My Bright Child, My Bright Self
Post a responseIn 1969, Jack Trout, an advertising executive, coined the word positioning. Later, in the eighties, he wrote the hugely successful marketing book by the same name.
In short, if you’re not the leader in a business category, then you need to be concerned about your position in relationship to the leader and to the smaller competitors like you.
If, for example, the software that you sell is not tops in its category, then you need to figure out how to position your product in comparison to its competitors. That is, if you want to survive.
If you produce an MP3 player, but it’s not the IPOD, then how do you market your product when the leader has such powerful brand recognition?
Here’s the key: positioning is not what YOU think your position is. Positioning is how your prospects view your product or service.
So the art of marketing is the art of controlling the message of your product or service. Your messaging is key to positioning your product in the minds of your prospects.
In the ‘burbs, positioning is the attempt to control how your neighbors or acquaintenances think of you:
• “Our son Shelton got into the university’s business school directly. Lots of other students can only apply to the business school after two years in the general ed program.”
Which means: “We have a really smart son. So we are smart. And that means that we really are significant. We want you to know that.”
• “We give our daughter $5 for every A on her report card. Boy, she has more money to invest than we do. Ha, ha, ha.”
Which means: The same as above.
• The real estate person says, “I don’t see you living in this neighborhood.”
Which means to me: “I can’t live in such a small house. What will others think?”
No matter your economic or “bright-child” status, positioning is subtle but spiritually crippling.
Positioning prevents us from listening to others (we’re concerned only with making sure he or she knows the exalted truth about ourselves). And it feeds the self. In the journey to God, it is the self that must die.
The next time you’re compelled to trumpet your talented-and-gifted family’s accomplishments, why don’t you resist the urge. Stop. And instead, ask a question about someone else’s child.
Listen.
And then act as if you really care.
May 3rd, 2006 at 9:22 am
I work part time at my local Trader Joes grocery store. This affords me a tremendous opportunity to see and interact (briefly at least) with maybe a hundred people each day, especially as they move through my check out. We’re always busy, so there’s almost never time to really have a good give and take conversation.
The other night I recognized someone I hadn’t seen in maybe 15 years standing in another line to check out. I got their attention and suddenly it was all excitement and hugs… and they moved over to my line to talk as I scanned out their purchases.
They wanted to know all about how our family is, our kids activities, jobs, and romances; all of which I told them in the 3 minutes it took to check them out. And I kissed her hand, and shook his and they walked out. And I’m sure I was flushed as I greeted the next customer in line, excited to tell my wife who I just saw when I got home.
And then I realized she’d want to know about them and their kids and jobs and romances…. And I never asked them. I was so busy talking about US, and our lives, I never learned anything about them and their lives.
I feel sad about that. All I heard is they live in Antioch now and I hardly even know where that is… up north somewhere… near Wisconsin I think…
I feel like I really blew an opportunity. I hope our greeting speaks more of my heart for them than my actions did.
May 3rd, 2006 at 9:46 am
Your post got me to thinking about the topic’s other aspects–different dimensions of the same phenomenon.
Parents are naturally proud of their kids (this is a God-given feeling), and it seems only natural that among friends they’ll “brag.” That’s just part of human community. I listen to you brag/complain about your kids; you listen to me while I brag/complain about mine. But how do we know when the bragging part is getting overdone?
And then there are the parents who are very insecure about their parenting and their children, and they fish for compliments by bragging. They are looking for affirmation that they/their kids are okay. How can we tell when this is going on? And how should we respond without just reinforcing the insecure fishing for compliments?
At any rate, these are the “bragging” issues I wrestle with. For what it’s worth.
May 3rd, 2006 at 11:11 am
The college thing is really an important positioning area. When trapped in a conversation about college acceptances, heaven help the parent whose child is headed for community college. The other parents literally don’t know what to say.
You get that glazed look, clearing of throat, “ah, oh, uh huh” response from otherwise intelligent, verbal people.
