Creative Timing.

Today’s Marketing Cookie is about embracing a week-long challenge to harness your imagination and identify an unmet need.

The first thing I do each morning is check to find out what fortune I’m writing for that day. As you know, I write the cookies in the order they are received, unless, of course, it's Sunday, when I get to pick any fortune I want. Anyway, after I look at the queue to see the fortune for the day, I grab my cookie journal and a pen. The journal is a tattered, 8th-grade composition notebook with a black-and-white pattern on the cover that looks a little like a QR code. Then, I head over to the kitchen to start a pot of Dunkin' coffee.

While the coffee brews, I sit at the kitchen table and jot down any thoughts in my cookie journal—whatever the fortune sparks. Sometimes it’s a word or phrase that jumps out, other times a personal story or idea comes to mind. When an idea comes, I start pacing around the adjoining living room trying to settle on what I’ll write. If it’s trash day, I bring our garbage bin down to the curb, still thinking through the fortune. By the time the coffee is ready, I’m typically ready to start writing something. That’s it. Those 16 minutes or so are the whole cookie ideation process. Then, whatever I’ve scribbled in my journal is compiled and shared at the end of the week in my weekly Cookie Jar Newsletter on LinkedIn. 

Now, as I thought about today’s fortune, I was curious about the phrasing. You may be familiar with the phrase “eats, shoots and leaves” that talks about the antics of a callous hitman versus “eats shoots and leaves” that describes the habits of a lazy panda bear. The placement of the comma changes the entire meaning. Well, I wondered about the phrase “apply, this next week” suggesting that we should maybe apply for a job next week. Or the way the fortune probably intended to be read as “apply this, next week,” which is inviting you to kick the can down the road and procrastinate. This is what I wrote in my notebook.

As I sat down to write, I wasn’t too sure about the apply for a job next week idea, so I decided to go with the most likely intended meaning, which is telling you to wait a week before taking action and using your skills. Why? Delaying until next Tuesday when you can already be helpful now is lame. It isn’t something I agree with, and it as they say, really gets my Irish up. According to my DNA on Ancestry, I’m 12% Irish, and every bit of that percentage was upset about it. 

But then it hit me.

We’re not talking about laying around on the couch for a week. No, this fortune is recognizing that it may not be clear today who, how, or where you can be more helpful. The immediate action you must take is to use 100% of the God-given imagination in your DNA to discover an unmet need that you can satisfy, and you have only one week to get it done. Next Tuesday isn’t the day to start. It’s the deadline. You only have seven days to imagine a new and meaningful way to use your skills and accept the challenge that today’s fortune is offering you when it says, “You are imaginative in using your skills. Apply this next week.”