Could do BETTER

There was a line in an old physics school report of mine that has always stayed with me.

“He understands the subject fully, and will not let any point pass that he has not completely mastered.”

You can take that in two ways, can’t you? Particularly with the comma, which was definitely there.

Thinking back, I probably should have stuck with physics. But I decided to do an Engineering degree instead, which I didn’t find interesting.

So when it came to leaving, I scrambled my way into the den of iniquity that was the advertising industry. My dad was horrified.

I suppose the road not taken always has a particular pull. But deep down I know physics would have been the real test for me when it comes to learning how to think.

Anyway, it wasn’t. But the irony is that everything in my subsequent career has come back to a very physics kind of question.

What are the forces that drive behaviour, visible and invisible? And what can we do about them?

I still have an amateur’s enthusiasm for the science. Watching Brian Cox TikToks. Reading “What is Real?” by Adam Becker.

I’ve also managed to find a number of marketing metaphors in there, which have worked their way into posts. Everything from the origin of the universe to quantum entanglement.

I think that’s why I can’t help but build a Need Map. It’s still the only model I’ve ever found that brings structure to the flow of emotions we swim in. I love the simplicity of the two axes, one inner-directed to outer-directed, the other standing out to fitting in.

But coming back to that school report, the real thing is whether it was meant as a compliment or a warning.

I don’t just mean the idea of insisting a whole class of students move at your own personal pace of understanding.

It’s more the idea of mastering something. That never comes easy. I was thinking this weekend about a teenage Rory McIlroy in the front garden of his home in Belfast, practicing putting until dark. 10,000 hours to master the Masters.

Maybe I did get the hang of certain school-level aspects of physics. But I know the subject would have found me out eventually. Some aspects of physics are beyond us all. A single theory of gravity, anyone?

And I know, for absolute certain, that I haven’t mastered any aspect of marketing. If I ever get anywhere near thinking that, all it takes is one sharp post or comment to send me back to my humble pie.

So maybe the most important part of the quote is the “will not let any point pass”. Will not.

That’s what I bring to a project, hopefully. Someone who may start off knowing very little about your category, your customer, your company or your brand, unless I’ve been there before.

But then someone who won’t stop until I do understand. Particularly what people want and how best to give it to them.

I still think Mr Wilson might have been teasing me, though. He was like that.