You probably think I’ve had one lousy career if I hang my hat on that one. But, actually, I’ve accomplished some admirable things. I’ve worked on big national brand name clients and hauled home some great creative and marketing award hardware. But this one comment is pretty much what it’s all about.

It was during a field trip to a cattle farm with a client who was an agriculture rep for a product that was my account. How’s that for getting in touch with the target audience? One of the cattle farmers we met up with said to the agriculture rep, “I saw your last ad and it was really good.” He looked at me and said, “Finally, you advertising people let a cattle farmer write an ad.” And he had the ad hanging up in his office on the wall. He loved it that much. Looking at his wall, he’d not hung anything new up there in the last 15 years at least.

I wrote that ad. And I kept my mouth shut about that. I am not a cattle farmer, I am a born and bread southern debutante. I stepped out of my magnolia tree-lined, silver-spoon-fed upbringing, I put my feet figuratively in some cowboy boots and my mind in hardworking macho mode. Then I did something that reached out and grabbed this guy by his shirt collar. Yahoooooo!