How are you moving the culture forward?

I was listening to an interview with Seth Godin the other day and he mentioned that his definition of marketing was a little different than what most think.

He said, “Marketing is anything that moves the culture forward”. I was truly struck by that as I contemplate what I want my contribution to be to the world. Getting people to buy stuff is not my sole purpose as a marketer.

“Marketing is anything that moves the culture forward.”

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Unfortunately, it’s my own lack of discipline that feels compelled to push for a sale knowing full well that most people I end up interacting with aren’t in a position to buy yet.

Instead, this is a litmus test for me. When I produce a piece of content or if I engage with other people professionally, if I ask myself, “How am I moving the culture forward?” That’s when I’m poised to help the world rather than fill it with clutter.

Anything moves the culture forward. Nothing can move the culture forward. It moves forward regardless of whether we are intentional about it or not.

It’s like my favorite passage from James Allen’s As A Man Thinketh says about the mind:

“A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of used less weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.”

The same is true of our communities and our collective culture. It always moves forward. But marketing is about the intentional — curated — designed way that people who produce any kind of media decide to go about it.

So it starts with personal brand. You very identity. Are you feeding yourself with meaningful culture?

Today I’m feeding myself with Nas’s new album King’s Disease. Good art is enlargening. Good art flows into everything you do.

Marketers who push the culture forward like art are the real change makers of the universe.