Impress the Gods, because trying to impress people is a waste of your time

It’s time to cast aside the emojis and instead begin to forge yourself from obdurate granite, battle to impress the Gods, because trying to impress people is a waste of your time.

You work in marketing. We all do, and it’s one tough gig. Every single one of us is a content creator. A walking, talking, 24/7, real time production of the most epic series you will every star in. For some it’s obvious – their output materialised as reels, streams, tiktoks and social commentaries on everything from Reddit to Rumble. But for the vast majority of us that daily and endless content is nothing less than our very lives.

Regardless of the medium – we are all seeking approval in one form or another, the dire risk lies in whom we are seeking it from. Relying on the approval of others is nothing short of an expressway to confusion, disappointment and a dampening of your very soul. Those on the other side of that equation are no less human and flawed than you are – how can they possibly hold greater qualifications in the assessment of your behaviours and actions than you?

The alternative is you must set your own standards. Building and internalising a clear set of standards and metrics that you hold allows for immediate and honest feedback. It provides a mechanism for real time adaptation, course corrections and refinement. There exists no greater critic than your own honest inner dialogue. Brutal, immediate but also private. The flip side is no one can cast shade on the infinite internal sunlight that comes for experiencing your standards and behaviours deliver in the real world – sometimes that will be tangible; the goal hit, the project delivered, the race run. Other times it will be the intangible; the untroubled sleep of the honest, the brave, the righteous, even just the ’better than yesterday’.

When your value is decoupled from something as fickle and transient as the approval of others you are finally set free to produce, act, direct and respond in a manner befitting someone worthy of the stories of old. And those that value you will find you anyway.

Let the endless tide of critique thrown by those who hide outside the arena be dashed against the bulwark of your immutable self-governance.

Forget the emojis, carve yourself from stone and battle to impress the Gods.