Katherine May’s book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times has become the unofficial Covid book as it has given strength to many who are struggling in the face of the pandemic.

An excerpt from the book:

‘Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.’

There are difficult parts of our job that we sometimes wish didn’t exist: 3 deadlines back-to-back; Client meeting with the team leader unable to attend; work in a new therapeutic area; working with someone whose standard answer is ‘no’ to all requests; working for a difficult Client.

How do we react during those difficult times?

Do we fall flat on our faces and accept defeat? Feel self-pity and dream of escaping to a beach? Or roll up our sleeves and get to work?

Marketing is not just for the account managers or account VPs. EVERY single person on the team plays the critical role of a marketer because EVERY single part of our work (even the meetings and the work itself) is a form of marketing.

Pandurang Shastri Athavale explains that Chapter 2 Verse 40 of the Bhagavad Gita means: ‘there is no such thing as difficulty. Because I’m difficulty for difficulty.’