My Dream Job

Just recently, several people have asked me to describe my dream job, with a view to helping me obtain it. I’ve been lucky enough to have worked in situations that came close to my ideal job, so I know that such a thing exists out there somewhere.

My ideal job goes by a number of different names, depending on the company, the country, the form the industry takes there, and the context. So, best to go by what that job entails, in the list below, rather than mutable names.

The trick, I believe, in finding my Dream Job is to visualize it, describe it, and then find it. “Dream it into being,” as my saying goes. I’ll keep adding to this page as the vision keeps becoming clearer.

BTW, this page works best when read in combo with my About page, by the way.

My Dream Job…

• All about marketing, about selling – ideas, dreams, experiences, services, things, brands, lovemarks, radical changes, visions, hopes, needs, wants, desires, and more.

• Based in storytelling – because stories are the essence of human communication and have been from the beginning of time, and because, quite simply, they work.

• Stories told in a myriad of forms – because in this day and age so many ways of doing it are available, especially the digital and the experiential.

• About the intimate fusion of the visual with the verbal – because while some of us are right or left-brain dominant, you cut through to everyone with stories that work beautifully both ways.

• Doesn’t isolate channels, media, content types or means of communicating into silos, fortresses and power bases – because human beings respond to messages well told in many different forms.

• Picks and chooses the best media for the message, as the project demands – because some work better than others at doing certain types of things.

• Engages all the senses - because we respond best to total immersion.

• An appeal to the emotions and then to the mind - because that is simply how human beings work, feeling first and then rationalizing feelings have caused us to want.

• Allows me to aim high, as high as the stars, as well as risking a fall – because failure is nothing to be ashamed of, and failing helps us to grow, most often exponentially.

• Disruptive in an age of disruption - because business as usual is dead, dead, dead, and nothing will be same as it ever was.

• Its clients mantra is not “You and I are smart enough to get this, but our customers are just way too stupid.” – I was told that once by the Marketing Director of a major finance corporation whose customers were high nett worth individuals and institutions. Hello? “Way too stupid?”

• Its clients’ mantra is “Astonish Me!” – because if we astonish our clients then we astonish their customers too.

• Its clients know they can’t cringe their way out of a crisis – because times like this demand POSITIVE ACTION NOW, not curling up in the fetal position in fear.

• Takes me to wherever the projects are – because the world truly is a global village and I am at home wherever I need to be.

• About assisting my colleagues in being the very best that they can be – because it is our responsibility to help liberate everyone we work with.

• Has me working with the Best of the Best – causing me to better myself yet again, and for us to find and assist others to do the same.

• The source of endless joy – because our daily work should never be a misery, and our happiness in our work rubs off in the results, and on each other.

• Leadership without hierarchies or command-and-control – because if I don’t thrive in that kind of regime then my colleagues won’t either.

• Calls on all my skills and knowledge – because no human being is one-dimensional. Those skills are there just in they need to be used on a practical basis, but I’d far rather teach them to others when necessary, and watch them go further with them than I ever did.

• Demands I acquire new skills and knowledge – because I love learning, and I thrive when doing it on a daily basis.

• Constantly challenges and amazes me – because that means massive personal growth and shows that my colleagues are growing too.

• About bringing new worlds of the imagination into being – because humanity has not even begun to reach its limits, and we have no idea what we are truly capable of.

• All about ideas, great ideas, incredible ideas, remarkable ideas, strange ideas, weird ideas – because there are more things in heaven and earth, Horacio, than are dreamt in your philosophy.

• Permits me to say “I don’t know” – and then allows us all to discover the way.

• Smashes glass and concrete ceilings – because none of us should ever be kept down for any reason.