Paraphrased From Sections Of Seth Godin’s “This Is Marketing”
Tension is not the same as fear.
If you feel like your coercing people manipulating them or causing them to be afraid, you are probably doing it wrong.
When we focus on creating growth within our market precisely because we care about those customers we serve, we are creating tension rather than fear. Relying on fear for marketing success is a weak cornerstone. Fear is a dream killer, it causes people to hold their breath and to be unable to move forward. Using fear alone is not going to make your goals come true, tension might though.
Tension is the hallmark of a great educational experience, tension is not quite knowing where we are in the process, not being sure of the process, not having a guarantee that the predicted result is about to happen.
As adults we will only expose ourselves to forms of tension often like a jazz concert, a sports game, or thrilling movie. But mostly because we have been indoctrinated by fear, we hesitate, we have the opportunity to learn something new on our way to becoming a new person we seek to be.
Fear will paralyze even if you’ve been taught that forward motion is possible.
Once we see a way out, the tension can be that tool that moves us.
Effective markers have the courage to create tension, some actively seek tension because it works. Tension properly placed pushes those you serve over the chasm to the other side.
If you care about a change you seek to make you will care enough to generously and respectfully create tension on behalf of that change.