Roy Abdo describes meeting a distressed woman at a bar whose unhappiness came from living in an imagined version of her life instead of accepting reality. He argues that humans' unique capacity for imagination fuels both suffering and creativity, and that marketers who blend data with emotional vision gain a competitive edge in a world where technology has made traditional business advantages obsolete.
Chapters
We're on our way back from New York to DC. I'm gonna tell you a little story that after we finished the vlog last night, we went out, Jeff and I, to a bar to get some food. So we're sitting down and there's two ladies sitting next to us and one of them is clearly unhappy about life. I don't know what happened, but she was not happy. So we're sitting down and Jeff goes like, "Hey, how are you guys?" And then I mean, clearly she was not communicating back. So it's just like I asked her, is everything okay? What's going on? It turns out that she got divorced and she has the custody of her daughter, and she's always flying to New York for the daughter to see the dad. And she was unhappy about this whole situation where she has to fly every week. And that kind of frustrates her and then just kind of like cluttered her mind, and she was just clearly not feeling it and drinking So I asked her, I was like, what is the most upsetting to you about this? Is it the travel? Is it— what is it? She goes, that's not how I imagined my life to be. I'm like, what about not living in what you imagined your life would be and be in what it is right now and deal with the reality? You can't change his feelings, but what you can change is how you react to it. To his feelings. And she was like, "What do you mean?" I'm like, "Simple fact. I mean, the reason why you're so upset right now is because you're living in the imagination of how things could be and how things would have been and this whole vision that you had for yourself. But if you go back to the drawing board and realize that you can reorchestrate this, you can just redraw things, you can draw a new board, and it doesn't have to be with him. It can be with other people. It could be without them. It could be with this new reality." your life would just completely change. She goes, I've never thought about it this way. I'm like, listen, life is what you make out of it, and today you're here, tomorrow you might not be here. Might as well enjoy your day and make it happen so tomorrow could be another awesome day versus regretting what happened in the past. And then kind of like, you can clearly see her body shifting and her, you know, like her body language shifting shifting and her openness was just coming together. I just thought it was— it's just so awesome how shifting the perspective could just shift your reality, you know. I mean, and then like, think about we're the only species in the world, you know, animals can't do this. Humans are the only people on the planet that can imagine things, and that imagination can go both ways. It can go negative and go positive, right? Because the reason you can imagine things, you can just draw those visuals and those future plans plans and even go back in, you know, memory to put in, draw some plans. That could be great advantage to, you know, imagining that did not exist, but also it could be, you know, deteriorate you from living in the moment and building the, you know, building the future you want to build for yourself. So we should start talking about like how we're so unique in that aspect and we just don't think about it, that how blessed we are to be able to change our thoughts, because once you change your thoughts, you change your reality. And once you change your reality, you could— it could be any reality you want. So I just kind of thought of a cool story to share with you, and I think that's the other The other piece of— the other piece that I was— we were talking together about it was when you think about creativity and you think about the imagination we have, that's what I love so much about marketing. The ability to kind of like take a client, take a project, and then see it from a whole different perspective. Perspective that people could not imagine it. I mean, in reality, a good, a great marketer, great strategist, you gotta know the skills, but the creative, you have to come up with it. So kind of like, you gotta go back when you were a kid and you're experimenting things. And what happens when you're growing up, society kind of like puts a lot of pressure on you. No, this is wrong, this is right, you cannot do this, you cannot mix those two foods. I mean, people tell me all the time like, oh, you don't mix this and that. I'm like, who said so? Like, all those rules were made by people. You just can make up your own rules. You don't, you don't have to follow their rules. You can make your own rules of what goes with what and how things are told. And if there's adoption, there's basically people are liking what you're doing, right? I mean, so the whole thing with me is like when you think about creativity is yes, you gotta know the data, the content, the technical skills, all those kind of abilities, but it's, it's the beauty of your mind imagining things that were not there creating them, testing them, and launching them. That's what I love about my work in terms of like the creative aspect of it. And of course there's a whole data piece and all this other stuff which makes it way more fun because you actually, you can test your creative and you can see how it's working and you can test the product. I mean, you're in a day and age where you don't have to build a whole company to know if that product or that idea is going to work. All you have to do is create a little content about it, some videos and stuff. You don't have to create the solution, just put a little ad with that product and see if there's traction, see if people subscribing to it, people clicking on it. If they're clicking on it, that means there's something in there, so you can go out and build that product. So how awesome it is that something you imagine, you can just go out and build it without building the actual product, and if there's demand for it, you can just go actually and build the product. It just kind of keep me thinking how blessed we are, and, uh, we just They just don't take it as seriously when you think about the opportunities we have. It all happens, just why? Because of the internet, right? I mean, because of Facebook abilities, because of all those targeting abilities. And 99% of people just are not comprehending how this new reality is shifting all the business, the processes. I mean, like if you think about even when you go to college, they teach you like the perfect economy because there's perfect, you know, everybody, information is all the demand and supply and everybody knows the information. Guess what? We're in this day and age where you can take your phone, scan a barcode, and you can know the price across all the spectrum. So there's actually perfect competition almost when you can just know the price everywhere, right? And just— and like, that kind of thought has not been taught in schools yet, right? Why not? I mean, they're still teaching you how things were versus how things are moving and how technology is shifting, you know, the realities. But No matter what, we're still— our brain is still highly emotional versus rational. So I mean, the whole split of like 80/20, 80 emotional and 20 rational, is very real. So even when you think you're being rational, are you being emotional in your rationality? Does that make sense? So don't think about yourself, oh, I'm so rational. I'm like, no, you're not. You're just emotional, but you're trying to think rationally about it, how to move things, because you just can't. You're wired, you're wired with emotions, you're wired with feelings, and you start projecting your biases on things, and no, this wouldn't work, this would work. There's so much power over the energy you project on your thoughts in your brain, because it drives the emotion, and once you drive emotions, it could drive other people's emotions. And then the whole thing about being, the success principle for me is the more you're in touch with your emotion, the more other people feel your emotions, the more they're driven to do business with you. Like, one of the great books I was talking about was Never Eat Alone, where the guy goes on the thought process of you should open up to other people and also share beyond work with them, share personal experiences, because that's what makes us human.
