We All Have Problems.
And I love problems to solve: Like finding customers, sorting cash flow, coping with customers, hallucinations (sorry that’s AI), meeting new people, marketing, understanding the world, uncertainty…
The list goes on with more social problems like aging, global warming, sustainability, economy etc…
But do we really have a way to solve these problems?
It seems that complexity is so big that we alone are not capable to define the problems. But you already know that, right?
Why the most dangerous phrase in business is “I already know that.”
“Metrics, metrics, metrics…” would have said if Napoleon were to be a marketing leader…
Clicks, conversion rates and that holy grail they call “growth”. We are obsessed with dashboards, reports, summaries…
If a founder hooks a conversation around marketing, it takes about 70-80 seconds before they start tossing numbers around.
These things matter for sure.
They are the vital signs of a company / business.
The reality I see: Looking is easy, but identifying the actual, structural problem is where almost everyone struggles.
I have an obsession to find; find the flaws, problems, the hallucinations…
Everyone thinks they can frame the problem.
They read a ten-second summary, skim an AI-generated overview, and instantly become experts.
They nod along and say, “Yeah, yeah, I already know that.”
That phrase is a smooth criminal!
The Illusion of Expertise
I don’t like to name periods; but it’s like the “I Know Best” epidemic.
It’s a collective arrogance. Hyper-automated and fast-paced where surface-level data is mistaken for deep insight.
You don’t and shouldn’t get insights like in a second!
Marketers are notoriously guilty of this. Walk into any standard agency or boardroom, and you’ll find a room full of people claiming they have the definitive playbook.
Beep; wrong answer!
They want you to believe that marketing is a simple plug-and-play formula.
Beep; wrong answer!
But it isn’t. True strategy isn’t a template you copy from a competitor; it’s a look at the messy intersections of culture, psychology, and human behavior.
Things should be considered; and now even more thoroughly. It shouldn’t be pornographic!
When you say you “know your market” based solely on quantitative graphs, you are missing the edges where the real truth could exist. You develop what I call the consciousness of misunderstanding—the dangerous state of being entirely certain about a reality that doesn’t actually exist. In other terms, hallucination.
You think you know what people want. But do you really?
Or are you just projecting a sterile, frictionless corporate fantasy onto an audience that is distracted, restless, and completely numb to your messaging?
The Power of “I Don’t Know”
In a world where time is limited, time will show us the reality.
The hardest thing for a leader to do right now is to step back, look at the boardroom, and cultivate the intellectual humility to admit: “I don’t know. Let’s figure it out.”
Real architecture isn’t built on top-down authority or corporate ego. It is built through co-creation.
It requires sitting with uncomfortable ideas, wrestling with the mess, and admitting that your previous takeaways might be entirely obsolete in today’s landscape.
When Esra and I sit down with growth-stage firms, we cannot bring a rigid, pre-packaged formula.
Why?
Because every business model has its own soul, its an independent ecosystem.
The moment a marketer assumes they “know best” without deeply listening first, they lose the game before it even begins.
Let’s Get to the Point of Order…
The most valuable asset in marketing for me is distancing.
It’s the willingness to filter out the noise, slow down the tech-panic, enjoy the chaos and let it sink in. Then challenge the static beliefs holding your business back.
This is just trying to shift your perspective and help us develop a new and fresh one!
Marketing is not a performance. Now, agents will be doing the operations, but they won’t be treating marketing as a laboratory.
So we should:
Stop looking for the quick hack or the viral template.
Stop assuming your past numbers dictate the rules of a changing environment.
Start building a culture of radical honesty where your team can tear down mediocre assumptions and rebuild on bedrock truths.
We don’t need more instant experts or louder megaphones.
We need operators with the guts to face the chaos, drop the pretense, and look for actual meaning.
Let the crowd pretend they have it all figured out.
We have real problems to solve (together) and real businesses to build.