A Summer with Martin

By Easan Portman

Last summer, the summer before my senior year at college, I was fortunate enough to intern with Martin Lindstrom. My time with Martin took me from Charlotte, North Carolina all the way to Brussels and the Philippines. When I interviewed with Martin over Skype before I was offered the internship, He made sure to let me know about how difficult and constant the work would be and mentioned something called a 48-hour workshop. It was later in the spring when I knew I would be interning for Martin and began to prepare myself for the exhaustion, exhilaration, jetlag, and experience that my upcoming summer would bring me. 

My first stop was in Charlotte, North Carolina. I have been to Charlotte many times, but my first assignment was off the highway about 10 minutes from the airport. I had dinner by myself because Martin was arriving later that night and went to bed early to get ready for an early morning. In the morning I had to wake up at 6 a.m. to set up the event room for about 300 people. I met Martin at 7 and he gave me my instructions. He told me that I would be introducing myself with a story about a challenge I overcame and reading some quotes. After I shared my story I looked to Martin and he gave me a nod of approval, but reading the quotes was a different story. After the first series of quotes, I read Martin took me aside and said that I needed to put more emotion into the quotes. To practice, he read the quotes and wanted me to recite them just like he did. In my mind, I believed I was reciting them correctly, but he said that I could do better. It was at this moment that I realized that Martin Lindstrom was a perfectionist. Just based off how he wanted me to read the quotes I realized that he wanted nothing but the best out of everything he does as well as the what people in his company do. After this, I was filled with mixed feelings of admiration and intimidation, but it pushed me to work harder that entire summer. After Charlotte, we went to Houston for a similar event and then our next stop was Brussels for the infamous 48-hour workshop. 

Throughout Martin and I’s trip from Houston to Brussels, he would ask me questions asking about sensitive topics such as gun control and the political climate in the United States. At first, I was taken back by it, but then I realized that he was genuinely curious about the United States’ culture and my opinions. We arrived at a hotel made for large business conferences in the evening and I began to prepare the venue with another Lindstrom colleague. After setting up and making sure everything was ready to go, I went to bed early to get as much sleep as possible before the 48-hour workshop. The workshop started with an informative presentation with activities mixed in. Martin demanded the absolute perfection from the other assistant and I and even when we thought we did everything perfectly he still said we needed to do better. At first, I was discouraged, but then I realized that he was merely trying to push us even more because he knew what we were capable of. After the information session, the participants broke up into small groups to ideate and come up with a solution to a given issue. The other assistant and I were told to sit and listen to the ideas that the groups were coming up with and give them any input that we had. Martin came up to the group I was sitting with and began asking them about their idea. Once he understood their idea he didn’t just tell the group what his idea was. Instead, he directed the group and helped them develop their idea into something that really was a great idea. All while this was happening; I was just sitting there with my mouth open amazed at how he just developed that idea with the group. It was at this moment I realized exactly how Martin became a leading branding expert. He didn’t dismiss any of the less stellar ideas, but instead, he wanted to understand everyone’s perspective in the group and use that information to develop something truly great. The workshop went into the early hours of the morning and I maybe got 3 hours of sleep that night. The next day it was crunch time and we had to organize all the group’s presentations into one PowerPoint and setting that all up while handling all the groups tech issues was one of the most stressful experiences I have had in my life because I knew Martin wanted perfection, but it was also that which kept me going. At the end of the 48-hour workshop, I was sore and exhausted, but it was one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had. 

My summer working for Martin was one of the most difficult, but rewarding experiences I’ve ever had. When Martin and I were riding to the airport for the final time that summer, he gave me a few key things to think about. While some were specifically for me, others can be a guide for most peoples lives. The first was navigating culture. Without an understanding of a certain culture, you will never be able to make a change, no matter how smart you may think you are. Second, predict problems. There were times in my internship where I didn’t expect certain things to happen, but they did. So I needed to look to the future and assume things were going to go wrong and I needed to be prepared. Finally, he told me his rule, NASA. It stands for need acceptance solution acceptance. Being a consultant or just an average joe trying to solve a problem the need must first be identified. Next, the client or person involved needs to accept the need, because without the acceptance they will never accept a solution. Then, a solution needs to be found and accepted. If you try NASA out of order a working solution will never come to fruition. I will take these ideas Martin gave me and use them in every aspect of my life. This past summer will be one that I can look back 30 years from now and realize that it truly was a defining point of my life. 

About Martin Lindstrom

Change Agent. Brand Futurist. Best-selling Author. Martin Lindstrom is one of the world’s premier (and toughest) brand building experts – advising Fortune 100 brands from the Coca-Cola Company to Nestle to Red Bull on how to build future-proof brands. Lindstrom is the recipient of TIME Magazine’s “Worlds 100 Most Influential People”. He has carved out a niche as a global expert and pioneer in the fields of consumer psychology, marketing, brands, and neuro-scientific research. Lindstrom has developed an unorthodox way of doing what every company says it wants to do: understand its consumers’ deepest desires and turn them into breakthrough products, brands or retail experiences. In 2015, Thinkers50 ranked Martin number 18 amongst the world’s most influential management thinkers. He is a New York Times and Wall St Journal best-selling author of six ground-breaking books on branding, including Buyology: The Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, BRANDsense and Brandwashed. Buyology was voted “pick of the year” by USA Today, and appeared on the Top 10 bestseller lists in the US and worldwide, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. His book BRANDsense was acclaimed by the Wall Street Journal as “…one of the five best marketing books ever published.” His latest book, Small Data –The Tiny Clues That Uncover Huge Trends has also become an international best-seller.