The morning began, as they all did, in silence. Christina sat before her laptop, the screen throwing its pale light against the glass walls of her office.

Outside the walls, the city moved — impatient, confident, and alive.

But Christina only felt the stillness of a pattern she could not break.

She clicked open a new tab.

- Declining market share
- Eroding revenue
- Rising costs

The numbers stared at her, cold and absolute, indifferent to the long nights through which she had tried to summon progress.

She told herself, again and again, that the problem was marketing.

If she could only refine the message, buy more reach, hire brighter minds to tell the story, then the world would see her company’s worth and the tide would turn.

When her board grew restless, she told them what she always told herself, that more revenue was just one campaign away.

The promise of results was always near, just beyond the next funnel, the next agency, the next month’s ad spend.

It was comforting to believe that salvation could be purchased.

Outside, people passed beneath the window, absorbed in their own hurried tasks.

Christina decided to join them on her way to a second cup of coffee.

She sat down and tried not to overhear two young developers chattering in the corner.

They were discussing the very problem her software was built to solve!

They spoke eagerly, even passionately, about tools that changed their workflow.

She leaned in slightly, half expecting to hear her company’s name.

It never came.

Christina had enough. Something was terribly wrong.

Her coach listened in silence as Christina recited her frustrations.

When the story ended, she said softly, “You keep saying marketing is the problem, but what if marketing is the disguise?”

The words unsettled Christina.

A disguise? She had never considered that her relentless marketing campaigns might be hiding something too painful to face.

That night she couldn’t sleep. She remembered how the company once built its products in communication with customers.

She remembered again how engineers and users spoke as equals, how each improvement had developed from true understanding.

Now those voices were gone, replaced by reports, funnels, and metrics.

The next morning, she MFD'd. (Made a f*cking decision)

“Sixty percent of the marketing budget will go toward product development, customer conversations, and rebuilding the bond we once had with our users. Starting now.”

It was not a memo but a vow.

The next weeks were marked by discomfort. The awkward quiet in departments unaccustomed to listening. The fear of “standing still” after years of loud marketing campaigns.

But within that stillness something living stirred.

Engineers began visiting clients again. The sales team stopped “selling” and started asking questions again.

There was no fanfare, no grand campaign to announce the change, only the quiet, persistent labor of a company returning to honesty.

Half a year later, revenue climbed 150 percent. The company was smaller and quieter but SO alive.

Marketing spend dropped by more than half. But what Christina valued most couldn’t be measured: her people were proud again.

“Our marketing problem was never really about marketing,” Christina reflected.

“Once we stopped blaming and started seeing, we discovered our real obstacle.

We were so busy trying to tell our story with more ad dollars that we had stopped listening to our customers’ stories completely.”

THIS WEEK'S MFD CHALLENGE

Before you reach for the next “fix” in your business, pause.

Ask whether the problem is really what you think it is, or if it’s just the one that feels easiest to solve.

Make your f*cking decision to stop hiding behind the easy fix and face what’s actually holding you back.

Know someone solving the wrong problem perfectly?
Forward this issue to as many people as you want!

Until next Tuesday,

Kevin D. St.Clergy
Author & Podcast Host of Beyond Blind Blaming
Creator of the Blind Blaming Specialist™ Certification
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