Brene Brown

In marketing “failing” is TESTING

Fear, Human Brain, Marketing, Testing

A lot of people in life go about scared of failing. There could be a lot of professions where failing is considered to be a “sin”. In marketing on the other hand if you don’t try different things you won’t know what will work.

You can’t try out different things without failing. If you don’t fail, you can’t succeed in marketing. That’s why in marketing they prefer to use the word testing.

In marketing you have to test everything – from your market, to your message, to your medium.

I have written a lot of posts on the concept of testing in marketing. So why this addition post. Today I was watching a video of Brene Brown on Netflix. I watch this video from time to time.. The video is all about how shame is the primary reason people don’t succeed. Each time I watch, this video, one thing that stands out is that it is the shame of failing that creates the fear in our mind for trying anything.

While I also fall prey to not trying because of fear, I have seen sometimes ,that the thing that I am resisting , is actually what can solve a lot of my problems. But because my brain wants to protect me from the shame, just in case I don’t succeed, it creates this fear inside me.

In early days of human evolution it was the physical fear of getting killed that caused our brains to resist trying something new. But now those kind of things are very few. Its more about ” what people will say” that causes us to not try anything.

While in your life you may decide to take chances or not is your choice. But if you want to succeed in marketing, you will need to test all the time. A lot of the tests will not work, but you learn from them and move forward.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Hard-work + Taking Chances = Success

ego, Fear, Human Brain, losing, Worry

I was watching a video on Netflix, The Call to Courage by author & researcher Brene Brown today afternoon. Its about 80 minutes long, but she keeps you engaged all through the eighty minutes. Her talk is about vulnerability, shame etc. and all its various connotations. I had read a lot about her books, when reading other authors, but never quite got to the stage a actually reading one of her books. Today while doing some research on her, I actually found this video on Netflix, so I decided to spend time watching it. it was time well spent. I would highly recommend watching it. I have downloaded it so that I can watch it a couple of times more.

While there are a lot of Aha moments in the video, one which kinda stuck with me is a statement she made – Success is all bout doing the hardworking and taking chances. You could fail, but its about getting down into the actual field and playing and then figuring out how to win. You can keep sitting in the stands and comment about how things should be, but its all about playing which decides if you have the chops to win.

You cannot lose any game that you don’t play. A lot of us, including me a lot many times, take the easy way out because our brain does not want us to lose. Its hardwired to protect us at all costs. So even failing in front of others is a major set back to our brain. I have written about this in multiple posts over the years. But she put a different perspective and therefore I am recommending, watching the video. It will be time well spent.

Most of the times its our brain, which is the actual culprit – because it doesn’t want us to take chances. When I was watching the video I could recollect so many situations, where I din’t take a chance and maybe things would have turned out to be different. But then that’s history….

Till next next time then…take your chances…don’t have regrets in your life.

Carpe Diem!!!