As Halloween approaches, I have been thinking more about the role that fear has in our lives. Biologically, it’s there to help protect us from potential threats, but it also plays a role in helping us take stock of the current moment, which is an often overlooked aspect of the emotion that people love to indulge in as the seasons turn towards winter.
Writers and storytellers have used fear as a way of honing our emotional responses, especially to adversity. Gothic literature, ghost stories, and horrifying tales are all genres that were developed to help people better understand their own emotional states in the face of something dark, with the idea being that one could better manage their emotions if they have already confronted something like it before. The more terrifying the tale, the braver you could be when confronting something that warranted fear as a response.
What’s striking about the modern approaches to Halloween and my increasing interest in scary stories is that they might do more than create a test climate for managing fear and improving courage; it may also offer an opportunity to engage in mindfulness about the present moment. There are many pop psychology and self-help books that posit the idea that fear operates as a barrier to what we’re meant to do to live our best life, but when we’re so focused on surviving the next moment, it often forces us to strip away all the daily worries that can easily distract us from what matters most.
There are other ways that people pursue a more mindful life, including meditation, breathing exercises, yoga, tai chi, and others, and all of these are valuable paths to cultivating the insight we need to ensure we live the best life for us. Facing things that scare us may be a less common approach to finding clarity, but it’s probably a bit more fun if we give it an opportunity.
A Quick Note From Sponsors
How Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads
For its first CTV campaign, Jennifer Aniston’s DTC haircare brand LolaVie had a few non-negotiables. The campaign had to be simple. It had to demonstrate measurable impact. And it had to be full-funnel.
LolaVie used Roku Ads Manager to test and optimize creatives — reaching millions of potential customers at all stages of their purchase journeys. Roku Ads Manager helped the brand convey LolaVie’s playful voice while helping drive omnichannel sales across both ecommerce and retail touchpoints.
The campaign included an Action Ad overlay that let viewers shop directly from their TVs by clicking OK on their Roku remote. This guided them to the website to buy LolaVie products.
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The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.
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A Feel Good Place
A Community-First Coffee Brand that Puts Sustainability First
Coffee shops are abundant in most municipalities because they have often been a space where community and conversation could be found. It’s become so commonplace that coffee is perceived more as a commodity than a truly distinct value proposition, which leads many cafe and coffee shop owners to do whatever they can to reduce expenses, which leaves many coffee suppliers in a race to the bottom on price.
Coming across Irving Coffee Farm Roasters during travels with my wife surprised me because it offered a slightly different business model that enabled it to sustain itself for decades without undermining its mission to foster a sense of community. Part of how it does this is by investing in volume and education for its staff, which may feel like it would undermine the business’s profitability, but it ends up doing the opposite.
From the Bookshelf
TOTO BY A.J. Hackwith
Toto has done everything he could throughout his life to be a Good Dog, but that hasn’t stopped his family from having to work with animal control over a…rather unfortunate incident. He’s ready to give up on being a Good Dog, but one day finds that he and his beloved human Dorothy are in a magical land called Oz. They set out to find the Wizard of Oz in the hope that he could send Toto and Dorothy home. Toto soon realizes he may have a harder time being a Bad Dog than he thought, especially when his socially anxious teenage human has to get around the monsters lurking in the forests and fields of Oz.
For Casual Readers: The book will appeal to anyone who would be interested in a modern retelling of The Wizard of Oz, especially one that incorporates humor and updates the story to reflect more modern realities.
For Writers: The book offers a great example of how modernize well-loved stories so that it becomes more accessible to new audiences. The book also provides an interesting example of how to tell a story from the perspective of a non-human character.
What Comes Next
Enjoyed this issue? Here’s what you can expect from the next newsletter:
What a recent trip to Canada can say about organizational strategy
How a New England town can create a Feel Good community
A book review dealing with the complexities of family life and the mistakes that can impact generations
As always, while this project may be a space where I share some of the things I have been thinking of, I also want to make sure it delivers value for you. So if you have feedback on what you would like to see, let me know and your recommendation may make it into the next issue.
