Letter to My Younger Self

The journey to discover marketing greatness

Hey Abdul,

Remember when you quit your budding career as an organic chemist and went to business school, trying to figure out what you wanted to be when you grew up? All of your classmates had such certitude and direction in their career paths. Meanwhile, you were doubting every day whether business school was the right decision or if you should have stuck to developing medicines. I mean, you were pretty damn good at that. And you knew absolutely nothing about business or marketing.

I’m happy to tell you that you made the right decision, even if it didn’t feel like it at the time. Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and learning an entirely new career path at age 30 has been one of the most impactful decisions of your life. It sure as heck wasn’t easy but I’m glad you didn’t shy away from change.

And remember that fear you had about never really amounting to anything in your marketing career? Guess what, everyone else had that fear also. Many of us experienced marketers still do.

You know how someone the other day told you you’d make a great product marketer and you thought to yourself, WTF is a product marketer?? Keep an open mind. You don’t know it yet but product marketing will come to define your career. Here’s some advice for you as you start your new path: get the basics correct, write well and communicate clearly, and always be open to other people’s ideas.

Being a product marketer will be the most challenging job you’ll ever have. Every day, you have to negotiate the personalities and agendas of many senior-level executives. It’s your responsibility to move things forward when it’s all too easy for someone to simply say no. In time, you will come to understand that “no” is not a rejection but a challenge to try harder. You’ll learn a myriad of ways to dig deeper and understand why the answer is no. You’ll learn that empathy and the ability to listen are the greatest skills to develop because empathy is the only way to turn that hard “no” into a soft “maybe”. Do yourself a favor — shut up and learn to listen. It’s the most powerful tool you will have as a product marketer.

And in recent years, you’ve passed up on several career advancement opportunities because raising your kids is your priority. I know how painful it is to watch your peers steadily advance their careers while you feel like you remain stagnant. But you innately understand that you are making the right decision. I’m here to validate, a thousand times over, you are making the right decision.

Finally, remember that monster you used to work for? It’s not just that he was a terrible boss. He was more than that — he was a terrible person. But you didn’t quit your job because you were young in your career, and you were afraid of how it would look on your resume. You didn’t really know better. You thought that maybe this was the norm. You thought maybe you were soft and just needed to learn how to deal with it. You were wrong. There was no one around to tell you this then but hear this now: don’t work for an asshole. Ever. Life’s too short.

The secret to a successful marketing career

What’s the one constant in your life that has ended up making you a better marketer? It’s the ability to embrace change. It’s always being flexible, always willing to learn new things. Change comes naturally to you. You’ve welcomed it since you were a young child. You lived in 6 cities across 4 countries in the first 11 years of your life, constantly having to learn new languages and forging new friendships. And yet, you never lost any time dwelling on past friendships but instead always delighted in the idea of making new friends.

Darwin taught us that it is not the strongest species that survives, but the one most adaptable to change. You are too insecure to realize it, but you are the most adaptable person I know. You chose to be the kid who went from speaking absolutely no English at age 11 to making it to Honors English at 14. You are the guy who travels deep into the heart of Africa or Asia, points at a random item on the menu in a language that you can’t even read and enthusiastically devours whatever it is they serve you.

You avidly embraced remote work a dozen years before everyone else was forced into it.

As marketing, technology and business change, you’ll succeed because you have always welcomed change. You are consistently willing to take on new ways of thinking and new work norms, learn new things, read about the latest marketing trends, gain additional work skills, join new communities, use new technologies and tools, connect with new people. You haven’t discovered greatness yet but you always welcome change and that’s why you will always thrive as a marketer.

Sincerely,

Your older and balder self

PS: By the way, all of your peers in business school? They had no clue what they were going to do either ;)