[NOTE: A version of this post appeared on my Medium blog in October. The story is even more relevant now.] In case you haven’t noticed, things are getting really weird. Global newsworthy weirdness aside, just look around your immediate environment. Perhaps you’re noticing a certain disruption in your daily life. A feeling of chaos. The …
Continue reading Personal Mastery Tools For Thriving In Chaos
Today would have been my dad’s 79th birthday. He’s been gone 5 years now and I miss him more each year and continue to learn so much from his presence in my life. A quintessential Libra, my dad was a relationship guy. He had a unique ability to forge and maintain deep, productive bonds with …
I love living in San Francisco. So much energy, creativity, big shit happening (in my best Ab Fab voice). The downside of so much shit happening: SO MUCH PRESSURE to go big. But how often do we stop to ask, "Is bigger better right now?" A lot of us are sitting on ideas that could …
Loyalty marketing is big business and I should know, it pays the mortgage and private school tuition. But lately, I've been feeling a big squeamish about the future of this once powerful technique to drive repeat sales. The signs of a slow, painful death are everywhere. Companies are struggling with rising liabilities, and increasingly low …
Continue reading A Framework for Sustainable Loyalty–Co-written with Aristotle
Over the past few weeks I've found myself in conversations with all sorts of dear friends experiencing trauma and personal pain beyond belief. Last Sunday I was chatting to my closest childhood friend who knows me better than anyone. She was telling me of a terrible thing that had happened to one of the children …
"What, you're doing it again? I thought you said you were finished acting?" Words I heard more than a few times after agreeing to reprise my rendition of Saundra Dern in the play "Stretchmarks: Growing Into Motherhood" last weekend at the Children's Creativity Museum. The play, co-written, produced, directed, and acted in by my dear …
And just like that, a year passes and spring returns revealing the gardens we once planted. Asking us to come back and start again. But always from a place that has grown more than we could have ever imagined. I can't believe that last year at this time my father had 25 days to live. …
Day 1 of the rest of my garden. Um, I mean life. Today I gathered enough greens, herbs, and flowers to save me, oh, I'd say about $25 at the farmers market. I didn't start this garden to save money. I never really thought growing my own food, at scale, was a possibility. So, I …
I was raised in a very tight-knit, cloistered, fundamentalist religion which some might even refer to as a cult. There was a lot of love, and a lot of rules, and a lot of unnecessary angst over doomsday rather than looking at the possibilities that now might offer. One of the things that was drilled …
I admit, I may be a little sensitive having just stepped off the Playa. My expectations of innovation have been elevated. But come on people, just because it's B2b marketing doesn't mean it has to be boring. Actually, I'm being nice to call what I experienced last week boring. The "demand generation" hit I experienced for Marketing Sherpa's fall B2b …
Continue reading Hey MarketingSherpa, Wake Up and Smell the Muffins.
Mary Gilbert 