We don’t get a lot of visitors up north.

The place we go is quiet. The lake is small and no motorized boats are allowed. There’s no public access either, but the lake is fairly deep and the shore is steep (it’s 30 feet deep just a bit off shore). There are a handful of cabins, a few familiar boats, and not much else. That’s kind of the point.

So when I looked out and saw two kids (one girl and one boy) standing on our dock, I was confused.

They weren’t shy about it either. The were just there … perfectly comfortable and fully settled in, almost like they’d been coming to that dock for years. They had fishing poles, life jackets, and a happy energy that almost made me feel like I was the one who wandered somewhere unexpected.

My husband called out, “What are you guys doing out there?”

I was thinking to myself, “Where in the world did they come from? How did we not notice? Where are their parents?!”

The girl looked up from her fishing line, completely nonchalant …

“Our boat sank,” she said.

I looked out at the lake, and sure enough. Out toward the middle of the lake, their older brother was on a paddleboat—towing another paddleboat that was halfway underwater.

He was slowly but surely making his way back to shore on the other side of the lake.

Their boat had literally just sunk.

And these two kids were on our dock. Fishing. Their life jackets were tossed on the dock behind them like they were in the way.

The only thing that seemed to upset them was that they weren’t catching any fish.

Their older brother called out, “You guys still good?”

The younger brother yelled back, “Yeah, were good. Except were not catching anything.”

I couldn’t help but stare in disbelief. I’d never seen anything like it. I felt like we should go out and help, but after assessing the situation, we realized these kids had it handled.

Eventually, their brother made it back to shore with two paddleboats—one he was in and one almost fully underwater. Grandpa helped him get the sunk boat out, and the brother started paddling back out to our dock to get his siblings.

All three of them loaded up. Life jackets in their laps. Not on—in their laps. Even after everything that just happened. I swear I’m not making this up.

And if that wasn’t unexpected enough …

The kids didn’t go back. They didn’t call it a day. We thought they’d head back across the lake to regroup, recover, maybe tell the story to their parents around the campfire. But nope.

They paddled further out.

To fish.

An hour later they were still out there, fishing, and having their best Saturday.

When a marketing campaign bombs so bad it’s sinking, we often do what seems logical. We make adjustments or change it. Sometimes we even start over. It’s what we were taught. Look at the numbers, test, and optimize.

We treat logic as the foundation first, because it seems logical.

It’s almost a reflex at this point, but sometimes we do it before we’ve asked the human questions.

A campaign underperforms, a competitor makes a move, or the quarter doesn’t look good and our response is to reach for more logic. To dig in for more data, numbers, insights, and to make optimizations. Because doing nothing doesn’t feel right.

That logic isn’t wrong. We need data and iteration in marketing. It’s critical. But sometimes we apply logic too early, without the mindset and empathy underneath. It’s like reacting to the numbers without first knowing what they mean, what they’re measuring, or if they’re even the right thing to be measuring.

Those kids on our dock did something different. They made a decision in the moment. They trusted their instincts. They didn’t make a pros-and-cons list while their boat was sinking. They just got to the closest dock. And once they were there, they didn’t overanalyze the situation. The logical next step was obvious …

Fish.

From my view, it looked chaotic ... two kids stranded on a stranger’s dock and their boat sinking. A slightly older kid paddling across a private lake to save them.

But once I understood the situation the way the kids did, it wasn’t chaotic at all.

Their brother had the boat and he was handling it. The other two kids were safe and dry. There was really nothing more for my husband and I to do. 

It would have been easy to judge the kids as irresponsible and oblivious to how serious the situation could have been. “Kids being kids” as people like to say. Maybe I should have yelled at them to put their life jackets on. I just couldn’t. They were legitimately fine.

Somehow, at their age, they made a clear and calm assessment of what could have been a stressful situation for many adults, and those kids ended up with right response. They didn’t overcomplicate it, and they didn’t create urgency that didn’t need to exist. They could have been screaming and crying, but they weren’t. They just solved the problem.

And then when it was over, they went right back out to fish.

The order you put logic in matters.

When something doesn’t go how we expect or want it to in marketing, we often change course. But sometimes, staying the course, listening to your intuition, and getting back out there can be the best course of action—even when it doesn’t seem logical at first.  

Last month, I saw Founder & CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cessario, speak at the Financial Brand Forum. He told the story about his original idea for the company, and it stuck with me.  

His idea was basic. Plain water in a can with a skull on it. The name would be Liquid Death, and the tagline would be “Murder Your Thirst.” That was basically it. No carbonation, special ingredients, added electrolytes, or purity message.

In 2018, he took the idea to investors. It sank.

They told him retailers would never put something on their shelves with the word “death” on it. It wasn’t logical. The can looked too much like beer and it would confuse people. They basically said no one would ever fund the idea. The investors went straight to logic and it didn’t make sense to them.

