A couple months ago my guides told me not to worry about everyday things in life, that spiritual exploration was what I really needed to pay attention to. They also told me that I was wasting too much time worrying about my career progression. The message that my classmate passed on during the reading was that if I applied my guides' principles to these areas of my life they would unfold naturally. The idea was reassuring, but until this past week I hadn't had any guidance about my job and my career, so although I wanted to follow their advice I didn't know how to go about it.
On Wednesday this week I was sitting in a training session on business planning, and how we need to approach this with our brands to be successful. There are so many levers to pull, when you are a young brand manager it can be a little bit daunting to choose the right mix. Do I want to run TV to generate awareness of my existing products, or should I focus my efforts on a new launch? Then you need to choose the mix: TV, radio, press, online, sampling or in-store promotions? And in the UK's very trade focused environment, how much of a discount do consumers need. (I have a whole other post to write on the energetic impact of price discounts, I wonder if our bargain hunting is driving value and abundance out of the world. Even if it’s on basics or quasi commodities).
Back to the point about marketing and brand planning. Before the plan is agreed, a lot of the key stake holders need to be involved. What do the finance, sales, trade marketing and supply teams think? Who else do we need to convince? As I am writing this I am becoming very excited at the idea of going through this process. Moreover, my guides have now given me a new and exciting way of approaching the task:
PRETEND IT'S A GAME
When we were sitting through this lecture my third eye popped open and I started seeing images of a Mario Bros Game, you the one we used to play as kids? Luigi, Mario, cashing up on stars and lives in order to get past the Dragon at the end. All of the core principles that apply in a Mario Bros Game also apply in real life, and in my job in particular.
The message was very clear overall, I should approach my job and the company where I work as a game that I need to learn to play. There are lots of rules to pay attention to in my day to day life, but there are also cheats that will help me get ahead (kind of like warp zones that get you from level 1 to level 5, or a certain brick that will give you an extra life when you break it). I really liked this vision, my guides spoke to me in Nintendo metaphors that made it so much easier to understand their key principles:
Gold Coins: if you think back to the Mario Bros Game, you could accumulate coins that would give you extra lives when you reached 100. This would let you take "risks" during the game, as you had a reservoir of coins/lives to fall back on. In the work life, our credibility is much like this reservoir of coins. Every job well done will give us dozens of coins, and this will help us bankroll the trickier moments (and the mistakes). The message was not to worry too much over getting every little thing right. if I accumulate enough coins I will have something to fall back on.
Get Around Brick Walls: One of the images I got was Mario running into the same dungeon wall over and over again, before he finally used the jump button to go over the wall. If one approach isn't working just change tactic, look for the power jump button and get out of there.
Pause Button: This is a biggie, especially for those of us who have trouble disconnecting from the job. Remember how easy it was to hit pause and go get a sandwich or a snack? Hit the pause button when you go home, and unfreeze it the next morning. The game will still be there for you.
Multiple Lives: We all start out with 3 lives, you can make a big mistake and start fresh again.
Warp Zones: It can be really tough to work you way through all 8 levels on Mario Bros, and it takes a lot of time and practice to get there. Nintendo built in warp zones so we can get to the fun stuff faster. We have warp tunnels at work too, they come in the form of people we meet that can throw us a life line and bring us up to the next level. Working relationships are all important for this reason, playing well with others will fast track our progress.
Game Over / You Lost: This can happen too, though I'd like to think that it’s about life cycles coming to an end and I hope that it doesn't mean that one day I get fired (although that's also a possibility). At the end of the day, when the Game Over screen pops up, what do we do? It's usually when we need to decide if we want to play again, or if we'll leave it and come back another day. Either option works.
Finally, it's just a game! The big thing for me to focus on in this lifetime is the spiritual path.
