I’m glad I’ve spent so much time questioning the way. At first I thought it was a waste – like, why can’t I put my head down and just walk straight? Sure, I think I’ve wasted some time going down the wrong variants of the path. I’ve back tracked a bit and it sure wasn’t always smooth. But when I started walking down the right path, I knew, without a doubt or second thought, that it was right. And it felt good.

Sociologists these days say that people really don’t find themselves until 30. It’s funny, because when I was 19 I thought I knew everything. Now I look back at 19-year-old me and I don’t even recognize that girl. She never would have predicted I’d be sitting in Philz Coffee Shop in San Francisco blogging about my ideals for the company I created from the ground up. Hell, she didn’t even know what blogging was. She was trying to land a job as a journalist for a big magazine. She was going to get married by 24. She was going to write a novel by 21.

It’s not that the place I stand today is done. Nothing’s ever done. I’m not finished with the trail. It’s just that I know this is the right trail. I don’t think I’d be able to say that had I not tried all the other routes. A good friend said to me the other day, “We’ve worked hard to get where we are. We’ve spent a lot of time doing the wrong things. So there’s no sense in letting the wrong things from our past inhibit the right, nor is there any point in wasting another second on the wrong.” She’s a smart lady.

It’s a lot easier to climb when you know you’re going the right way.

Today aviation is more commonly associated with discomfort and boredom. The cockpit of a modern airliner is locked off during flight so that all we experience is a disembodied tube crammed with bodies, peanuts, and plastic cups. Aviation has come to be associated with aisle and window more than stick and rudder.

So what happened to the romance and adventure of aviation? Absolutely nothing. It is still there, alive and well, on the outskirts of town at the dusty little airports where the little airplanes fly. Good pilots gather around bad coffee in almost every town in the United States to fly a dizzying variety of aircraft that carry only a few people and are all pushed by propellers.

I used to own and fly one of the smallest and simplest of those little airplanes: a 1947 Aeronca 11CC Super Chief. The “Super” tag was in reference to its large, 85 horsepower engine, an upgrade from the original 65-horse Continental.  It had no GPS, no radios, no starter, no battery.  Flight instruments were limited to a magnetic compass and an altimeter. It did have a handbrake – a unique upgrade – that allowed me to get out of the airplane and swing the propeller around until the engine started without wondering how I might get back into the cockpit before the airplane rolled off down the runway. Swinging the propeller around was the only way to start it, and was nearly impossible when the engine was hot.  With the engine humming the light little bird (it only weighed 725 pounds) would bounce off the ground in a meager 300 feet. It was very slow for an airplane – only 80 mph or so – but could land anywhere and only cost about $15 an hour in gas to fly. In fact, for most trips, it was cheaper than driving.

I remember a particular summer day skimming just 500 feet above the ground with the windows open. I could see each aspect of the landscape distinctly, and I could smell the newly-mown hay of Oregon’s Willamette Valley as it mixed with the salt air from the coast. And I could see the contrails of jet airliners far overhead and thought about their passengers, cloistered and disgruntled, far removed from aviation.

What I’m about to tell you may blow your mind. What is thought of as a game of steady hands is actually a puzzle. Imagine playing this game where the stack is wavy, making S-shapes, or even spiraled? Preposterous. What if I told you that you had your nostalgic 80′s game all wrong? It’d be like saying Monopoly was a metaphor for Nazi Germany.

The key to achieving Jenga-Zen is to keep the vertical center line of gravity from coming off its foundation.

That means rows of three can hang off one plank on one side. And the S-shaped tower? It actually frees up more planks so you can remove them from the sides. But like the game where Jenga’s deepest secrets became a glaringly obvious to me, you may have to try it yourself to realize the moral to this story.

Tallest Jenga tower? 40 and 2/3rds rows.

I love fluffy, game changing, everybody-hunker-down-because-you’re-not-going-anywhere blizzards. In fact, some may say they were my favorite holidays. So do I miss the snow? Sure. Who doesn’t love a snow day? And there is nothing more pristine and beautiful than Boulder covered in an untouched layer of white, shimmering, fluffy snow.

But alas, these alleged snow days are often fables told from the elders around a camp fire. In the Front Range – you maybe get two a year. The in-between times look more like this: ice stuck to your windshield because everyone’s garage is packed with their bikes and other gear, people driving up the hill on 20th toward Coors Field in two-wheel drive sideways, a mad dash up I-70 leading to the inevitable congestion of white Altimas parked in the center lane looking like a car graveyard. Not to sound like a complete pessimist, but, you live in Colorado or gods sake! Get some snow tires!

