The best marketers never graduate
In marketing, what we know expires faster than we expect.
Consumer behavior evolves; technology reshapes habits; and what once felt like hard-earned wisdom quietly loses relevance.
That is why the most important skill in business today is not mastery, but the willingness and discipline to keep learning.
Many people assume learning slows down with age. I’ve found the opposite to be true. The older I get, the more aware I become of how much I still don’t know. Learning does not end with diplomas or certifications; it ends when curiosity fades.
That belief has shaped both my career and my life. It is the reason I founded Mansmith and Fielders, Inc., a knowledge and recognition company built on a simple idea: we grow better when we learn together.
Over the years, curiosity has taken me to seminars, summits and boot camps across the world—on marketing strategy, innovation, brand management, product development, sales, entrepreneurship and business models. Yet many of my most valuable lessons did not come from classrooms or conference halls. They came from being willing to start again as a beginner.
Learning to swim, unlearning ego
In my 30s, I decided to learn how to swim. I walked into the pool, greeted a few parents and smiled politely as they smiled back.
A few moments later, I realized they thought I was the coach. When the real instructor arrived and asked everyone to fall in line, including me, I noticed the amused glances: Ah, so he’s one of the students.
It was both humbling and hilarious. Learning is rarely elegant. Sometimes, it means lining up beside children in bright floaters while convincing yourself that dignity is overrated.
Marketing works the same way. Seniority often creates the illusion of expertise. But growth begins when we allow ourselves to be beginners again: testing unfamiliar platforms, questioning comfortable assumptions and learning from people younger or less experienced than we are.
Humility is the first lesson of marketing and the lasting advantage of leadership.
Over time, I embraced the idea of becoming what some call a modern elder, a mentor and an intern at the same time. Experience gives perspective, but curiosity keeps us relevant. When we stop being willing to look foolish, we stop learning.
Learning theology, the heart of insight
My 40s were marked by deeper questions. I enrolled in a Master’s program in religious studies—not to accumulate credentials, but to understand meaning. Those classes, and a few professors who truly listened, taught me more than theology. They taught me humanity.
I began to see how childhood experiences shaped my relationships, my leadership style and my blind spots.
That learning did not stay academic; it became deeply personal. It strengthened my marriage. My wife and I entered a counseling program, not because something was broken, but because we wanted to grow.
By the end of three months, our counselors told us we were among their most open couples.
Growth is not always about learning something new. Sometimes, it is about unlearning what no longer serves us.
From theology and counseling, I gained empathy, an underrated but essential marketing skill.
Marketing is not persuasion alone; it is cultural literacy. It is the ability to understand what people value, fear and hope for.
Data can tell us what people do. Empathy helps us understand why. The most powerful insights are often rooted not in analytics, but in compassion.
Learning from travel, seeing markets as cultures
Around the same period, I began curating my own education through travel. Boston, New York, Chicago, London, Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, Fountainebleau—each city offered lessons beyond business frameworks. I attended workshops and summits, but I also observed how people lived, worked and made decisions.
Every market, I realized, is a culture.
Strategies do not travel well when they are copied blindly. What works in one place often fails in another unless it is adapted with sensitivity and respect.
Marketing is not about replication; it is about relevance. Brands that endure are not those that impose themselves globally, but those that stay curious locally.
Travel reminded me that learning expands perspective. And perspective, more than tactics, is what separates good marketers from great ones.
Learning to bike, finding balance in change
In my 50s, I decided to learn how to bike, apparently undeterred by the evidence that I enjoy challenging myself late in life. My instructor was Kit Rodriguez, one of my former MarkProf students. The teacher had become the student and the student, the teacher.
I wobbled. I fell. I even collided with my neighbor’s car once (thankfully, the car survived). But every mistake was instructive. Balance did not come instantly; it came through patience, repetition and trust.
Marketing is no different. It is a constant act of balance: between innovation and consistency, speed and sustainability, experimentation and discipline. You will fall. But those falls are not failures; they are data.
Learning together, building what lasts
Now in my early 60s, I am still learning, perhaps more intentionally than ever.
Much of that learning has become applied: frameworks for risk management, governance and strategic thinking. My curiosity has not slowed; it has matured. It now seeks systems, context and meaning.
Before the pandemic, my family and I attended an innovation festival in New York together. Each evening, over dinner, we shared what we learned that day. It was a quiet reminder that learning multiplies when it is shared. Curiosity is contagious.
The same is true in organizations. When leaders remain curious, teams follow. When teams keep learning, companies evolve. I’ve learned that knowledge does have a short shelf life, but curiosity doesn’t. The moment we stop learning is the moment we start becoming irrelevant.
Keep moving, keep learning
The greatest gift of learning is not information; it is transformation. Every new lesson deepens empathy, broadens perspective and renews humility.
Learning is a form of movement: forward into new ideas, inward into self-awareness and outward into service.
In markets that shift overnight, the leaders who endure are not those who know the most, but those who learn the fastest.
So keep learning—not to impress, not to prove—but to stay relevant. Because the best marketers, like the best students, never graduate.
And perhaps the most liberating truth of all is: you are never too old to become an intern again.
Keep Learning. Join the Conversation with 16 CEOs, managing directors and presidents. Explore ideas about trust, opportunity, strategy and leadership at the 17th Mansmith Market Masters Conference on March 17 at SMX Aura.
For more information, visit marketmastersconference.com
