NOW I Know Why I Became a Philosophy Major

  Marketing is hard work. Philosophy was hard too, but in a completely different way. I had to think my way out of things. I'm fine with that. I like thinking. I'm good at it. Marketing requires talking. It requires enthusiasm. It requires time. These are all things I am not great at. I can write marketing copy, but ask me to do a sales pitch at a meeting or send compelling Facebook status updates, and I can't promise it'll be as good as a short story or an essay on morality I might write.
    I would much rather try to understand why we make decisions based on impulse rather than reason than try to understand which marketing phrase or button color is going make somebody click on a link to buy something.
    I love learning, but learning about marketing doesn't feel learning. It feels like Einstein's definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. While I consider myself both a creative and logical, I don't feel like those qualities help me at all with marketing. It's like you can try ten different methods and they all work, they just only work about 1 percent of the time, so you only get about 10 percent ROI (new term I learned--Return on Investment--learned something, at least!).
    I don't like trying to sell people stuff they don't want. I know most of my family and friends don't want to learn qigong (the freelance project I'm helping my friend with), and most of them don't actually want to read my books either, no matter what they say. That's ok. I don't expect them to. But what would be better is if they share at least some of these ridiculously salesy tweets and links I keep posting to my guest posts and my blogs and my books so that even if they're not interested, maybe someone they know is interested and will stumble upon it with interest.
    One thing I've learned about marketing is to Pay It Forward. If you help Deb out, she'll help Jack out and maybe eventually some of that good karma will come back to you. That is what I'm looking for. A little pay-it-forward. If it really doesn't interest you, and you really don't think the people you know would be interested, then don't share that link. I'm not supporting blind endorsement. That is basically spam. You're probably right if you think the people you know wouldn't be interested. But if it might be interesting to some of your friends, or if there was something about it you liked, then please, share it!
    I'm not afraid to admit that marketing/social media is not my strong suit. I'm ok with that. I'd much rather be a better writer than a better salesperson. In any case, I'm glad I spent my time in college learning philosophy. I would have been miserable trying to understand marketing, economics, or social media for business for four years.

The beat goes on.