Daily Lab: The emergency inside

I’ve said before that there’s no such thing as a marketing emergency.

But I was a bit too flippant, then.

Not because there are marketing emergencies, but because it feels like there are.

Have you ever spent a large amount of money on marketing, with no clear results? I bet that felt like an emergency.

Have you ever had someone respond to a marketing message with negativity, cruelty, or outright lies? That almost certainly felt like an emergency.

Have you ever been in a time crunch to sell or promote something? That probably felt like an emergency to you.

But even if those don’t quite meet the definition for an emergency, our bodies can still treat them like they are.

Ratcheting up our anxiety, narrowing our vision, triggering manic energy, or overwhelming fatigue.

You’ve been there. I’ve been there. But we don’t have to stay there.

In his book The Emergency Mind, ER doctor and trainer of high-performance teams, Dr. Dan Dworkis, reminds us to harness the wisdom of the room and ask, “What might someone else see that I don’t?”

What we’ll usually find is that they see things more clearly and more calmly than we do. And they’ll have a wider set of options to explore beyond our panicked impulses.

So when marketing starts to feel like an emergency, ask, “What might others see that I don’t?”

And remember: The most important thing they won’t see is an emergency.

They’ll just see a challenge that you’re more than made for.