Five life lessons from 40 years in the marketing world

I was reminded by family, friends, and fans that I am crossing several milestones this year.

• My first big book with a New York publisher, Return On Influence, was published 10 years ago.
• In June, I will enter the 10th season of The Marketing Companion podcast.
• My best-selling book, KNOWN was published five years ago.
• My first corporate job out of college was 40 years ago.

I am not a fan of anniversaries and milestones. Nobody really cares. Not even me. I’m much more interested in what’s coming next. So I’m not celebrating anything : )

But I thought about the amount of time I’ve been in the business world and wondered if I could distill this into a few teachable moments. As I look back, is there anything useful that I could pass along to you? Well, there’s a lot … but let me limit this to five lessons today …

1. Fire

As I think back on my career, it’s surprising how much I focus on the negative. When I consider career highlights, the things that percolate to the top are the things that went wrong. The worst bosses. Betrayals. The biggest disappointments and failures.

I have so much to be proud of. Why am I preoccupied with the hardships? I think it’s because, in the long run, the hardships matter more than the successes. I think I have done a good job of accepting the fire and using it for good, rather than dwelling on it in a destructive way.

Success is fleeting. Something good happens, you celebrate … and the next day it’s on to the next thing.

But the fire … changes you. Forges you into something new. In my case, not always for the better. But it changed me more than the success. Much more.

We are all equal in our humanity, and that means we will suffer. A key to success is learning to transcend the pain and leverage the experience in a way that helps you move forward with new strength.

Pain is an opportunity to gain a new superpower.

2. Experiments

A recent epiphany for me is that my career has been defined by a continuous set of experiments. I regularly start…