Steve’s “Belief Board” is hung on the wall in front of the desk where he works, so he exposes himself to the messages it contains for several hours every day. It’s in his field of vision, yet off to the side, so that it’s normally visible but not the focus of his conscious attention.
I’ve finally decided to quit waiting for a “good time” and just go for a site remodel. In a perfect world these changes would have occurred discreetly, behind the scenes, and been rolled out gracefully when they were ready for prime time. Hello, (imperfect) world!
By Lynn | December 14, 2008
What do you think? How are we adults faring? Are young people getting slammed harder by commercial advertising than the rest of us? What do you think it would mean for kids to steal the tactics being deployed against them, to mold them into “a population of dip-shits,” and use them to power their own dreams?
By Lynn | October 19, 2008
If you’ve been following along with the back-to-school personal marketing campaign you have now finished one quick and easy ad about your goal. I suggest you let that ad run for awhile on your bathroom mirror, and notice any ways that it seems to influence your thoughts or behavior. This week we’re going to dig [...]
By Lynn | October 12, 2008
Images get to us; we remember them and act on them. Sometimes we even seem to try to make our world look like it does in the picture. Advertisers know this, so they make sure to expose you to lots of images of their logos and products, especially pictures of people that look like you using their products.
This is one reason it’s so effective to visualize a result you want - to see yourself succeeding in your mind’s eye. Your brain sees the outcome in your imagination, believes it, and gets busy changing the parts of your world that don’t match that mental picture.
We can do even better than mental pictures, though, because technical toys like digital cameras and photo editing software give us the ability to externalize our visualizations, and then to repeat our exposure to them more frequently than we might remember to do on our own. Sound familiar? Yeah, that’s advertising.
By Lynn | September 28, 2008
it’s my pleasure to review Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth because it’s so relevant to the work we’ve been doing on our back-to-school personal marketing campaign. Steve’s first published book reads like a volume of personal development’s greatest hits, but not in the tawdry, exploitative way that you might see on a late night info-mercial. Instead, you realize immediately that this is a guy who has read widely, thought deeply, applied fearlessly, synthesized intelligently, and then done us the enormous favor of writing down his observations. The result is a comprehensive yet simple framework for personal growth that helps you make sense of everything from diet to career choices to religion.
By Lynn | September 7, 2008
Regular readers will recognize that I’m just returning to TBYB! from a couple of months off. It’s been a great summer break for me, and I hope for you as well. The first article in the new series is called How to choose a goal for your back-to-school marketing campaign. In it, we take a look at your goals for 2008 and pick one that you’d really like to kick some butt on before the end of the year. Look for it in your favorite feed reader next week.
TBYB is a strong proponent of identifying the life you want and trying to get it. I notice that the life I yearn for lately has more leisure and fewer commitments; unexpected morning adventures and lazy afternoons. So I’m going to take a break for a few weeks, and then I’ll be back with a new season of posts about personal marketing, in which I’ll show you step-by-step how to take control of your own attention by advertising to yourself. If you’ve not done so already, you can subscribe to my RSS feed to be notified when the series begins again.
TBYB is on vacation. Your assignment this week is to go back and implement one of the suggestions you’ve read about in a previous article. We’ll return next Monday to your regularly scheduled blog.
By Lynn | February 11, 2008
Hey guys. I sat down late last night to publish the article I had written for you this week and discovered to my dismay that due to problems with my host (don’t get me started!) that version of the Wordpress database has vanished. ARGH!!!!! Hopefully this is a temporary situation that can be resolved from either their backup or mine, but in the meantime I encourage you to browse the article index for tips about personal marketing that you may have missed.
By Lynn | November 18, 2007
Take Back Your Brain! is one year old this week, and what a year it has been! Researching and writing these articles for you has been a fascinating, exhilarating adventure, so thanks to each of you for a great ride.
I have plenty of new articles planned for 2008, including a series that should be really interesting about the psychological hooks copywriters use. Of course there will also be a bunch of ideas and tips about ways to create and deliver advertising to yourself, using things like Vista widgets, audio reminders and passwords. As always, we’ll cover both technical hacks and easy low-tech projects. Plus we’re going to get a pet.
By Lynn | October 29, 2007
All of a sudden I saw a huge tree growing out of a dry wash. It could have been the only tree in the county, as far as I knew. As I drove closer I noticed there seemed to be something hanging from the tree. Lots of things, suspended from the tree in large clusters like huge wisteria blossoms. I was nearly on top of the tree when I realized that these giant blossoms were composed of shoes. Hundreds of them. What a odd thing to do with your only tree! It would have been funny anywhere, but in a landscape where I’d seen little but sand and sagebrush for several hours it was hilariously bizarre; radically out of context. It sure did get my attention!
By Lynn | October 14, 2007
For the next 3 weeks I’m celebrating the achievement of a huge goal with a three week road trip in my new RV. Seeing America, baby! Normally I stay pretty close to topic on this blog, but since I believe it was personal advertising that got me into the position to be able to do this, I’m considering that anything that happens during the trip IS on topic.
Take Back Your Brain is very honored to be nominated for a Blogger’s Choice award in the Best Marketing Blog category. If you have enjoyed reading these articles I would be extremely grateful if you could take a few minutes to vote for this blog.
By Lynn | December 4, 2006
Here in the northern hemisphere it is the darkest, coldest season of the year. Bears hibernate during this season. Honey bees retreat into the hive and huddle together for survival. Many other insects simply die. Trees lose their foliage as the sap flows deep inside. The tops of other plants die off completely for many months while growth only occurs underground. Most living species in this ecosystem respond to the absence of light and the plummeting temperatures by drawing inward for a long period of quiet regeneration. Except humans, who plan parties, decorate their homes, and flock like manic lemmings to shopping malls.
or 