that one. I love this. His first pitch deck was all mission first, about how we need people that can deliver more to our world, etc. I was like, Dude, you’re a real estate developer. Would you buy this? No, no. I was like, right. You know, sometimes we forget when we’re in our own bubbles. And I said, Well, what do real estate developers care about? He goes differentiation, retention. We want to differentiate our building in the marketplace of like, large scale rental properties, and we want to retain renters once they move in. Said, Great. Those needs don’t change. We’re solving them in new and better ways. So not just a better bigger screen TV, not better standard amenities, those are a dime a dozen, right? No one is building wellness at this level. Is happening in parts, in, say, high end boutique hotels, resorts, etc. No one is doing this in residential real estate. The differentiation is that there and meanwhile, there’s this whole group of 30 something professionals who are less interested in buying and often can’t attain a home in this landscape. Have a high, high value on wellness, on personal betterment, etc, like there is this entire market that’s being untapped, and that is exactly the market that these higher end buildings want to attract, right? So what if the very place you live optimize is designed to optimize who you are as a human right? Sexy as hell. And I said retention, that’s an easy one. People like to stay where they feel good. All the research to back up that people feel better in these spaces, right? So we move into figuring out the positioning, then do a kind of beta proof of concept. This is where he reached out to his immediate network, got some first few clients, then we do market creation. And that is really the foundation of innovating. The invisible in the business place is market creation, creating a new market for visionary work where other people didn’t even know there was a market waiting that is tapping into that group of people who split off from the rest of the marketplace, and that we could say it ends there, but at least for my clients, there’s three more phases, because it’s not just about building a better, bigger business, it’s actually about evolving humanity via the industry we’ll work on right. So that having success with a visionary work creates buzz. The buzz gets you platform right? So now he’s speaking at industry conferences, being invited to talk about this stuff, right? Then we move into stage six, which is coalition building, finding the other front reader, leaders in an industry, and going, ooh, there is synergy here, in making something even bigger, until finally, industry adoption, which is where the new way becomes the norm. And that is how we evolve the consciousness of an industry.
Samantha Riley 35:38
You know, when you hear it, you hear it, you’re just like, Oh, my God, sounds so good, but we have to really lean in and do the messy work that we were talking about to get there. But that’s the reason I wanted to have this conversation, is because the people that are listening to this, it’s like, we need to hear this, that there’s other people going through it too. And it is worth it, because as we’re coming into this new paradigm, or, you know, we’re the new paradigm is here, really, this work has to emerge. It has to emerge.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 36:15
Well, here’s what I’d say, it will emerge. And it’s either going to emerge through you or somebody else.
Samantha Riley 36:22
Love it exactly. Yeah, so just do the work.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 36:31
I want to speak to something related to this. I talked to you a little while ago about four different types of entrepreneurs, and I think this is really important for anybody who is going, Okay, you guys are speaking my language. This is the thing I’m on board. And yeah, I’ve tried other stuff, and it hasn’t worked for me, and I don’t know why not, right? So I want to, I want to paint a little picture that I think helps answer that. Because I look at it, and this is one of those, like, God, love it when this happens. And it does not every day for me, but one of these days, I just woke up with this entire model landed in my lap, and what I was shown is that there’s four different types of entrepreneurs, replicators, synthesizers, innovators and visionaries, and they exist along a continuum with replicators on one side and visionaries at the other, right? Replicators, these are entrepreneurs or business leaders or anyone in the world, for that matter, who learn a thing and repeat it, and this is most of what we see in any marketplace, right? Take a plumber, right? You learn to plumb, you apprentice with plumbers, and then you plumb. Right? Yep. And when I look for a plumber, I’m looking for a damn good, reputable replicator. I don’t want innovative plumbing in my house. Thank you very much.
