"I Embrace All My Experiences, past and Yet to Come, as Relevant"

Josh Golden is president and chief creative officer for Yes&, an integrated marketing agency with offices in Alexandria, Philadelphia, Chicago, and satellite offices (read: living rooms, dens, attics, etc.) around the country. A writer, video producer, event director, and marketer, Josh leads Yes& to open new doors, explore fresh ideas, and overcome the thorniest of challenges. Josh has an insatiable intellectual curiosity, a love of facts, and a passion for language. His work has served diverse clients such as insurance firms, universities, theatres, banks, hotel chains, TV studios, international sports, restaurants, non-profits, and the US Government. Before joining Yes&, Josh directed creative for two Major League Baseball teams, the NY Mets and Washington Nationals, where his legacy lives on in four larger-than-life racing presidents.

It's not so much what you’ve done, it’s what you do with what you’ve done.

A few years ago, I had just been named senior creative director and, as a perk, got to mentor some of the newer talent on our team. In one of our Welcome to the Agency Fireside Chats, one of our interns asked, “You have such an interesting background. How does that help with marketing?” It was a challenging question - and one I had grappled with a lot. I had never considered my meandering career path all that pertinent. I was a theatre kid turned theatre major turned traveling player turned sometime historian turned theatre professor. And when the joy of journeying from Texarkansas to Kanorado to Idavada wore thin, I sold out for a pay check. Well, sort of a pay check. I landed in Major League Baseball - an industry that lists its top perk as, “Hey, you get to work in baseball!” Still, I was employed. Full time, too!

In those fields, I was an expert. I could rattle off every song from Tin Pan Alley and every player from the Gas House Gang. Ask me about Hammerstein or Hammerin' Hank. I was solid. Confident.

And then - I sold out again. I entered the world of marketing. But marketing’s different - it’s broad. It’s about everything and for everyone. So, how do you claim full expertise in that? Where do you even begin?

I spent my first few years in marketing pretending - feeling I was playing a part. So, yeah, I was acting again! I didn’t know enough about marketing. I heard KPIs and USPs and thought WTF. I only knew theatre and baseball. I only knew how to analyse human behaviour (character analysis) and how to shape a narrative (playwriting) and how to think on my toes (improv). My background had only prepared me to capture emotions (directing) or to engage on a large scale (baseball). How could I possibly claim any expertise in marketing with just...that?

And in that moment, with a Zoom full of eager interns, I had an epiphany: I had the power to advertise all along. My journey wasn’t a detour, it was the route. 

So, I embrace it. I embrace all my experiences, past and yet to come, as relevant - as essential to what I now do. Every singalong on family drives, every evening of stifled breath hoping for that walk-off knock, every kick-around with my daughters, or summer book, or magazine, or podcast. All of it.

Marketers are dot connectors. And each of these experiences? They’re just adding more dots. It’s not pointless - it’s pointillism. And we’re better when we can draw from a deeper palette.

We are the culmination of our experiences, relationships, discoveries, and happenstances. And all of that applies to marketing. This profession is very much about who you were and where you’ve been, which informs what you are and how you think. Your sloth collection? Your obsession with anime? Your ag degree? It all counts. Your 'non-marketing' experience isn’t just relevant - it’s revelatory. I once thought I was finding myself. I was really creating myself. And that’s what we do every day. 

So, lean in fully. It takes all kinds.