Self Marketing

I decided to revive a long-lost interest and try my hand at cartooning. But it was an unlikely dream, given my complete lack of artistic talent and the rarity of success stories in that business. So I decided to try something called affirmations, which I will describe in more detail later in the book. I bought some art supplies, practiced drawing every morning before work, and wrote my affirmation fifteen times a day: “I, Scott Adams, will be a famous cartoonist.”

Marketing in other words is using the technology of ‘language’ in devious ways. Towards manipulation and subterfuge. At least that’s how I understood it.

This was when I was wondering if the power of marketing could be turned upside down. Towards yourself? Let me explain in a bit with my own use case.

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(Get up) - (Read Books) - (Take a shower) - (Phone calls) - (Eat Breakfast)

How boring does this all sound? Half way through I lose all my excitement towards the day and end up not doing anything at all.

Now how about I use the same language which you get to see in advertisements?

(Get up) becomes (Rise and Shine!), )Read Book) becomes (Enjoy a book), (Finish report) becomes (Get to see a completed report!). And so on..

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Framing is a very powerful weapon used in various places directly or indirectly. Words pop up images in your mind. Different words pop different images. It’s as simple as that. The image which pops up when I say ‘climate change’ is very different from the image which pops us when I say ‘global warming’, even though both essentially mean the same. (This article, Why It Matters How We Frame The Environment by Geoge Lakoff talks about this in deep)

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(Enjoy a book) triggers different images, as compared to (Read a book), making it more interesting for you to complete a task.

Which is what marketing does to you as well. Rebranding, relabelling and repackaging the same darn thing. Only this time around, you might actually fall for it?