The Tao of aging (for young marketers)

TO:            Young Marketers
FROM:       Boomer Marketer
RE:            "Old"
DATE:        Timeless

It has come to my attention, through the voluntary contributions of various Internet commenters/trolls, that some of you are both young and angry. Congratulations. Whether you know it or not, you are carrying on a time-honored tradition. I'm sorry to say this not at all original. I don't mean it as an insult, but you are like every generation before you. But hey, it's legit.

Somewhere along the way, however, many of you were neglected in your upbringing. Some of you think it's cool to be ageists, and publicly wish that people older than you would die, so that you might quickly shove us all into a mass grave and get on with your (more) important lives.

To those who feel this way: this is what we call a teaching moment. You need to understand why incivility is a character flaw that you need to get over if you ever want to grow up. (By the way, it may surprise you to learn that many people don't grow up until they're 40-ish, and some don' t grow up their entire lives. That's a bad gig, though. I don't recommend it.)

Here are a few Facts of Life you might need that have nothing to do with procreation or marketing.

1) You shouldn't blame the older generations for holding you back. We are not. Only YOU are holding you back. Being immature will do that for a person. Whining is not a sign of strength.

2) Here's how life works. Time goes forward. You age. Everyone ages. In a few years, you will BE one of the people you now loathe. As my hero Kurt Vonnegut said, even if you get to be 102 years old, you will feel like this: "What's going on? I just got here!"

3) When this happens, you'll have two choices: OLD or dead. How does old sound now?

4) If that's not enough, there's this. Regardless of your religion (or lack) or politics (or lack) or values (or lack), if as a human being you do not respect and sanctify human life regardless of age, from 0 to 130 and beyond ... then trust me, the ENTIRE WORLD--all 6 billion of us--will think you're a worthless piece of CRUD. And we'd be right.

Not that you asked, but here are a few Facts of Marketing that are somewhat related.

1) Old does not equal bad. There's old, and there's bad. The two are not always the same.  This is called set theory. You should study it.

2) If you equate old with bad, without doing the work of finding out what actually is bad, you will be seen as a lazy and ineffective marketer. Is that how you want to be known? And don't forget about that time thing...going forward? The "new" stuff you love so much will be old soon enough. Then you're back to the beginning ... trying to figure out what's bad. You should just start working on the bad right now and forget about old. Old's not a good indicator, and neither is new. New stuff doesn't stay new very long.

3) You need to add a few new words to your vocabulary. Try "sustainable," "consistent," and "fundamental" for example. They make take you to interesting places.

4) If you get all excited about changing the world and being part of something new, that's great. Go for it. But ONLY if you do the hard work to know the difference between an improvement and a setback.  Between success and failure.

5) Change and new are not the end, but the means. Not the cause, but the effect. Focus on what your specific cause is. Your passion is too precious a commodity to waste on unworthy causes. If you lead with effect instead of cause, you're thinking BACKWARDS. As in, "I want to be a famous movie star" instead of "I want to make great films."

6) Doctors follow the Hippocratic Oath.  It says, "first, do no harm." If you don't know how to improve the world, please don't try to change it. The setback team already has more than enough help.

Thanks for listening, and have a nice life.

Comments

[Barbara Weyand]

Don't know what behaviors provoked this blog, but I loved it.

As a fogey, I confess to having little patience for relative youngsters who think they have a 'lock' on what works in Marketing and what doesn't. Far too often immature marketers are caught up in the newest technology or buzzwords and have forgotten the prospect or customer entirely.

Some truths are ageless. This is one of them: Focus on the (prospect) customer first, last and always as the nucleus of your work. Words to live by, regardless of generation.