Yes, I’m well aware that it’s been six days since my last blog post. And really, that post wasn’t even all that substantial. So while it’s only technically been six days, it’s really been 12 days since I’ve posted anything substantial here.

Now, there’s a good reason for this. I won’t get into specifics because A) you likely don’t much care, and B) I try to refrain from putting too much of myself into this space, but suffice it to say that there were some health issues that needed dealing with. Now they’re dealt with, and life is good again.

But the past two weeks have given me a chance to completely unplug, something that I haven’t really done since I was, well… fourteen, I guess.

Did you know there’s a whole world out there? It’s amazing!

I’m kidding, of course. But only kind of. I got the opportunity to spend two whole weeks playing with my kids, reading books, enjoying this gorgeous weather, painting, writing, and creating a better story than the one I’ve been living of late.

This is important. It changed my perspective on things, changed the way I thought about what really matters. And I’d hate to think about it this way, but reminding yourself of what matters is very important when you’re a marketer. What matters to you likely matters to other people, too.

So in the spirit of open-source marketing, here’s what mattered to me over the past two weeks, and a couple of questions to get you thinking about how you can apply them:

1. Health - Start thinking about how you can communicate your product’s ability to make something healthier. Anything can be thought of as being healthy: a healthy mind, a healthy community, a healthy investment portfolio — you name it, if it’s healthy, it’s good.

2. Community - What have you done for your community? I’m not just talking about your neighborhood. I’m talking about the people who use your product, your subscribers, your competitors and so on. Do something genuinely charitable to give back to the various communities that have given to you.

3.  Perspective – Problems are what you think they are. If you believe a rock is scalable, you will eventually scale it. If you believe a task to be impossible, then you have made it so. It really is that simple.

What happens when you unplug?

Photo credit: functoruser