Self to Systems

Marketing to Yourself for Personal Growth

Marketing is often viewed as a manipulative process of getting someone to buy something, even if it won't benefit them. However, there is a branch of marketing that focuses on being ethical and putting the actual needs of the consumer first. In this episode, I explore how we can take the lens of ethical marketing to help ourselves reach our goals with more empathy, honesty, and authenticity. Mentioned in this episode: * Seth Godin's blog [https://seths.blog/] * This Is Marketing!, Seth Godin (affiliate link to Bookshop.org) [https://bookshop.org/a/95928/9780525540830] * The Five Why's Wikipedia Page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys] Bonus Quote: "What's difficult? What's difficult is changing your attitude... You don't find customers for your product. You find products for your customers." - Seth Godin, Seths.blog, December 23, 2009 [https://seths.blog/2009/12/first-organize-1000/]

Adjacent Possible

Working towards our goals is often not straightforward and it is easy to lose hope, fall into decision paralysis, and/or become gripped by perfectionism. In the episode today, I talk about the idea of 'adjacent possible' scenarios that emerge as we make incremental progress toward our goal and how focusing on taking any informed action gives us more opportunities than we had before. Mentioned in this episode: * ClubMäksē [https://makselife.com/pages/clubmakse] and the MäksēLife planning system [https://makselife.com/collections/free-printables] * Episode on cycles and the Hero/Heroine's Journey [https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jennifer-page0/episodes/The-HerosHeroines-Journey-e2710b9] * "Adjacent possible" as coined by Stuart Kaufman - first mentioned in his book Where Good Ideas Come From [https://bookshop.org/p/books/where-good-ideas-come-from-the-natural-history-of-innovation-steven-johnson/587260?ean=9781594485381] and explored further in an article [https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_100-1] by Lennart Björneborn * Episode referring to Goals as Airports, Lighthouses, and Plumes [https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jennifer-page0/episodes/Goals-as-airports--lighthouses--and-plumes-e26nveb] Bonus Quote: “Instead of spending your time worrying about finding the right topic, you will spend your time actually working on your already existing interests and doing what is necessary to make informed decisions – reading, thinking and writing. By doing the work, you can trust that interesting questions will emerge. You might not know where you will end up (and you don’t need to), but you can’t force insight into a preconceived direction anyway." Sönke Ahrens, How to Take Smart Notes [https://bookshop.org/p/books/how-to-take-smart-notes-one-simple-technique-to-boost-writing-learning-and-thinking-sonke-ahrens/18400756?ean=9783982438801]

The Hero's/Heroine's Journey

What is the impact when we look at our journey as a straight line? A circle? A spiral? A web or a fractal? This episode connects the idea of Self to Systems to different constructs used to describe our life journey and how our point of view can affect our outcome. Mentioned in this episode: * Hero's Journey [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey] * Hero's Spiral [http://www.thearetical.com/blog/the-heros-journey-in-advertising] by Thea Cooke [http://www.thearetical.com/about] * Heroine's Journey from Sharon Blackie [https://sharonblackie.net/about/]'s If Women Rose Rooted [https://bookshop.org/p/books/if-women-rose-rooted-a-life-changing-journey-to-authenticity-and-belonging-sharon-blackie/275924?ean=9781912836017&gclid=Cj0KCQjwqs6lBhCxARIsAG8YcDhKjBs51J5r-Sqr3dYhN_E6ft6TynTHiw6Yrml0XsoDuhe2tIF0am0aApA2EALw_wcB] * Spirograph [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirograph] - Example of an image [https://d1jqecz1iy566e.cloudfront.net/detail/kah002/8.jpg] made with a Spirograph - a single continuous line that eventually reconnects while continually overlapping previous paths Bonus Quote: “The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.” - Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World [https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-eye-of-the-world-book-one-of-the-wheel-of-time-robert-jordan/17228953?ean=9781250251466] from The Wheel of Time series.

Goals as airports, lighthouses, and plumes

How we think about goals can impact how we navigate to reach them. No metaphor is wholly helpful or harmful, and each can have a different effect on us depending on how we apply it and even our past history with similar concepts. What metaphors do you currently find helpful when journeying toward your goals? Mentioned in this episode: * The 1 in 60 rule implications for flight paths towards airports (e.g., this article from Veteran's Magazine [https://usveteransmagazine.com/2022/08/1-60-rule-remarkably-successful-people-stay-track-accomplish-biggest-goals/]) * Goals as lighthouses as expanded on by Ryder Caroll [https://usveteransmagazine.com/2022/08/1-60-rule-remarkably-successful-people-stay-track-accomplish-biggest-goals/], the creator of the Bullet Journal Method [https://bulletjournal.com/pages/book] * Plume sources and crab behavior: image of a crab in a plume of odor [https://astro.umaine.edu/event/science-lecture-series-dr-jennifer-page/] with some legs in and some legs out of the scent and an image of what a full plume looks like [https://cob.silverchair-cdn.com/cob/content_public/journal/jeb/214/9/10.1242_jeb.049304/5/jeb049304f1.jpeg?Expires=1690977328&Signature=1hJqjx~HhK~WuaBOwVe9RYO6jeRrOzpSBUST-1NOVKvN7TnQQR4F10pZJtM4Hb7RjWcEhkMR~al68~~P22n0AwMxSQYENhVhvrNj7p61QTQvFbg9s7ImARTRPMp-rMwSHVTXWOsUppXqbAsv3EE7VkFUbZUAeBBM2NWrrycbQsVkPMueAjXa5lbEXNNM4ja3rsW3GUwmdwf4USZ1fSQNkT0bVx5~2mz169IOh35PCq6CyKuxdzwi5uJNDQq4O~Oe33Enx7PWBLCewfXemPv2KwcwXpG8BTMjX6R6LpFD1dP10BAbpdyyr0qcuYAXh4nUeOAqRleduOswPStXZH7v6w__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA] that a crab would track from this research paper [https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/214/9/1513/10711/Staying-the-course-chemical-signal-spatial] studying this context-dependent goal-directed behavior