"Father of 6 gets standing ovation" was a title I read on a video in a mainstream news channel this morning. Hm.. Why would that be announced like that? If it was Kelly Clarkson or Imagine Dragons, they'd use "Their Name (real or created)... gets standing ovation" though that isn't considered noteworthy so it likely wouldn't be printed. As marketers, we use whatever seems to stand out. Does talent and ability really seem an odd combination if one's a parent? From there, I analyzed it -probably too much. The cliche thoughtforms created by brilliant marketers about "common" lifestyles and it's broad implications had to be typed out, lest I keep obsessing.
In regards to this thoughform - a dad - of 6, no less!! - can sing? Can sing good enough for a standing ovation? In life, we decide what to do with talents but singing to your kids or neighbors is no less talented or beautiful than singing center stage in Madison Square Garden - just different versions of reality. I would assert that it's ridiculous, how easy it is to get "the masses" to believe in a reality, generated by the highest bidder, even if it's harmful to that mass and the individuals that compose it. But let's digress a bit, or go talk in a triangle, as Mr. Carlson once told me I do.
"Individual with (insert any traditional lifestyle trait, ailment or hardship here) does (insert anything remarkable here)."
It's a common statement or title.
Though...
If a 'celebrity' - defined as someone who both has a talent and the placement to be featured in very specific categories of media - is ill, they are strong for pushing through it. If they have a lot of kids, they are pseudo-heros, if they make a mistake, it's a scandal - all told to us using the same channels of media (though different mediums as in magazine or blog versus news or a movie but funding and procedures come mostly via the same few sources). See the easily fashioned reality? It's created so that the 'masses' are perceived, and even self perceived, as unremarkable, generally speaking.
But we are all stars.
I've have and can live the life of having drivers, nannies (plural, one to always be with the baby and one to be cooking or getting things prepared for her), housekeepers, yard workers and fashion consultants. At one point, I had three homes, a massive RV, a timeshare and a trail of vehicles to manage while trying to keep up with a husband that never wanted to be in one place longer than a week. Kent Kartchner at Neiman Marcus in Scottsdale is still my favorite stylist (shameless plug), but when I'm there, in that life - when I was in the room next to Ben Stiller at Ivy during Comic Con or when getting my clothes sewn onto me while sipping champagne - that life is not different in terms of who I am, than any other time in my life. My core self was the same, talents and abilities the same as the ones I developed growing up in a progression of lifestyles. Running a life that, not only has but requires a staff, is not easier or more fun to manage than cleaning up after a traditional household with kids and pets and a yard, it's just different types of labor and different rewards, situations.
Our perception of how things play out in different socio economic groups is largely portrayed to us through media and even though we now see it's actually different, we know it is, but It's still persisting. The 'Us and Them' reality that isn't actually true. Go work with a politician - any one of them and see for yourself what their motivations are. Work with the semi-famous and see if it's glamorous. Put your kid in a private school and see if the kids really are mean or if the parents really just don't care and are pawning off their kids (any of these sound familiar?). I don't know what you'll find, I'm sure it's different in every possible combinations of a situation and that's just it...
One more.
Even if we don't read the magazines at the checkout line, if we are still in the checkout line so we still see them. Many of us still judge them - them being either the magazine, those who created it or the people and situations announced on the front. Have you ever met someone that had never seen those magazines? Someone who has never been in a checkout line? It's fascinating. Questions about why people buy magazines that watch and report on where people got their coffee or what they were wearing are interesting ones to answer. When you meet someone who's so 'privileged' that they spent their childhood racing their own yacht, lived on their family's private island and traveled and studied abroad, it's a great awareness - in my opinion at least - that comes when you can see that beauty of non-participation in societal norms. One man I worked with who had this life also chose to start a telecom company. It was a good one, too, and he was an excellent leader. His excellence came from his unwavering strength in his vision and implementation of what it took to produce it. Period. There were no politics because he was unaware of their existence. There was no playing to the boss because he didn't need anything other than his teams ability to produce a desired result. It was beautiful. A man of wealth and privilege who chose to live in a more 'common' place, socially speaking, who couldn't see the social strings I'm implying. Similar to the poor maiden who can't see why she's not as good as a princess so she meets a Prince and becomes one. Or is it similar? Similarly to my associate but also different, I can see all the norms but don't know how to live in one. I'm "consistently inconsistent" says my dad. One of my therapists told me he thought I was someone new every time I came in because I always looked different. I don't have a 'type' and I've been in business and marketing for a bit so I see the created cliches, who they are "sponsored in part by" and today, I suppose I feel compelled to talk about it.
What we are and how it's expressed in this world is important, but not important insofar as fitting into a social fad - and it's all fads if you can see them in media. A fad is researched, studied and built to keep you moving towards 'The Carrot', also carefully crafted and now, through technology, customizable to you and your every interaction. Right when you are about there, about to feel satisfied, the fad changes. The big house and boat go out of style after The Economy (also a creation that originally started as a days worth of work for a days worth of salt, but that's for another time) tanks. Now tiny houses and eco friendly are all the rage but where does all this other stuff go? Did we all really change or did the covers of our magazine go from red to green? Did our focus go from thin and sexy women to a broad array of individuals because it's more conducive to modern media and the general public's actual selves (which we now know through analytics and - sheesh.......)? Isn't it all just more conducive to causing the knee jerk responses that those sponsors need? And - is it really all that strange to believe we are all fantastic, but the more people we look at, compare ourselves to and think on the less time we have to be our fantastic? And that is a benefit to some.
Marketers are brilliant, if I do say so myself.
Do you know what it takes to get one person to change what they do? To change the way they think and then compel a purchase, a lifestyle decision or a belief in a generated reality?
Let me say, it's a lot harder to change that one individuals mind than it is to change a thousand of them.
From this, I say, keep going in your belief that you are superhuman, a superstar, a God or a hero. You are.
We, yes We Marketers, know you think that way. We compassionate people you've spilled your guts to know it, too. Us empaths that read your every move and emotion via instinct - we are aware.
Keep going. Don't sell out and don't buy in to anything that's not of you.
There is no 'Us and Them' - just 'Us' and the individuals that make up the Us as 'I' or 'i'.
We have an opportunity. To live in our own lives, to sing wherever we feel compelled to or to spend our time watching other peoples' lives. We choose to live or live vicariously and as a onetime caregiver for the elderly, I'll also say only one of these paths seems to be really rewarding and entertaining if you have the fortune of outliving your body's youth.
Do what you are and use what you do to do more - or less.
Speaking of which (and this is an afterthought, not the point of the content so if it's not for you, no worries), I'm doing a seminar called The Art of Shameless Self Promotion on July 26th, 2018 in Sandy, Utah.
Get details and your tickets here: http://bit.ly/ShamelessPromo
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