Smarter Than A Marketer

When my sons were younger, they saw a commercial played over and over again for Blow Pens.  They thought they were amazing.  They showed these beautiful works of art made by these other children with the miraculous Blow Pens.  The clear message was that if you buy our magic Blow Pens, you can be an artist with beautiful masterpieces too.  Skip studying in school, use Blow Pens and get a full ride scholarship to major in art.  Ha!

After begging and pleading by my sons, we bought them a set as a holiday gift.  The joy, the thrill, the hope and promise of now owning Blow Pens were short lived.  They started using them and instead of art, they released some faint color but mostly saliva sprayed on the paper from blowing on the pens unsuccessfully creating beautiful creations.  They kept try, blaming themselves thinking they were doing it wrong.  It must be their fault or lack of ability, right?  It was on a commercial showing success using the Blow Pens so it couldn’t be the fault of the Blow Pens…..right?

We returned the Blow Pens but it provided a wonderful lesson that has lasted to this day.  Just because something is shown on a commercial as a perfect product with amazing success doesn’t make it true.  My sons have learned to use a critical eye to the claims of brilliant marketing campaigns geared to swaying children to have their parents buy the products.

Diets fads and exercise stuff are also adult versions of Blow Pens.  We see diet programs advertised on the television (watch the infomercials in the middle of the night and they make Blow Pens look like an intelligent purchase), in print magazines, ads on television, all bombarded in our face to sell and play on our emotions for the perfect thin body.  Our inhibitions are down and we are desperate thinking the latest and greatest diets or exercise contraptions are going to be the answer for the masterpiece bodies we long for.  All this for minimal effort on our part.  I mean after all, they’re on a commercial so the claims must be true, right?

Unfortunately, we don’t return the diet and exercise junk as we did with the silly Blow Pens.  We blame ourselves.  It is our fault that the diet didn’t work and/or the exercise contraptions didn’t work.  It is because we aren’t enough and are destined to fail.  WE DIDN’T FAIL – these diets and exercise junk failed.  Just like the Blow Pens had less color and ink to make beautiful pictures and more blowing and saliva on the paper.  The diets aren’t healthy, you are’t able to stay on them very long, you don’t learn healthy habits and the exercise contraptions are usually used to hang your clothes over or take space in the garage.

The legend and experience of the Blow Pens live on in my sons.  If something comes on the television that looks too good to be true, they will give it the verdict of “Blow Pens” and we laugh and are smarter than the marketing.

Think about the message of the Blow Pens the next time you are considering the latest diet book, diet program, or diet fad or an exercise belt, chair or thingy that gives you the perfect body in 30 days or less.  If it sounds to good to be true, I promise you that it is.  Be smarter than the marketing of the diets and exercise industry.  More importantly, know that these diets and exercise stuff don’t work and it has nothing to do with you.  Just as the Blow Pens didn’t make my sons the next Michaelangelos, the diet and exercise junk won’t make you a super model or have 6-pack abs.  Their failure is theirs and has absolutely nothing to do with you.

You are in your own right successful.  You don’t need any fads or stuff to determine success.  All you need is you!  The answer is not in Blow Pens.

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, CLC
Certified Life Coach, Weight Loss Surgery Coach
Certified Back On Track Facilitator