Most days, I bust my ass designing websites that require lots of rounds of revisions with clients, and we may not see eye-to-eye. Or publication editors ask for revisions I don’t always agree with.

I butt heads with people that pay me, and some days I wouldn’t work if I didn’t have to. I sometimes miss out on doing things I want to do because I have to work. And I have it so easy (because I work for myself doing something I mostly enjoy) that I don’t even have the right to complain.

While I love doing what I do, it’s still work. I still get up at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. everyday and sit down and work for most of the day. I don’t wait to be inspired because it’s a job. And I stop when the work is finished.

I’m lucky to have this life, which is afforded to me because I live in the first-world and grew up middle class. I don’t have to stress about how I’ll pay rent, afford health-care or wonder when we’ll be able to buy groceries next. I completely see the hypocrisy and classist edification of me even talking about this subject.

But if everyone’s job was simply to “do what they love,” who would collect garbage, work as a cashier, do data-entry or any other job that doesn’t seem as soul fulfilling? Those aren’t even lesser jobs either, they’re just jobs.

The reality of jobs

Doing what you love for a job is awesome, but not mandatory or valued above anything else.

I’ve never understood why so many people are so concerned with only doing a job that makes them happy – as if anything else wasn’t worth doing.

Find a job that you don’t have to worry about when you’re not doing it – or a job that doesn’t make you miserable every single day. You’ll still be far better off than a lot of folks.

As I enjoy telling my wife, work is called “work” and not “super happy fun time” because often it’s just tasks that need to be done. It doesn’t mean your life is less meaningful just because your job lacks existential value.

You aren’t your job. It doesn’t have to define you unless you let it. Plus, you can always do what you love in your spare time.

“Doing what you love” doesn’t have to mean a job. It can be a hobby, a passion or even simply spending time with the people you that you love the most. If you like something enough, you’ll find time to make it happen.

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This means setting up your technical information (such as updates, tests, feature developments) and “business” information (such as design changes, copy updates, blog posts) in a way that the team has a holistic overview of the state of affairs.

The aim is to improve your team’s ability to identify correlation and causation – was there a surge in visits after the new feature was uploaded, or was it because of the new SEO’d blog post published the same day?

In a recent survey by APCO Worldwide, analysts worked out how that love is expressed. They measured eight ways we interact with brands: understanding, approachability, relevance, admiration, curiosity, identification, empowerment, and pride. It’s hard to imagine a brand conveying all these things at once, though the world’s most beloved brand—Walt Disney—probably comes close for a lot of people.

While the same survey reveals that a third of the top 20 most-loved brands were born after the Internet came along, there are also plenty of brands like Heinz and Campbell’s Soup that started the love fest in the 19^th century.

Below is a look back at some of the iconic moments in brand love that paved the way for our current landscape of always-on, high engagement Digital Marketing.

1. The Accidental Founder

Renee is in early stage mode. She has an “accidental business” – something that she happened upon as a result of her interest in helping people. To her surprise and delight, what started as a hobby, helping people decorate their homes, has garnered a great deal of attention in the neighborhood.

Little by little, friends turned to clients, clients began referring other clients and she started making money doing what she loves.  Now she wants to turn it into a full time gig – she’s even thinking of hiring an assistant. But, she’s not sure where to begin.  She needs advice.

2. The Guy Who Cried ‘Scale’

Barry’s business is in a time of transition (who’s isn’t, right?). He has built it up from little more than an idea two years ago to the high class challenge now of being caught between plenty of work and too much work. He has a lot of questions and concerns and sleepless nights.

His team is great – they are dedicated and trusting and committed to the success of the business, but they are not owners. The challenges he faces are uniquely his and, frankly, the decisions he makes about the business may impact the team in ways they might not choose on their own. He needs advice.

3. The Risk-Taker

Another friend, Alexander, has been with his company for nearly 30 years. He is running a small division of a much larger firm. The group operates with a great deal of autonomy and Alexander has comfort knowing he is backed by a stable organization.

But, things have changed. The big company has moved out of the sector that Alexander’s group covers.

So, last month, Alexander offered to buy the business from his employer. He is at once elated, freaked out, cautious, risk-loving and ready to take the next step. He needs advice.

In all three scenarios, the entrepreneurs were contemplating and/or experiencing seismic shifts in their careers and in their businesses. While the companies in question and the decisions made to impact the firms’ futures rest solely with the entrepreneurs themselves, those decisions could likely be made more clearly with the input of trusted third parties.

This may also be true for you.

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Lack of focus is not due to too much TV as a child, it’s a function of our Reticular Activating System (also called the extrathalamic control modulatory system, but let’s just call it the RAS). The RAS is a structure embedded deep within the brain, that helps with two main business functions: 1) highlighting information as relevant while it is being experienced, and 2) stimulating pattern recognition that can be used as innovative fuel.

What if you had a tool that could improve information retention in the moment, and mind training for the future? By simply asking the right questions at the right cadence, you plant seeds of thought in the minds of your employees and create thought patterns that drive your business forward.

Too much input

Awareness must be regulated during our waking lives, since our minds have a finite amount of resources and simply cannot process all of the external stimuli that we experience each day. 

The metaphor ‘asleep at the wheel’, is not far from the truth. Our brains are actively ignoring information that isn’t deemed vital.

When we zone out in meetings, the RAS is acting like a switch to protect us from being overstimulated by a massive amount of information in a short period of time. When it is turned off, we “zone out”. When the RAS is on, we have increased awareness and retention of vital information.

Meetings are a turn-off

In meetings, the person in control of the conversation is often a leader who is forwarding a well thought-out agenda. But for the employee who is listening to the information, it may be perceived as uninteresting or even threatening.

When we are uninterested, the RAS is not activated  and what we hear just becomes noise. And when we feel threatened by something because we don’t understand it or it seems overly burdensome, many of us shut down.

Bolt, the fastest pigeon in the world was sold for £300,000 last year to a Chinese millionaire. Belgian pigeon fancier Leo Heremans also sold the rest of his aviary collection at auction for over $5 million. Did that seem random to you? It was my intentional strategy to activate your RAS.

I recommend starting meetings with information that people are not expecting, as it gets them to pay attention. This technique brings them fully into the room and makes them present.