I started a business. It made me want to drink copious quantities, smoke myself into oblivion and hit my head against a brick wall. Instead I wrote a blog.
Am filled with renewed vigor and purpose today. Why? Because I have warm feet. Men are fixers - as you know - and yesterday after I broke down, my boyfriend cuddled me and said
'Why don't you list the things that are wrong and we'll see what we can do?'
'There are so many things.' I said tearfully. 'There are just too many things. And on top of them all, my feet are cold.'
He's a man of action. So the first thing he did was to get me a pair of hiking socks. And then he asked me where my slippers were.
'But I don't have any slippers.'' I said. Yes, I managed to bring several months worth of toiletries with me, but no slippers.
So, the second thing he did was order me some slippers on eBay.
Today the fact that there are too many things to do, seems exciting. And when I am looking after my daughter, enjoying her accelerated learning of vocabulary, and her wondrous ability to shout a rock version of Baa Baa Black Sheep in Swedish, 5% of me will be savoring the anticipation of getting down to playing the game, writing the wiki, sorting out bugs, editing the reports and seeing what progress the developers have made in my absence. Because today I have warm feet.
It's a correlation that many people don't notice; but keeping warm and good humor are inextricably linked. Warmth in the human psyche is linked with love, and most people make decisions based on or out of love (whether they realize it or not). A very good friend of mine has just uploaded a report to our website called 'Creating Brand Love'...It's a freebie report, so short. But it gets right down to the good stuff - a Star wars character analysis, real life examples and of course, Love.
Whilst we don't know why we love (scientifically, there seems a very big justification in sexual pleasure, for procreation but very little justification for the impetus to write sonnets), we know that love is hugely important. "They live for love, die for love, kill for love. It can be stronger than the drive to stay alive." says Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University. And given the fact that love and the hunt for it can drive our every decision, it seems a sadly neglected area in Marketing.
That's because marketing is traditionally based on the cold clinical economic analysis - demand versus supply and the maximization of self-interest; rational economics - mainly hinging on the price part of price, promotion, product & placement.
Thankfully for us we have Knowler on the Investment Impact team seen here fresh from scattering love and fairy dust on our brand....