Anna S. E. Lundberg

Coach, Speaker, Writer

Out of your comfort zone

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Today we joined millions of other people in visiting Thorpe Park, a theme park in Surrey, on a beautifully sunny Good Friday.

It’s fun to scream, to be a little scared, to set your heart racing.

Of course this kind of screaming, this kind of fear, is completely artificial and controlled: it’s all within certain pre-defined boundaries, the rides designed to push you just enough to feel exhilarated but not so much that you actually fear for your life.

Children love that feeling of danger, of excitement. As adults, though, we tend to mellow out. We like to feel in control, to stick with what we know, to stay in our comfort zone.

As we grow older and settle into a particular way of life, that comfort zone shrinks. We work in the same company for ten years and start to think that we can’t do anything else. We stay at home with the children and worry that we won’t be taken seriously when we go back into the workforce. We think it’s too late to learn a new skill, a new language, to do something completely different.

But we need to keep trying new things, to keep pushing the boundaries, to grow our comfort zone instead of shrinking it. That’s how we learn, how we stay interested, and interesting.

So go and try capoeira for the first time, buy an introductory course to Japanese, book that flight to a country you’ve never visited, go on a blind date, sit in a bar by yourself without playing with your phone, sign up for your first 10k.

A little bit of danger, a little bit of fear, is no bad thing.

View across Thorpe Park, Chertsey, Surrey
For those of you who know Thorpe Park: no, Storm Surge is not the scariest ride, but you try taking a photo when you’re hanging upside down at the top of Stealth…

(Wo)man’s search for meaning

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It’s Valentine’s Day! This February, romance has become even more of an irrelevancy to me than it was in 2013 so I’ll refer you to last year’s Valentine’s post with the remarks that the only things that have changed are that I’m a year older, I now have a gorgeous niece as well as a gorgeous nephew, and I do have a bit more time for dates should the opportunity arise.

Love, though, is an important part of every life, romance or no. In the words of Oscar Wilde, “A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” Love for your family, love for your fellow (wo)man, love of a pet, of nature, of life itself; and, yes, love for a partner.

The natural corollary of this kind of love is having children. This is, or at least has been, a necessary means of survival for humankind. In that sense, it is the fundamental meaning of life. I could never quite get my head around this, though: is the meaning of life really to be born, have children, and die, only so that those children can be born, have children, and die? It seems like cyclical reasoning that lacks meaning in and of itself. And, anyway, if having children were the ultimate meaning of life, what of those who can’t have children? Are they condemned to live an empty life devoid of any meaning?

Of course, having children is not just about perpetuating the human race. There are what one journalist in The Guardian calls “the traditional caveman reasons – carrying on your name, thinking about who will look after you in the future”. There is the incredibly romantic act of producing something that is half you, half the person that you love. There’s the fact that they’re just so darn cute. And there’s the fundamental desire to create something that will live on after you’re gone, a little drop of  immortality in your children’s genes, in their memories.

That desire to create something, to leave a lasting legacy, can take many forms. Such creativity is particularly found in the arts: paintings will remain on display long after the artist is dead and buried, symphonies will be listened to, plays enjoyed, books read. In a way, though, we’re creating a legacy with every action, every interaction. Not to mention our whole social media persona (although the sheer volume of information that is out there makes it all the more difficult to stand up and be counted).

There is an interesting Ted Talk on “The 4 stories we tell ourselves about death”, stories of avoiding death by achieving immortality in some form. Leaving a legacy, an echo in the world – whether by the pursuit of fame, or having children, or as part of a nation or a tribe – is one of these four stories.

So why are we so concerned about tomorrow? Is meaning to be found only in the future? What about that most fashionable of maxims that we must live for today, live in the moment?

There is that quote, now and then doing the rounds on Facebook, that may or may not be correctly attributed to John Lennon:

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

In a recent article in which The Shrink and The Sage tried to answer, Is it better to focus on today or tomorrow?, a study was quoted with the conclusion that “Happiness is about the present; meaning is about the future, or, more precisely, about linking past, present and future.” While worrying about the future is unproductive, as is dwelling on the past, a degree of reflection on the past and planning for the future is essential for making the most of the time that we have.

The importance of meaning, and not ‘just’ happiness, is the central tenet of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Based on his own experiences of Nazi concentration camps, he concludes that the strength to survive comes from having hope, having something to live for, quoting Neitzsche: “He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How”. According to Frankl, such a “How”, such a meaning, can be found in different ways: (1) by creating a work, i.e. by achievement and accomplishment; (2) by experiencing something – goodness, truth, beauty, nature, culture – or someone, that is, by loving another human being; and (3) by the attitude we take when faced with unavoidable suffering, in transforming a personal tragedy into a triumph. So meaning can be found in deeds, in love, even in suffering.

In that Ted talk that touched on our fear of death, philosopher Stephen Cave offers a final metaphor of life as a book, bound by its covers, by a beginning and by an end. That book can be full of adventures, of different landscapes, of exciting characters; in the end, all that matters is that the pages in between make up a good story.

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.”
-Viktor Frankl

Making money and doing good at the same time – is it really possible?

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“Profit’s not always the point,” says Harish Manwani, the Chief Operating Officer of Unilever, in a recent Ted Talk.

Manwani argues against the classic Invisible Hand of Adam Smith, and Milton Friedman’s statement, that “There is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.” It’s simply not good enough, he says. Companies must play a role in serving their communities, making money and doing good at the same time.

