I am not who you think I am.

I am not who you think I am; the map is not the territory; the website is not the business; the social media posts are not lived experiences.  These are simply thoughts and images, they are not real in the ultimate sense.  However, they are real in the relative sense and for that reason they are useful.

People who know me well, know that I like to say: “It’s all made up.” The only meaning anything has is the meaning we’ve assigned to it…which means (ha) that we should probably laugh a lot more than we do about the human comedy.

Further, if it’s all made up, we might as well make it up the way we want it.  I LOVE this and believe it should be embraced.  As a teenager, my parents “accused” me of only caring about having fun.  Happily, they were right and I feel the exact same way today.

Sure, there are some relative world limitations and cards that we are dealt. Some could be labeled advantages, some could be labeled as disadvantages (or opportunities or challenges that become an advantage because let’s face it being able to overcome a difficulty can be a huge advantage), but the bottom line is we get to decide how we see them.  We can accept the standard explanations or we can question them and make up new ones.

All this to say…marketing, like everything else is made up, and it’s fun and we get to make it what we want it to be.  What do you want to create?  How do you want to be seen?  How and what do you want to see?  You decide.