My WHY For Writing About Marketing

I felt like a metaphorical Titanic moving full steam ahead into the year-end iceberg of nothingness.

It was around mid-June 2023. I had just finished listening to Atomic Habits by James Clear.

Having read this excellent book on productivity and getting better, I felt really down for a few weeks, and then some harsh realisations hit me.

1. I was whiling away a lot of my precious time scrolling non-stop on social media, consuming endless content but forgetting about it soon after.

2. I was bottling up a lot of my precious knowledge inside me — gained through extensive reading and practice — that I thought people would find incredibly helpful.

3. I was feeling suffocated by not writing — which I have always done since 2008 — and expressing myself.

4. Aside from fitness, I had not managed to make inroads into any of the other goals I had set for myself at the start of the year.

5. While I’ve always followed the mantra of getting 1% better each day, I had not been consistent with and followed through on a lot of initiatives I had undertaken, so had not allowed myself the benefit of compounding and getting exponential results.

6. I am not very good at personal branding. In fact, as a marketer myself, I’d rate myself a lowly 2/10 at personal branding. The 2/10 I gave myself was entirely for speaking at several conferences in the past couple of years and drove thought leadership.

I wanted to change all of this.

I wanted to end my year with a bang (than with a whimper).

I knew I wanted to write. That I was sure about. But what should I write about?

I have been writing quotes, poems, letters, reviews, articles, and stories on my personal website Sushlit.com for the longest time. I’ve been largely consistent, but I haven’t marketed the website because creative thoughts and strong opinions can absolutely hurt your career prospects.

I have also written and self-published a roman a clef novella The Storm That Put Wind In My Writing Sails. But have again not marketed it for the above reasons, along with the fact that I am exceptional at marketing others’ stuff, but awful at marketing my own creations.

However, I love writing. I absolutely, undoubtedly do! I just needed to find what I wanted to write about.

So I was reminded of the Ikigai pie chart:

I was drawn to the 4 circles and thought about the answers to each of them:

• What you are good at: Marketing

• What you can be paid for: Marketing expertise

• What you love: Writing

• What the world needs: Useful and actionable ideas on Marketing

I added a few more circles to my Ikigai to complete it:

• What I wanted to improve in myself by doing it: Writing, marketing, and personal branding

• Why I wanted to do it: Learn and remember things about marketing and growth through practice and failures

And there I had it - my personal What You Should To Do.

It was: branding myself by writing about marketing.

I fondly call it Sushigai.

I also set myself a measly goal of 100 followers on LinkedIn in my first month, a goal that was easy enough that I’d not fail to achieve, given I was focused on consistency and long-term results rather than short-term gains.

As I tried to digest this, a few thoughts and concerns popped up in my mind:

Questions

• Congruency: Writing about marketing aligns my professional interests perfectly with my personal interests, and there is no incongruency unlike in the past when I did creative writing. This means I will be able to brand myself, something I’ve struggled to do in the past. Was this incongruency really holding me back?

• Creativity: Writing about marketing won’t really let me be creative, and I know for a fact that I am creative at heart. Am I willing to forgo creativity to write about marketing?

• Temporality: Having written about search marketing in the past, I was conscious that things in marketing keep changing all the time. So, what I might write now might not be relevant a few months later and won’t be read. I don’t like writing news. Am I willing to write about something that is quite temporal in nature?

• Consistency: Will I be able to write about marketing consistently every month? Will I be able to offer enough value every time? What will happen when life gets in the way - how will I manage then?

The more I thought about the above, the more I was able to clarify my thought process, my reasoning, and my answers to it.

Answers

• Congruency: Maybe it was the incongruency that was holding me back, maybe it was just me not branding myself/marketing my stuff well. There was only one way to know: to actually do it.

• Creativity: Creativity is integral to marketing, and marketing doesn’t exist without it. Storytelling is what makes marketing work, and creativity is at the heart of storytelling. I don’t have to be analytical all the time, if at all. I can have a creative take on anything related to marketing. I can be subjective and voice my strong opinions — something Mark Ritson does really well — without letting my analytical side rear its ugly head. I can be a marketer and a creative at the same time, period.

• Temporality: Yes, some aspects of marketing are temporal in nature, especially given how fast technology is changing and how big a part it is of marketing. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to write about in marketing that is not evergreen. In fact, marketing with its varied facets and links to fields as diverse and timeless as writing and psychology opens itself up to exploration which might endure for ages.

• Consistency: I’ve been good when it comes to consistency, but not great. I’ve been writing for one and a half decades and have several short pauses for a variety of reasons. But I love writing, and I love marketing, so there is no reason why I won’t be able to be consistent. Yes, life will definitely get in the way sometime in the future, and when it does, I’ll write something short but still thought-provoking. And yes, building upon all my writing, and leveraging all my experience, I am fairly confident that I will be able to provide value each time I write.

Thinking these things through gave me the added motivation that I will be able to walk the talk.

I didn’t waste any more time - I got to work immediately and started posting that same week around mid-June. I’ve been posting content consistently ever since then, content that I believe is really good (based on practical experience and extensive research)! Not just that, the perennial lurker that I am, I’ve been engaging with people like never before.

And guess what? I did hit my first-month goal too! I might be well on track to hit my subsequent goals too :)

Earlier this month, I got a chance to see James Clear in person, bringing my short transformation journey full circle.

Here’s me at the Atomic Habits by James Clear Live event :

Hope this inspires you to start taking small, daily steps to your Sushigai as well.

Onwards and Upwards!

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Until next time,

Sush