The Day I Stopped Borrowing Someone Else’s Microphone
The first time I published the Resources page on my website, it featured a beautiful endorsement for a three-day introductory weekend hosted by a teacher I'd followed for years.
I'd accidentally discovered her affiliate program and thought, Why not get compensated for sharing something I already genuinely recommend?
The weekend itself had been consistently valuable in the past; in fact, it got better each year. It was also offered at a price point that made it accessible to many people who could benefit.
At the bottom of the page, I disclosed that I'd receive a commission if someone registered through my link.
I shared it once. To my surprise, it was well received—and I was well compensated.
The next time the promotion came around, something felt different.
As I read through the copy I'd been given to share, I noticed something I hadn't allowed myself to fully acknowledge before. No matter what challenge someone was facing, the promotional material for the weekend somehow presented itself as the answer.
Some of the messaging felt uncomfortably manipulative.
I also knew what happened next.
People who attended this genuinely valuable introductory program would be encouraged to enroll in increasingly expensive ones. That's exactly how I'd entered the work many years earlier, during one of the most vulnerable seasons of my life.
Many people would undoubtedly benefit. Some, like me, might also spend years moving from program to program without ever asking why they kept returning. Without realizing they'd begun depending on the very thing that had originally helped them.
They might even find themselves listening to class replays while hiking, an unfathomable habit I shared about in my last post.
Even with those concerns, I still chose to share the weekend.
But this time, I wrote my own copy instead of using theirs. And underneath it, I shared another opportunity altogether—a class by Michael Beckwith.
I described Michael the way I genuinely experienced him: deeply authentic.I shared that classes with him were offered solely for the sake of offering value; they weren’t designed to promote the next class. And the next one.
Then I wrote something that makes me smile now.
"Michael doesn't play the funnel game."
Looking back, I realize I was quietly asking readers to read between the lines.
This spring, I made a different choice.
Instead of asking people to read between someone else's lines...
I stopped sharing them.
That decision wasn't about anger regarding my choice to remain a student years after it made sense to be. It wasn't even really about disagreement with their marketing.
I still respect this teacher. I've learned a tremendous amount from her over the years.
But I'd seen too many business practices that no longer felt aligned with the teachings themselves. I'd also experienced a few things personally that made it impossible to pretend I hadn't.
For a while, my mind kept making the case for promoting the weekend anyway.
The commissions were appealing.The work itself still had value.
Maybe I was overthinking it.
Fortunately, my intuition has become much harder to overrule.
So instead of promoting someone else's work...
I began preparing to share my own.
I resumed blogging.
I completed the final proofread of The Relationship Ride.
I updated my website.
I accidentally started a new creative project that I didn't recognize as one until weeks later.
And little by little, I began preparing—externally and internally—to launch something much bigger than a website or a book.
A movement.
Looking back, I realize I wasn't really stepping away from someone else's work.
I was stepping toward my own.
For a long time, I thought discernment meant learning to read between someone else's lines.
Eventually, I realized it meant writing my own.
Missed Part Two of the Discernment Series? Click here for The Day The Wilderness Stopped Needing Replays.
Meanwhile, here are a few signs to help you trust yourself in spaces that don’t always feel quite right:
How to Spot a Saber-Toothed Funnel Tiger™ Before It Eats Your Discernment
