Marketing Strategy Blog - Mellissah Smith - Page 5

A few years back I embarked on global expansion. I say the word 'global' loosely, as I am a realist and know that global is such a big, ambiguous word used so freely in today's business environment. We have an ambitious vision for the company that hopefully will see the company expand into a global footprint capable of providing thousands of companies worldwide with a 'marketing eye'. All possible, but yet to be fully realised.

I've been challenged for my entire business life by whether or not business is more important than personal life. We all know the answer to that one and as much as we continually tell ourselves that this is the case, it is so easy to be lured into a false sense of security that only business can provide.

I love working. I really do. I wake up in the morning and cannot wait to get to the office. I've matured a little, and don't tend to work on weekends or in the evenings, although I do put in a solid 12 hour day, 5 days a week.

Ever heard of cutting off your nose to spite your face? We have all done it at some time in our lives, and others like me have done it far too many times that I don’t care to remember.

After watching House of Cards in what can only be described as a bedroom coma over one long weekend, I was deeply enthralled and quite fascinated to be honest, in the way each and every person conducted themselves.

I woke up this morning at 4am as I normally do, and decided to read the news online. Usually, I lay in bed for a few hours and think about the world, tossing and turning, hoping that by some miraculous occurence, my eyes will shut and I will sleep that extra hour.

What I read, shocked me. Top headline: "Joan Rivers Dies". Now, I did not know her, and I can't remember seeing much of her work, other than a snippet here and there, acknowledging her acid tongue jokes, or the fact that she has had a tad too much plastic surgery.

Why I was shocked is because this vivacious woman, with her wits about her, was fine one week, and had passed the next - almost without warning. You may say that she was 81 years old, and had a good innings, but she also was a very active woman with a lot of life to live and had a job doing live television when most would be resting in their rocking chairs.

Only weeks after getting over the reality that a childhood favourite, Robin Williams took his own life, I feel that death has all of a sudden become a part of my life - and to be honest I don't want a second of it.

It seems that I don't go a day without hearing about someone dying, which I believe kind of goes with the territory when you get a bit older. Whether it is someone you know, someone from afar or a friends uncle, cousin, brother, mother or companion. 

What I have come to realise is that in death, we somehow get defined in a way that is final. That's who we are- or more precisely were. The outpouring of grief from Robin Williams' friends and fans was heartfelt. My friends relative died last week, an important father figure to him, and when asked about it, my friend said "he was a gentleman". Steve Jobs, was defined as one of the world's greatest entrepreneurs - the person you would want to be in your top 5 people at the dinner table. 

How people see us in our final resting place is the way we are remembered and each of us have a different story to tell.

The world has become crystal clear to me of recent and I could not be more happy.

We all make choices every single day of our life, and often we don't think enough about the impact of those choices and what they mean to future opportunities that may lie ahead.

I've been back in Melbourne for a week and it has been an eye-opener for so many reasons and this journey continues to help me better understand who I am and what I want to be in the future.