My negative feelings toward Colorado winters comes directly from automotive transportation. It’s frustrating. It’s annoying. And it is so unnecessary. In California, I discovered this wonderful thing while driving up to Tahoe – snow tire check points. It is actually illegal to drive over the pass without them. And if you don’t have snow tires, you must buy chains right then and there. While I’ll admit, this system doesn’t account for plain bad drivers, but it certainly helps to weed them out. Such a simple solution that could actually make this cold heart be warm and fuzzy again, sitting by the fire, drinking a Hot Toddie.

As early as 1820, San Francisco began being serviced by ferry from Marin. The idea of a connecting bridge even then seemed necessary but impossible. When demand for building the bridge became more of reality in 1916, the first engineers quoted that it would cost $100 million dollars – a completely absurd amount for the time.

Joseph Strauss, an engineer and poet, rethought the designs and introduced the idea of a suspension bridge, claiming it could be built for $17 million. Strauss got the job, and from that moment on the following two decades of his life were completely consumed by the project.

The project faced political backlash, environmental uncertainties, intense fog and winds, and stringent regulations to prevent it from clogging the important port. It underwent countless design revisions and passed through the hands of numerous designers. It incorporated the innovation of what is called the “deflection theory,” where the bridge would be able to sway in the wind. The final redesign was by Leon Moisseiff, which added the needed grace and visual appeal that Strauss’ proposed central-suspension design could not offer. In 1933, for a budget of $35 million dollars, the project finally began.

The grand opening for the bridge came in May of 1937. It was the longest suspension bridge of the time and the fruition of an impossible project.  Today, the Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most photographed bridges in the world and has been declared a modern Wonder of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

It is an inspiring work of art and ingenuity, and serves as a reminder that function and beauty can coexist in some of the most unexpected ways.

There really is not a science to being perceptive, however, it’s one of the most important things a good marketer can do. Knowing the consumer is not just about knowing different ways to market. It’s about knowing your current customers – sometimes personally. What excites them, why did they choose you over the other guy, what would make them recommend you to a friend? The key to word of mouth is happy customers. Being attuned to what makes people happy may just be the best marketing investment you can make.

Perhaps this year, tap into your best fan base yet – your current customers. Ask tough questions, delight them with rewards, get to know their families. Your current customers are the core of your word of mouth revolution. Take a step back to learn about them and I predict this year will be full of unexpected success.

I was fortunate enough to meet a few sea turtles in Hawaii in October. They are majestic creatures that soar, eyes wide open, through the blue waters of the Pacific. I went on a couple of shore dives off of Ka’anapali Beach near Lahaina, Maui. Though we only dove to 35 feet, the waters were silent in sound, but pact with life. The turtles almost creep up on you. All of the sudden you are looking deeply into a yellow and black school of butterfly fish and the next thing you know you are face to face with a turtle that seems to be peering into your soul, dispersing its wisdom onto you.

And it is wise. It must be, after living to nearly 100 years, and sometimes up to 400. But age is not always wisdom. To me, wisdom is the ability to adapt. The oceans have changed drastically over the last several million years. Pollution, fishing, hunting, climate change, coral destruction – all of these factors contribute to the harm of the sea turtle and other underwater life. However, despite natural and man-made factors, this species have continued to adapt, rooting us to our prehistoric past. We could all learn something from the turtle. Sure, slow and steady win the race, but grace and poise make the race look easy.

What We Learned – 2011 from LEGWORK on Vimeo.

So what is the lesson here? Don’t put all your eggs in one basket? Perception is in the eye of the beholder? La Nina has a funny sense of humor? I think the lesson is simple – as a business owner, it’s easy to get discouraged by the big guys – the Vails – with their fancy advertisements and their seemingly impenetrable clout on Google. But at the end of the day, you can’t predict the weather.  If you can maintain the value of your product and the quality of your service year after year, you will eventually get the snow.

This is a common symptom for marketers – to move project to project and only think about the whole in their annual planning meetings. However, if the platform they were working from was fully integrated in a smart and technologically sound way, where all the moving parts flowed in and out of the same programs – pre-planned and tracked – the universe may not feel as vast.

Watch “Why Marketing Automation is a Must” >>