Samantha Riley 38:05
Just clean the blockage. We don’t want it anymore.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 38:08
Yeah, yeah, right. So replicators are great because they keep the world stable. They keep things going and the job and the game replicators are playing and synthesizers is to compete in existing markets, right? That is the role they’re playing. There’s existing market demands, and they’re showing up to those known market demands and competing against others with roughly the same thing, right? Go into Yelp for me. I don’t know what it is in Australia to look for a plumber. There’s hundreds in Los Angeles, right? So I’m just hoping to find one that’s, like, decently priced, available, you know, honest and reputable, that’s it, right? I’m and so they’re, they’re really dime a dozen, and you compete by, you know, on price and compete sometimes on reputation, right? Are we good? Are we reputable? Then we’ve got synthesizers. Synthesizers are the ones that take some of what’s new and coming down the pike and pull it together and package it up to deliver to the replicators, to sharpen their tool belt and to add maybe some of what’s new and coming down the pike. So a lot of the books we see in, say, airport bookstores, Adam Grant, those sorts of people, right? Those are synthesizers. They’re, go out there. They re spend a year or two researching something, pull it together, synthesize their ideas and package it up and deliver it to us. Love it. It’s great way to learn stuff quickly, right? Both of those are competing in known marketplaces around existing market demands. Then there’s innovators and visionaries, totally different ball of wax. Innovators are responding to what I call a cultural zeitgeist, which are emerging trends popping up in the marketplace, and the people that are really at the forefront of that can spot them and kind of see what’s right around the bend and innovate to speak to that they move markets forward, and visionaries, visionaries are responding to what I call the spiritual Zeitgeist in a marketplace, which is the emerging consciousness that’s bubbling up within the marketplace. Right? Those two are playing a vastly different game. They are creating new markets. They are not competing in existing markets. Here’s why this matters. Most of the business support we see in the world, marketing support, Business Development Support, etc, is designed by either synthesizers or replicators. For replicators, it is all designed to play a competition game, not a game of creating new markets out of thin air. And so when, when innovators and visionaries are out there, you know, licking their index finger, putting their finger in the air, seeing where the energy is moving, and following it, and going, Oh, nobody else is talking about this. Is there even a marketplace for this? Will people buy this, etc, and then, rather than saying, Oh, if this is my calling, there must be an emergent yearning in the marketplace that nobody else has tapped into massive opportunity, right? Instead of doing that, they go, Oh, hey, synthesizer business coach, can you help me figure out how to do this? And the synthesizer or replicator business coach says, Yeah, fit inside of my box. Here’s my proven five step formula or some variation on that theme, fit inside of my box. And if you do, if you’re a good little boy, good little girl, and fit inside my box, then I will know how to help you be a success. Yes. And if you do not comply, it’s your fault for not succeeding. I and I don’t even blame those mentors. I don’t even think they know when they’re dealing with an innovator and visionary and giving them material that is not built for them. I don’t even think they’re aware of it, right? So I’m not even blaming or throwing them under the bus. What I am saying is, if you know, the thing I’m bringing doesn’t look, sound, smell, bark, like what’s already in the marketplace, there’s something new and innovative about it. I have to be very mindful about the types of people I talk to and the types of support I get, because what it requires instead is a lot of mirroring. Here’s what I hear, helping not to say, Oh, here’s what I think about that. Instead, what’s your truth about it, helping you access your truth time and time and time and time again and follow it until you create something that is fleshed out sufficiently to do your first beta, go to market, get further market validation, and go from there, right? It’s a really different process. Yeah, and I don’t think people realize that.
Samantha Riley 43:34
No, but even the innovators and the visionaries don’t, because as you were speaking, then it’s like you’re saying that synthesizer business coach is saying, hey, fit into my box. But similarly, the innovator and the visionary can’t expect Oh, well, hang on a minute. I just want the six step system to get me the six figures tomorrow like it doesn’t work on either side. So you need to be really aware about yourself and the people that you’re bringing into your space.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 44:06
You know, here’s what I’m just being guided to share. We’re speaking about this on a kind of business level, but at a deeply human level, doing this kind of work is a sovereignty journey. It i It is the fast track to recognizing how deeply you either trust yourself or don’t trust this universe or don’t right, trust your relationship in this universe or not, and because the only way I have seen myself or anybody have success moving through this and look, it’s day in and day out, right? It’s not like because there’s days when you’re, you can’t see the forest for the trees. You wonder if any, if anything you’re feeling out is going to make any hill of being sense to anybody. I. I’ve spent more time writing sales pages this last number of years than any time in my history. Because I’m like, fuck, what am I really talking about here? Right? Like, I can feel the energetic truth of it, but now that I have to put it down in words and write copy and try to like, frame an offer, like, Oh, is it gonna work? Right? And so I have had to have so many more conversations the last few years with trusted colleagues who can actually see me and are good at witnessing me and saying, Here’s what I’m hearing, Jeffrey, that’s it. That’s it. Well, yeah, it’s what you just said, okay, but I didn’t hear it until now. Thank you. It’s a lot of that it is.
