10 Marketing Officers Share How They Are Staying Mentally Fit

Societal, economic, and political turmoil has dominated 2020 and with everything going as we close out the year, it is easy for people to forget to practice some mental health practices into their daily routines. We’ve compiled the advice top marketing leaders have shared when it comes to staying mentally fit, ranging from your personal life-work balance to taking care of your team.

Grow Through Mistakes

“I call it the ‘Down To Be Great (DTBG) framework. It’s about developing the kind of mindset you need to get into… [for your] career. It’s about taking risks and how you can go about doing that in your own life, finding your voice and learning how to use it effectively, and then growing through mistakes and challenges. The fact is we are all broken and if you don’t think you’re broken well, that’s how you’re broken. We are all works in progress. The most important thing is that we grow through those mistakes and challenges.” Dara Treseder, Head Of Global Marketing, Peloton

Get Out Of Your Own Way

“Put parameters around the negativity so you can get in and get out. It’s natural. Everyone does it, but you can’t let that slow you down. You’re going to come up against an argument or a way you could have done something better. Know that there’s a moment in time that you’re going to slip up, get over it, but then if you really want to feel better about yourself and get that confidence back to put another single on the board.” Denise Karkos, CMO, SiriusXM and Pandora

Bring Your Family Closer to Work

“The business of business is the business of people. You exist to solve problems, and people’s problems are heavy on the heart. Not dealing with the pressures of leadership can destroy your family, your career and even your life… For many years my definition of life-work balance was keeping work and life as two separate and distinct worlds that did not mix and should not mix.

As I went to my post-depression transformation; I began to integrate work and life. I would share more about what I was doing and feeling at work with [my wife] Ashley and my family. To my surprise they loved it. They learned what I did, why and how I did it and shared their point of view, sometimes too much. Importantly, my daughters were able to learn that I loved my craft and that is an important lesson for our kids to learn.

I also brought in my family much closer to my work. In many of my business presentations, my family was the analogy of the concept that I was trying to convey. My teams became much more open to sharing their lives and life at work became even more meaningful.” Antonio Lucio, former Global CMO, Facebook

Strive For Greatness

“In marketing, we all strive for greatness. Babe Ruth: the best batting average that he had as a Yankee 0.393. That’s about a 40% success rate, which means he fails 60% of the time and most of us in life we’ll call that a failure. And honestly, that’s one of the greatest home run hitters in baseball players of all time. I think that marketing and branding is a bit of risk-taking but also whenever we got about a thousand, we got to focus on those amazing moments to achieve greatness… Greatness inspires the possibility.” Daniel Cherry, General Manager, SVP, DC Comics

Have Confidence in Yourself

“I always tell my kids that confidence is 90% of being successful in anything, and I think that applies at work as well. Believe in yourself, your ability to do the job, and to overdeliver.” Stephanie McMahon, Chief Brand Officer, WWE

Stay True to Who You Are

“This is probably one of the toughest learnings that I have experienced. At some point I wanted to fit in and be accepted and led me to question my own truth. This experience helped me to re-validate who I am, strengthen my self-awareness, my values, my priorities and to raise my voice for what I believe is right.” Rosi Ajjam, GM Aramis, Designer Fragrances and Lab Series, NA, Estée Lauder Companies

Be Mindful of Your Own Health

“I started doing a health diary. And I write simple things. If I’m drinking water, if I’m doing exercise, if I’m sleeping well, if I’m feeling any pain, headache, knee pains, and things like that. And I’ve started realizing how much I had neglected myself on this while taking care of everyone else. So this was a really important thing that I’ve changed in terms of investing in myself.” Patricia Corsi, Global Chief Marketing and Digital Officer, Bayer

Check-in With Yourself

“Everything starts with self-awareness. Crisis can trigger personal memories, fears, trauma, memories of loss, and those things can trigger unintended behavioral consequences. So if leaders let earlier catastrophes echo in their head, it can lead to withdrawal at the very time that they actually need to be most available to others. Make sure you’re checking in with yourself.” Kellyn Smith Kenny, former CMO, Hilton

Take Care of Your Team

“Force people to take a vacation and take days off [and] don’t take no for an answer. Even if they don’t have anything or anywhere to go, just give them that break, allow them to unplug. One of the things that’s so important as a leader is being able to identify burnout, to identify when people aren’t right. And sometimes the signs are so subtle, but you have to have that communication.” Everette Taylor, CMO, Artsy