Marketing can look like so many things, especially in our hyper tech world of constantly expanding options. And yet it remains as one simple thing, the mere conveyance of a unique vision that attracts people to a company, a product or service.

It sounds simple enough in concept, and if we look at it from the perspective that we have something of value to offer, and given the value of our offering that there would be others who would want to know about it and make a purchase.

Why then does marketing swirl at the heart of what so many businesses struggle over the most?

The answer and the solution lie in the beliefs that underlie our marketing and the beliefs we hold that serve as the foundation of the work we do.

Sound esoteric? In many respects, yes, much the same as how modern understandings of quantum physics baffles the minds of so many highly learned individuals. To digress for a moment, Newtonian physics presents a view of the universe in which everything can be reduced to matter and energy, and matter on its most basic level are atoms so small that they can only be detected under an electron microscope—the building blocks of all that there is in the visible universe.

In such an understanding of physics, everything physical can be explained through physical cause and effect. But then comes the modern understandings of quantum physics in which we now know from rigorous and repeatable research that there is no such thing as physical matter—that atoms do not consist of physical matter, but energy, much of it randomly phasing in and out of existence. Even more scary to those who still hold to the Newtonian view of life is that consciousness affects matter.

This is not a new understanding, it’s been around for quite some time, but the reason so few people know about it is that the implications for virtually all our scientific disciplines is so threatening that it is taking us a very long time for even the most gradual of shifts in scientific thinking to occur.

Enter the art of marketing in the modern era. The Newtonian view of marketing is that if we push buttons and pull levers that positive results will occur, and if we push buttons and pull levers and don’t see the results we had hoped for that it’s because we’re pushing the wrong buttons or pulling the wrong levers. So, if we invest in broadcast advertising and it only produces minimal results, then we shift to another vehicle. Say we shift to Facebook advertising but only achieve a modest improvement. Then we look for the next button or lever, or we seek a different agency who can push the same buttons but do it better. In other words, our approach is cause and effect marketing—we do something and a result is produced.

The quantum physics approach to marketing would look something like this. We believe in our industry or craft and hold some level of excitement about it, and because we hold excitement about it we are very eager to produce a product or service that is truly amazing. This seems fun to us and so we have a great deal of energy to put to the creative process.

Our energy and excitement is the consciousness that affects the physical matter. In this case both the creation of the product or service and the ways in which we market it are affected by our enthusiasm. That is why so many startups disrupt industries because when they are small and working out of a garage or a small grungy office space in which the founders are sleeping under their desks and eating stale pizza for breakfast, their sole focus is in the expression of what they are truly and authentically excited about.

As companies mature, the focus changes to encompass all those things which we deem to be of importance to the efficient and responsible operation of a business, and the more we focus our efforts and energy on those things which we deem to be important to the efficient and responsible operation of a business, the more our energy (consciousness) shifts from enthusiasm and love for doing work that matters, to being efficient and responsible.

As we strive to be efficient and responsible we will almost always slip into an energy of fear—what if we don’t meet our sales quota, what if our new product launch doesn’t go over well, what if we can’t make our line of credit payment next month, what if, what if, what if.

Fear is an even more powerful energy than the energy of being efficient and responsible, because it has the ability to consume us and affect virtually everything we do or say. Taking risks, being different, talking about our product in ways that are disruptive feels uncomfortable and scary when we’re in a place of fear. Even when we’re in the energy of efficiency and responsibility, it feels somehow irresponsible to carve out a new marketing campaign that states it exactly the way we want. Think of Nike and the Colin Kaepernick ads, or Patagonia and the “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign. Both of which were highly controversial, and yet both yielded extraordinary results.

Back to the beliefs that underlie marketing. As quantum physics has shown us, our own consciousness affects matter, and our consciousness is guided by our beliefs. Just as a train can only take the course dictated by the tracks laid before it, our responses, emotions, actions and life directions are controlled by our beliefs.

The nature of our marketing, therefore, is dictated by the beliefs we hold about ourselves, our company, our products and services, and indeed by our feelings of worthiness as a purveyor of those products and services. They are the tracks laid in front of us that hold us steadfast to a particular tone and personality, which conveys emotion and leads to what in marketing language we refer to as the “stickiness” of our marketing.

We all want to be successful, and after we’ve created something that we feel is valuable we naturally want to spread the word and watch the sales roll in. With the Newtonian view of marketing, in which everything is cause and effect, we will seek endlessly for the right button to push or lever to pull—the silver bullet. We might find it, we might not. We might just keep banging around from one method to another, maybe moving the needle, maybe not.

In the quantum physics of marketing we will step back and ask ourselves, what do we believe about ourselves, our product, our offering, why did we get into this business in the first place, why do we do what we do, and then we will reconnect (or more deeply connect) with our WHY and seek to embody it in all that we do. From this approach the energy of excitement and passion are conveyed, which is authentic and sticky and compelling. With this approach, which buttons and levers we use almost doesn’t matter because our message, our energy and our tone is what connects.