Samantha Riley 45:51
And looping right back to when I very first opened the episode, that is something that happened in our very first conversation, you’re not listening to the words. You’re listening and yes, you did this, but this is what we all need to do, is not just listen to the words. There’s notes that are sitting between those words that we really need to tune into, because the magic is there. It’s in the space between the words, or the space between the notes, and that requires a lot of refinement. It’s not just going to pop out, yeah, yeah, yeah, wow.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 46:38
It has to. We often let my friends, the brothers corn, their big phrases, dare to suck.
Samantha Riley 46:47
Do you know how much I love that? I really love that, because that is, that is the work. Yeah, yeah.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 46:57
I have a group, kind of that I lead, of people that are all on this journey, all right, as I’ve got two of them actually, one for business leaders in traditional industries, and one for practitioners that are really seasoned in on this path. And one of the things we do on the second Wednesdays in that group is what I call it’s sandbox Wednesday, and we get in the sandbox with like, here is what feels shaky, and I don’t know how to talk about it, and I need help, right? And we give people a space to blurt out stuff and have it sometimes be verbal vomit and like, is there anything there? Does it make any sense? I will tell you. What’s interesting is this, nine times out of 10 when people say, I don’t know how to talk about this, which is one of the biggest things I hear. And of course, messaging is one of the big things I do with people, my experience. Is not that they don’t have the words, I don’t know how to talk about this is actually code for my nervous system isn’t acclimated to speaking about this in this way publicly. Yet, yet, I don’t know how I will be received if I share what I really know and think and see, yeah, and so this place of being witnessed is really acclimating and having spaces and people you can trust to share what’s coming through and feel what it feels like to stand in it, in front of another human, or hopefully more than one humans, and go, oh. One, I’m still alive. I’m still breathing, right. Two, there’s more recognition over there around what I just said than I even realized somebody might have right. We spoke a little earlier about being mindful about who you do this with, because some people are not designed to see you. They don’t have the capacity for it. And again, if you’re doing emergent work, you’re going to have a more cutting edge audience for the emergent work, right? It’s not going to be your everyday person that’s asking for it, that can see it, that can understand it, that will make sense out of it. But that does not mean that the right people at the right place in the market won’t be absolutely ravenous for what you’re bringing boom.
Samantha Riley 49:43
100%, 100% this conversation could go forever. I also am very aware that you’re going away tomorrow, so I know that anyone that’s listening to this if they want to learn more about your work, you’ve got a free gift that can help them take the next step. Can you share a little bit about what that is?
Jeffrey Van Dyk 50:06
Yeah, it’s a master class called the pre-sold prospect. One of the biggest things that we run into when selling emergent work is that people don’t necessarily recognize that what you have is what they need. And we cannot move into the marketplace trying to convince them of it. That won’t work. But what we can do is lead them in a marketing or messaging architecture, or a sales pre sales architecture, to have them come to the realization, the big aha of holy shit that other stuff, no wonder it didn’t work and never will, and then lead them for them to see this is the path I need to go on, and this is long before you ever put an offer in front of them, or, say, hire me to do it right? So they buy the journey before they buy you. And that is what we go through in the pre-sold prospect.
Samantha Riley 51:09
Love it. The link for that will be in the show notes below wherever you’re listening. Jeffrey, thank you so much for coming on the show, for sharing your wisdom, your insight. It’s been an absolute pleasure, and you already know your work is so so so amazing, and it’s so important in the world right now more than ever. So thank you for sharing it so that we can get this message to more people.
Jeffrey Van Dyk 51:34
I’m so delighted, and I just know, Sam, that the work you are doing here, I can just feel the ripples for the space you’re holding in these conversations, not just with me, but I’m sure, with so so many others. So thank you for showing up and for everyone listening. If there’s one thing I want you to know is that if you have a calling, there is a market growing at the same pace waiting for you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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