📚 Summary: 'Maxims', by François de La Rochefoucauld (Part 2)
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Hi friends – Rob here. Today in Salmon Theory+: a summary of 'Maxims', by François de La Rochefoucauld (part 2). One of my favourite books ever. It's Twitter before Twitter was Twitter (and definitely before it became Xitter). And it's a massive inspiration for how i like to write. Maximum meaning, minimum means. With a little bit of paradox in there, sure. But that just makes it more interesting. Let's see what it can teach us about marketing ego. (Btw, i love this book so much i am doing this in two parts – part 2 is here.) 📝 TL;DR (part 1):
1. Introduce energy, not just intellect"An enthusiastic simpleton is more persuasive than a silver-tongued orator." As a non English native speaker, i relate to this a lot. I don't always have the best vocabulary for stuff, though i try my best. But as a Latin guy, what i can bring is a lot of energy to make up for it. Of course, energy and persuasion often go hand in hand. But our ego sometimes presumes all we need is to sound smart. And that we can do that at the expense of how we really like to express ourselves. Not true. Sure, adapting to your local language matters, and clear articulation of a problem or strategy makes a big difference. But sometimes, the role of a strategist is to inject a necessary dose of energy to identify a problem and get a process going. We don't need to be stellar orators to get people doing stuff. Sometimes all you need is to add some fire in their bellies. Introduce energy, not just intellect. 2. Your gut knows more than your mind"A spontaneous expression is often more accurate than the most studied effort." This, on the other hand, is equally true when you start reviewing the team's work. And again i find that enthusiasm can be a helpful starting point when words can't do justice. I firmly believe your body will know if something's good or bad before your mind does. And then the mind rationalises whatever we felt, so we feel like we're in control. So when we look at work, we should actually respect gut reactions. Because they're probably more truthful than highly accurate words. And they're closer to how real people perceive the work too. It's like an implicit research methodology. Just without the academic part. 3. You can't out-think your way of an emotional problem"An accurately defined wish is rarely ardently desired." I recently started developing a thesis about why strategists struggle with knowing what they want. I speak with tons of us and every now and then i spot the same pattern. We don't always consume stuff we like, we consume stuff that is useful. Because our job is less about what we want, it's more about what:
No wonder many of us over-think our lives. The flip side of all this: maybe it's ok. It's ok that we don't have perfectly articulated answers for what we want. According to L-Roc here, the deepest stuff isn't something we articulate. It's something we can only truly feel. Or, as i learned through therapy: You can't think your way out of an emotional problem. On which note... 4. Marketing is a game of emotional stamina"Mind cannot play the part of heart for long." Your marketing career is something that, naturally, you think about. But one of the most important questions i've always gotten back to is:
Honestly, my mind keeps going between the three every now and then. But one thing i do know: that this job is nothing without a good dose of stamina. So really, you need to be able to sustain your own interest. And that's something only your heart can help you with. Maybe it doesn't matter that i'll never have a conclusive answer. Contrary to a brief, our careers don't need to be single-minded. The world becomes more interesting if they're not. 5. Choose your influences based on your business context"It is harder to avoid being influenced than to influence others." Quick: who are the biggest influences on your work? Byron Sharp? Les Binet? Karen Nelson-Field? Jenni Romaniuk? None of the above? I ask this because i believe influence is something we like to think we control. But deep down we cannot, without a lot of 'unwiring'. When i worked on Cadbury, i got super into How Brands Grow. To the point i started distrusting any marketing activity that didn't follow its laws. Except of course, that's only one version of the truth, there are many others. And particularly for smaller brands, who may have distinctive asset potential but definitely don't have capacity to reach the entire category. So what do you do then? Perhaps someone like Mark Ritson is more appropriate then, as it teaches you to segment efficiently instead. So our influences need to change depending on the life stage of the business and brand we're talking about. Without acknowledging this, we become dogmatic very quickly. And dogma is just another way for our ego to feel right. Instead of our teams feeling effective. 6. Accept your flaws by turning them into advantages"Only the great have great faults. (...) Some bad qualities make great talents." Part of dealing with our own ego is accepting our own flaws. And accepting our own flaws has a bit of a practice to it. You see, if all you do is accept them, 🤷 style, you don't ever get better. If all you do is reject them, 😤 style, you don't ever get satisfied. The trick: accepting our flaws by turning them into advantages. This is how:
Key word: "can". It takes self-awareness, hard work, and a bit of humility along the way. Humility to know you can't fundamentally change parts of who you are. But you can learn to mitigate the risk they might cause to how you work with others. And by doing so, you slowly learn to dance with them in more helpful ways. 7. Forget being irreplaceable, aim to be unforgettable"The man who thinks he can do without the world errs; but the man who thinks the world can do without him is in still greater error." (The guy lived in the 17th Century, the book has a lot of "man" references when really he means "people".) Fundamentally, overcoming our ego is all about this. Knowing that we cannot do everything by ourselves. But even more importantly, it helps to keep our 'legacy' in check. Not in the megalomaniac way, but in a much more grounded way. Do you leave things in a better state than when you found them? The answer, we all hope, is "yes". But here's the rub, and it may come across as a harsh truth. You are not irreplaceable. And neither am i. But that's ok. It takes a healthy dose of confidence to know this is absolutely ok. You wanna know why? Because you may not be irreplaceable. But you can aim to be unforgettable. Take your time at a job as an opportunity to do things in memorable ways. That maximise the chances of others remembering you, the work, the ways of working. And, in turn, of doing some memorable stuff themselves. Making a mark is not about no one ever being able to fill the shoes we left. It's about ensuring people had a memorable time (in a good way) while we were around. Being irreplaceable is a myth. Aim to be unforgettable. 📝 TL;DR (part 1):
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