A lot of marketers would have taken the feedback and started over. The logical thing to do would’ve been to reposition the brand, soften the name, and redesign the can to look more like something investors would recognize as water. But we all know Mike didn’t do that. He got back out there without changing the idea.

Even though he had no investors, he didn’t freak out. Instead, he made a commercial for $1,500. He borrowed a camera, used his wife’s actress friend, and shot the ad in another friend’s empty office on a weekend. The product didn’t even exist yet. The can in the ad was actually a Miller Lite can. They just turned it perfectly at an angle so you couldn’t see the label.

And then Mike put the ad on Facebook. He spent a few thousand dollars on media for about three months.

It generated three million views.

In what seemed like overnight, Liquid Death had more followers than Aquafina. Beverage distributors were calling, asking how to get it. People all over social media were asking if it was real. Literally calling water you drink “death” was so weird, it didn’t seem real. But it was.

That was in 2019. By the end of 2023, Liquid Death had generated over $200 million in global retail sales. Today the company is valued at $1.4 billion.

A water company?! With a skull on the can.

Mike didn’t panic when investors scoffed at his idea. The kids on my dock didn’t panic either. And nobody died. They both got back out on the water.

On the surface, how the kids on my dock reacted didn’t seem logical. One would expect them to be scared, shaken, and ready to go home and tell their parents what happened.

Even as an observer, I felt like I should panic.

Many marketers in Mike’s situation would’ve logically panicked and changed course too.

Yet both of those reactions, while they seem logical, put logic first.

And panic in both situations would’ve only created more panic. It wouldn’t have solved either problem well.

What helped them most was putting logic last..    

The MEL Method

Mindset Kept Them Afloat

Neither the kids on my dock or Mike Cessario were afraid. They understood what happened and they chose to be calm. The boat sank and the idea sank, but both were fine. They saw the situation as temporary.

Others may have had a completely different mindset. And a different mindset may have created a different result. Neither is necessarily right or wrong, but in all cases, your mindset provides a lens through which you see things through. Which means the same thing could look different when filtered through a different mindset.

That lens shapes how you make decisions and how you react when the unexpected happens.

It all starts with what you believe.

Do you believe you’re fine, or that you’re sinking?

In both situations, the kids and Mike believed they were fine. They stayed focused on their goal and the goal didn’t change. Regardless of who was with them.

In marketing, mindset is your foundation. It's what you believe about your work, your customers, and why you exist before anyone is watching.

It’s also what keeps you going, even when you find a hole in your boat.

Empathy Kept It Real

Someone outside both of these situations would have assumed something was seriously wrong. I almost did when I saw those kids. But then I got closer, asked some important questions, and understood the situation much better from the lens of those in it.

There was no point jumping in the lake to help. The brother had the boat and he was capable. The two kids saw that and they were safe. A neighbor even kayaked across the lake—she read the room and realized to just stay out of the way.

Mike did the same thing. He read the room of investors and realized that getting them to buy his idea wasn’t going work. They weren’t the audience Liquid Death was built for. So, he got out of their way but stayed focused on his goal. He went directly to his audience on Facebook instead, and found thousands of people fascinated … asking, “Is this real?”

That’s what empathy looks like. It’s an extension for knowing who needs what, who already has it handled, and who’s waiting to be found. It helps you figure out where your energy is and is not needed.  

Empathy keeps it real for your end customer and it helps you read the room. It’s how you understand the situation your audience in, without just assuming you know. And when you have that understanding, it keeps you from piling on to a problem that’s already being solved, or pitching to people who are never going to say yes.

It's how your marketing connects with people, because you've slowed down enough to understand them.

Logic Kept Them Going

Because their mindset stayed steady and the empathy around them was clear, the next logical step for Mike and those kids was obvious.

No one would fund an idea they couldn’t see working, so Mike showed them it working. He spent $1,500 on an ad instead of abandoning his idea, changing it, or pitching it to more investors.

And the kids were safe on our dock with fishing poles. There was nothing else to do but fish. After all, it was Saturday, and that was the original goal.

Neither of them overanalyzed or overcomplicated it. There was no spiraling or getting upset. They didn’t even ask AI what to do. ;) They stayed focused on their original goal and what they believed.

Fish.

Sell water.

Get back out there.

When logic comes last and is built on mindset and empathy, the next step forward is as crystal clear as a lake up north. You don’t retreat backwards, you go further out.

What You’ll Need:

Go somewhere quiet and just watch what’s happening.

Don’t try to solve anything, or capture anything, or look for a takeaway. Just see what you notice when you’re not looking for something specific.

The two kids in that sinking boat weren’t trying to have an epiphany. And they weren’t on their phones. They were just fishing. And that’s why they made such a clear decision in the middle of something that could have felt like chaos.

Some of the best logic comes from the stillest moments.

If this story sparked a thought, a question, or even a gentle disagreement, I’d love to hear it. Share what resonated—or what didn’t.

I’d love to make this a conversation so we can learn and grow together.