I was recently asked why I was so pro-print and what its role will be going forward. And as many of my friends will tell you, that was a door they probably regretted opening. I could speak for two days straight on why print is the cat’s meow. So, after a big inhale, I let loose and explained that the relevance of print in today’s marketing mix is actually pretty significant—even with the emergence of AI.
If you haven’t heard, there is a new AI platform where you can ask the system anything you want and they will write you a detailed report, article, or proposal within seconds. It is pretty accurate and is, quite honestly, a bit of a marvel. The fact that the computer can spew out just about any content you want may seem super cool to many people, but I find it downright scary.
We all hit points when it seems like going on is next to impossible. When we’re already overwhelmed, it’s easy to talk ourselves into giving up, but giving up too soon could cause us to miss out on success. You never know how soon you might start seeing progress if you hang in there and give it a little bit more time. Too often, we jump into projects that we think are compelling and they seem to stimulate and us in the moment but something derails us.
If I told you that reading could save your life, would you do it?
We’ve lost our way and much of it is because we don’t read. We all know that we are addicted to devices and we’ve seen how they dictate our lives. We mindlessly stare at our screens watching other people live their lives or scroll endlessly in the hopes of finding something new and stimulating. But, our minds are not stimulated at all.
I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I have no issue with someone who wants to try new things like dieting or traveling more. These are admirable initiatives, but you cannot change how happy you are without committing to tried and true values of the past. New experiences matter but the values of kindness, hard work and honesty go back to the dawn of time.
While many of us hide behind our digital devices, we also tend to hide behind the idea that we are powerful leaders. Usually this means maintaining authority by directing, controlling, keeping it together and always having the answers. This may seem to check all the boxes of a good leader but when we lead in uncertain times it can actually cause issues.
David Brooks, author and columnist, talks a great deal about a moral ecology in the world. Specifically, he believes that the conscious ideas and values are what shape us. Whether it be the rewards we seek or the peers we hang out with, much of who we are is based on the narrative of the environment rather than something deep within us.
I am a little concerned that we’ve lost ourselves. Or maybe it is better put that we have buried ourselves so that nobody sees who we truly are. What I am trying to say is that we tend to view success largely based on superficial stuff and on-the-surface measurements. Money and fame and any other detail that is the narrative of society at large seems to be our focus. As time passes, I can’t help but think that real success is more about the inner mind, our unconscious reality, our intuitions and our character.
The Pareto principle—or 80/20 rule—asserts that a small amount of input or effort leads to the majority of results. So, most companies understand that 80% of their profits or revenue are generated by 20% of their clients. It also holds that a smaller amount of employees carry the larger burden for progress. The moral to the story for any business, organization or team would be to nurture and mimic the few—The Twenty—that get it right and then try to share it with others and multiply the effect.
Ignorance is not always blissful. I, for one, think that we could use a healthy dose of ignorance. I don’t subscribe to the need to know every little thing that happens in the world at a moment’s notice. In fact, if you turned off all of the digital noise for a couple of days, I suspect you would still know if anything really important occurred. Since when did it become everybody’s business to know everybody else’s business? It just seems like we simply know too much . And yet it is possible that we are more ignorant than we have ever been.
