April Fool’s Day is one of the most divisive holidays out there. Some people absolutely adore April Fool’s Day – they’re out there carefully constructing elaborate pranks and laugh like loons when someone pranks them – while other people hate this celebration with the passion of a thousand burning suns. Yet there’s more to being a Fool than playing pranks, and that’s a lesson that has profound importance to anyone who’s got a business to market in the world today.

Joseph Campbell was a great scholar who delved into all the classic stories of the world. One story that kept coming up for him, time and time again, was the story of the Fool. The classic European example was the story of Parsifal, and there is an equivalent story in every culture. In these stories, the Fool always had a mission he needed to complete, but he didn’t go about it the way people had always done things. In fact, he was always asking questions about what seemed to everyone else to be blindingly obvious. He never took it for granted that the right way to do things was the right way to. In fact, sometimes he’d try to complete his mission in a way that made no sense to anyone.

Yet he was successful. Time after time, in story after story, we see that it is the one person who sets aside convention and traditional wisdom, who is willing to set aside what has always been done in favor of what works, who achieves the greatest results. These people are laughed at. They’re mocked by their society. They are called Fools. And they win.

Are you willing to be a Fool?

Just for today, try on the Fool’s point of view. Look at your marketing and say, “Is this doing what I need it to do? Is there a better way? What if I did something differently?” The perspective shift can be a real game changer, for you and for your business – and we’re not fooling!