Much of effective marketing relates to the effective application of psychological understanding. If we understand what drives the minds of our potential clients, we can devise effective strategies. In practice, really good marketing combines science, creativity and plenty of testing — with the objective of catching and determining replicable ideas.
Accordingly, this study of character traits that lead to well-being should be in our research libraries. In a recent Scientific American article, Scott Barry Kauffman added insights found in Martin Selgiman and Christopher Peterson‘s 2004 book:?Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification.
“This volume was a significant contribution to psychology, a sort of antidote to the DSM‘s focus on mental illness, and an important reminder to psychologists that humans aren’t only full of illness. Humans?also have a lot of character,” Kauffman writes.
He reports that the positive emotions in total correlate with each other, and with well-being. But a few character traits really stand out, namely gratitude and “love of learning” and “The single best predictor of well-being was gratitude.”
In case you are wondering, gratitude’s dictionary definition is:
“The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.”
When we translate this into simple language and deeds, it means we really appreciate the good things around us are able to express our thankfulness. It seems coupling this quality with a degree of intellectual rigour and interest in learning new things really helps the well-being score.
Now, I cannot correlate your well-being with marketing success, but think you would certainly benefit by combining?some gratitude and love-of-learning in your daily routines, especially when you are interacting with family, colleagues and current and potential clients.
My guess: ?The principle of reciprocation will kick in and your gracious and genuinely interested character will attract worthy business relationships, leads and sales. And if you can embed these character traits throughout your organization, you’ll achieve genuine positive marketing karma.