If you have eight minutes, watch the video here:

 

As an anecdote, Manwani tells a story that I recognise very well, of starting out in a multinational consumer goods corporation. His boss asked him why he was there, to which he answered: “I’m here to sell soap.” “No,” replied his boss, “you’re here to change lives.”

This mission is remarkably similar to the expressed purpose of Procter & Gamble and its slogan, “Touching lives, improving life”. And both companies’ claims are likely to be deemed absurd by the cynic who would make the cold observation that the purpose of these businesses is to make profit, delivering returns to shareholders, and nothing more.

unilever-website

Manwani offers an example of Unilever’s contribution in the form of a hygiene and health programme that benefits half a billion people. When I visit the Unilever website, the first thing I see is “Changing the climate for growth and development”, while Sustainable Living is one of the four main items in the top menu.

procter-and-gamble-website

The Procter & Gamble site likewise highlights Sustainability in its top menu, as well as in the carousel on the home page. P&G also has a number of global humanitarian initiatives such as its partnership with UNICEF on the Pampers brand, “1 pack – 1 vaccine”.

Is it all simply about building a brand image to sell more products and make more profit? And does it matter if it is, if they’re doing good in the process?

“Purpose” is a word being thrown about a lot in the last few years, but Manwani argues convincingly that purpose and values really are central to sustainable business in the 21st century. “Brands indeed can be at the forefront of social change. […] When two billion people use your brands […] small actions can make a big difference.”

That seems to have been the thinking behind Axe’s surprising new #kissforpeace campaign (incidentally, Axe is a Unilever brand). The agency responsible for the work says that it wanted to use the brand’s global influence in a positive way. As a marketer, I may well question the change of positioning, the brand character, the tone of voice… but as a human being, I say, good for them! If nothing else, Axe is donating $250,000 to Peace One Day, a non-profit organisation whose aim is to institutionalise Peace Day on 21st September every year.

In another recent campaign, Dove (another Unilever brand) continues to build on its Real Beauty campaign, which started ten years ago and addresses the issue of body confidence and women’s insecurities.

Yet another beauty brand, Pantene (Procter & Gamble this time!), recently aired a campaign in the Philippines that got global attention thanks, in part, to Sheryl Sandberg’s having endorsed the video on her Facebook page. Like Axe, the link with the brand benefit is tenuous at best… but what a powerful insight it taps into.

So from encouraging hand washing to striving for world peace, from boosting female body confidence to highlighting gender inequalities, these brands are raising, and to some extent addressing, real issues in the world. They’re selling products, yes, and they’re making money, of course; but they are also managing to do some good.

What do you think? Are you unimpressed by what these global brands are doing? Should they do more? Or should they stick to what they know, selling soap, and forget all this doing good business?

Of course, the question of doing good and/or making money is not just a question for businesses, but also for individuals, as we make our career and life choices. But that’s a topic for another day…

Ch-ch-changes: What I love most about rivers is…

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“You can’t step in the same river twice,” said Pocahontas. Or was it Heraclitus?

Everything changes, even you, despite what Take That may have had to say about it.

We must change or become stagnant, says my dad.

But not all change is good. Change for change’s sake is unlikely to be effective. Don’t change a winning horse. If it aint broke, don’t fix it, as my mum says (- sometimes even if it is broke! Hehe…). Conventional wisdom, it seems, can’t quite make up its mind.

I recently completed a psychometric questionnaire for a job interview, which placed me off the chart in terms of embracing change, adapting to change, driving change – so it seems I’m more in my dad’s camp when it comes to valuing change over stability. I’m at my most creative in situations that are rather unstructured, I enjoy new challenges, and I have zero tolerance for dogmatism. Who wants to do the same thing over and over? Been there, done that, written the tweet.

Digital marketing, then, is a pretty good fit for me. Technology is constantly advancing, consumer behaviour changing, best practices evolving. It’s incredibly stimulating: a never-ending learning curve, an opportunity to evolve along with the changes in the field.

But it’s exhausting! You’re always in flux, working towards a moving target, devouring news across a gazillion platforms to stay on top of the latest developments, always ‘on’.

And, sometimes, the old approach may still be the best one. Building further on the fundamentals you’ve already put in place may be more effective than jumping on the latest #bandwagon.

I think the same is true in life. Being constantly on the lookout for something better is exhausting, too. Life is not always greener on the other side; and, even if it is, what happens when you get to that other side? Is life even greener on another other side? You can get stuck in an ever-continuing spiral of raising the bar, setting your sights ever higher, dreaming new and more ambitious dreams.

Such is human nature. Our desire to innovate, to learn and adapt, has allowed us to survive, and thrive, where other species have faded away. We need only look at the well-documented cases of Kodak and Blackberry for evidence of this phenomenon in the business world.

So to change or not to change, is that the question? Well, a certain amount of change is inevitable. That river is going to change, whether you want it to or not. In fact, you’re going to change whether you mean to or not. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to accept it. And, as with most things in life, the sweet spot is most likely to be found in some balance between stability and change. Yin and yang, consolidation and expansion, continuity and evolution. Such is the delicate seesaw of life.

 

This post was inspired by an article from The Shrink & The Sage in the FT Magazine, Should we embrace change?; as well as by recent discussions with my parents.