Then I feel the need to explain, justify, rationalize why ECC is where my child will be attending. Although NOT because of her grades or our financial status. There is a TOTALLY LEGITIMATE (health) reason for our child to not be joining those Ivy League bound youth. And I feel the need to make sure you understand that!!!!
May 3rd, 2006 at 11:19 am
This does bring up the excellent point of how children perceive this positioning. I remember as a child being most irritated when my mother would speak disparagingly of her friends who would always “brag on” their children. I was always annoyed because I knew that meant she wasn’t bragging on me. The funny thing is that now, whenever she says something really nice about my daughter, she makes sure to imply that it has nothing to do with my parenting skills. Who knew she was practicing a form of spiritual discipline!?
My best positioning example comes, of course, from my own mouth. I had just received a fabulous fellowship to study overseas, all expenses paid, etc. when I ran into the mother of an old friend of mine who was working as a receptionist. I bubbled on and on about my good fortune until she looked at me and said, “No boyfriend yet?” And thus are we reminded that not everyone measures success with the same yardstick.
May 3rd, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Expectations are such a dangerous thing. We expect others will act within the guidelines of our social mores, and we feel obligated to do the same. This is especially true within the evangelical cocoon. Especially the upper middle class evangelical cocoon.
But God gave us free will, and when our beloved children choose in their late adolescent and early adult years to go their OWN way – and color outside the lines we have so labored to raise them within – we feel almost pitied by our friends and acquaintances when we tell them about our kids’ choices, because our kids aren’t “playing the game”.
But Jesus didn’t play the game either. What was it like to parent Him, I wonder? To whom might Mary and Joseph have bragged about His accomplishments? His uncanny knowledge of scripture, His wit, or the tightness of His dovetail joints?
Might not those who choose not to “play the game” as we have, be happier without the encumbrance of such expectations? Or do they just develop their own?
June 26th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Dave –
I met you in Moraga, you signed the book. So how’s your summer Baseball going with Christian and his pitching ?
Little League – no immortality unless you go to the LL World Series … and better win, have a pretty respectable 12-16 year old league for tougher neighborhoods – San Ramon did, just over the hill from Moraga, a collegue ran the league then, his wife left him three years later with 4 kids
Pony League – high Immortality Symbols, for the 8 best players in town plus the board members kids — everyone else is lower than dirt, just ask the parents who fenagle all the prime field time for their son on the city park rec. boards schedules for essentially a 40 kid per town league (out of 30,000) – most of the kids burn out on 7 + events a week plus
Babe Ruth – generally for the over 13 crowd but still the largest summer league serving kids
American Legion — Super Elite immortality symbol — you hav to get invited — win state get a full ride athletic scholarship
We have to mix with a bad culture just for the kids to play, if your kid is really a gifted athlete,
Maybe you walk and discourage them in favor of summers on Uncle Chesters farm ?
Or get in the swim of the current. Good luck with THAT.
So Dave, how’s Christian’s summer Baseball, how’s his pitching ? Is he trading baseball cards ?
Truly I hope you all are able to navigate it, and somehow be salt and light to a lost and dying athletic league.
“Little League Confidential : One Coach’s Completely Unauthorized Tale of Survival” by Bill Geist
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0440508770/002-9715197-6784811?v=glance&n=283155
September 12th, 2006 at 7:04 am
Ouch.
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Hi,
Funny – I find that when I started talking about my kids achievements to another parent, and my kids are within earshot, they cringe and accuse me of ‘bragging’. I agree with your premise that it’s better to listen and ask the other person about themselves. I guess it bring about a humility – I’m asking and listening to what they have to say, their story, not making a big deal about my kids and their acheivements. I also agree with the idea that it is the insecure parent who is looking for affirmation of their parenting skills – perhaps that is what is also behind some of the ‘bragging’.
I’m prayerfully trying to find within myself what will work best for each of my kids, not just follow the herd, just because all the parents in my neighborhood will be sending their kids to top notch colleges. If Community College would work better for my daughter than Ivy Leage with all the academic pressures it brings, then that’s what we’ll do. I guess I’m refusing to play the ‘one-upmanship’ game…