How Marketing Made Me a Better Performer, Lover and Friend
Seriously? Yes, seriously.
Learning marketing since graduation has been a game changer in my professional and personal life.
But I was never always open to it...
Growing up, I always considered sales and marketing to be reserved for the ones who can't get a decent job.
But boy was I wrong.
Since learning about marketing and working as a marketer, I started to notice a change in the way I see things and interact with others.
I think it's safe to say that marketing changed my life in ways I never expected.
Here are just some of the benefits.
1. Learning to get attention made me more romantic
When you scroll down your Facebook feed, do you click because it interest you or because it was so boring that you had to click it?
Marketers are in the business of getting attention. And to get attention, the idea has to be interesting.
But you can't be interesting overnight.
You don't take a"World's Most Interesting Man" pill and wake up super cool. (If there is, please let me know)
You would have to follow trends or at least find creative angles to tell your story.
Turning something boring into something interesting is the name of the game.
This doesn't just apply to repackaging or re-positioning.
It applies to our romantic relationships as well.
As G.K Chesterton puts it,
We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.Meaning we are not looking for new things per se, but that we looking for new ways to look at things.
I was listening to relationship expert Esther Perel on the Tim Ferriss Show and she said something that I remembered:
"If people only use 10% of their creativity for cheating and put to their current love lives, they will surprised how far they can take it."
Think about, if you woke up without a memory of your relationship, you would find your partner attractive and interesting as you did in the beginning.
Ever heard old husbands who say they look at their wives as though it was their first time? Sounds familiar eh?
Learning marketing also helped me get excited about the littlest things.
It helps me reframe any situation or thing to make it all the more interesting and exciting.
2. Learning to psycho people made me more sociable
I was a serial introvert.
If I were an OS, my socializing muscle will be under "Least Used Apps".
But since getting into marketing, I started to overcome my shyness and nervousness of making new friends.
It all starts with what marketing is.
Marketing is persuasion at scale.
To persuade, you need to understand the basics of psychology.
Like what are your customers like and how to sell to them.
It goes deeper than that though.
Being a marketer demands that you adopt different worldviews to appeal to different people.
In result, creating a growth oriented, open minded person.
A person who is open to different cultures, values and experiences.
You stop thinking that your view of the world is the only one that is correct.
You start listening to what others say more intently.
You take criticism more easily and you don't let your ego get in the way of your judgement.
By being welcoming of other people's views, you are bound to have more things in common with them.
And the more you have more things in common with people, the easier it is to become friends.
You make more friends and your professional and personal network starts to grow.
3. Learn that perception is reality
Here's a quote from Steve Jobs:
When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.Everything you know to be true is only true because you believe it to be.That's a very limited life.
Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.
Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.
All the things you were told growing up were made up by people who were just as clueless as you.
As you learn marketing, you start to realize an ugly truth: that all social norms were created out of thin air and most of our beliefs are shaped by the media we are exposed to.
Stories are the currency of our lives.
The diamond engagement was only popular since the 1920s because it was marketed as a thing that only real men do. (oh, and the two-month salary rule, wasn't created by buyers, it was created by sellers.)
Smoking cigarettes became mainstream because tobacco companies had huge marketing budgets to have celebrities smoke. It became cool. Now, with all the health hazards, the tobacco companies are marketing the act of smoking as a matter of "freedom of choice."
And one quick question, which you think is more dangerous - using an airplane or using a car?
Most people would think airplane, but statistically driving a car is far more dangerous.
The odds? 11,000,000:1 for airplanes. 5,000:1 for cars.
We think airplane because of availability heuristic. Because the news talks about a plane crash for weeks, we think its more dangerous to use an airplane, but lookup your newspaper and you will see that car crashes happen everyday.
I found out about this learning behavioral psychology and the mental shortcuts we use when making decisions.
Being aware of all this - the stories we are told and the biases we have helps me tremendously when I make important decisions.
It helps me find out my weaknesses.
For example, I haven't been exercising for months.
But since I learnt about the psychology of nudges, I decided to place my gym clothes on my desk.
It's the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.
The result? Just placing my clothes very openly where I can see them made me exercise more.
As you can see, marketing has had a profound effect on how I see things in the world.
I have become more sociable, romantic, self-aware and effective.
I have since also had a hunger for wisdom. For knowledge that can make my life and those around me more enjoyable.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://bensimblog.com/how-marketing-made-me-a-better-performer-lover-and-friend/