Marketing

Along with millions of others, I have acquired a particular taste for the musings of Seth Godin. For those that have yet to stumble onto his work, Seth is a marketing juggernaut. But not in the sense normally attributed to such a person. Yes, he knows how to sell. And, I would imagine that his giftedness in this area has probably made him a very wealthy man. However, his approach lacks the slime that we wittingly (although not always justifiably) associate with the “man behind the curtain.”

I have an altogether different reason for liking him though. His approach begs his readers to lay bare the intent behind the message. In fact, a recent post of his on Merchants of Dissatisfaction got me thinking about the connection to the family.

Like the post intimates, there are many elements of our media that prey on our perceived dissatisfaction. As a father, this means that my three daughters, although young, have become targets of a very particular message. Unfortunately, the message rarely delivers substance that’s conducive to healthy young minds….or bodies for that matter.

Test this theory when you get the chance. The next time you watch a television show, go to a movie, drive down the road….take note of what you see. My guess is that you are going to find consistent reminders of our failure to have enough and be enough.

Filtering The Message

Our first challenge as fathers is to make sure that we haven’t become convinced of this message ourselves. It’s going to be exceedingly difficult to be a filter for our kids when we already drank the Kool Aid. Fortunately, a good gut-check may be what we need to get our heads right.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that these influencing agents are without merit either. Depending the on the age of your kids, there are some great teaching moments in failing ideals. The kicker is that you have to be there with them in order to bring them insight.

So, the next time your son or daughter is faced with the limitless bliss that only comes in a size zero or an NFL contract, reinforce the reality of their worth. They need the love of a father’s wisdom, not an eating disorder or an inferiority complex.

I know this post may be a little off topic but hopefully those reading will provide me a little latitude!

For some time I have subscribed to Copyblogger, which is a popular online copywriting and content marketing publication. Besides the fact that it is a very useful tool for anyone maintaining a blog, they write often about the challenges of staying inspired to write.

Despite the reality that I don’t even scratch the surface of their 105,000+ subscribers or their 50,000+ Twitter followers, I am sure that a few of you have noticed my general “lameness” as of late. While my inconsistent posts can be attributed more to a sheer lack of time, I have been experiencing the drain of enthusiasm that Copyblogger warns of.

Now, I am not sure if my drive started to leave me when I was installing our new flooring or when the dust started to fly from a wall being knocked down, but it left nonetheless. Of course, it could have also been the fact that the thought of writing caused me physical pain after having spent a couple of weekends crawling around on my hands and knees.

Okay, I’ll stop whining like a little girl!

For those of you that could care less about my writing plight, the point here is that our own neglect is often the very cause of our dwindling inspiration. As was the case before the creation of this blog, the more time I spent without writing, the more my drive sank in to the proverbial “toilet.” Imagine that, you actually lose interest in things when you fail to spend time doing them! I would suggest that this is the case for most of the things in our lives; relationships included.

The challenge then, is how willing we are to include some things, all the while knowing that it will be at the exclusion of something else. As I have written about previously, the activities of our lives say a lot about what we find important. We may not necessarily like what we see at first, but what purpose do priorities serve if they don’t cause us to make some revisions now and then?

As for myself, I think it was after the third time of hitting my finger with a hammer that I became re-energized to get back to some of the things that carry real value for me. Sometimes there is nothing like a little blood to get your head straight!

How to Have a Great Life and a Great Business (copyblogger.com).

Marketing: Creating Family Culture

Back From the Blogging Grave

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