I am a builder. I build great teams. I build effective and efficient marketing plans. I build data ecosystems. I build relationships. I even build chicken coops, greenhouses and garages. I also love challenges and I love cooking, and I really love it when I get to combine the two in the "Make Something from Nothing Dinner Challenge." In this challenge, you open the refrigerator, look inside and then based only the available ingredients, prepare a meal that is visually interesting, tastes great and is healthy to eat.The same skills that make me great at the "Make Something from Nothing Dinner Challenge" game make me an excellent marketer. It's not about being an expert in one tactic; it's not about being an expert in understanding one audience; it's about being a mixologist of this highest order, a chef de cuisine of the marketing universe. It's part art, part science, a lot of hard work, and the most fun you can have legally and still get paid to do it.To use a music analogy shamelessly borrowed from my friend Bruce Turkel (www.bruceturkel.com), great music is not about the notes, because all composers and musicians work with the very same notes - whether it is Bach or BB King or Billie Eilish, they all have the same 15 notes to work with.The greatness in music comes from how the notes are put together, the sequence, the timing, and the relationship between the different notes. And of course, the unique artistry of the musician who brings those notes to life.I call it "Marketing Alchemy," and it's what I've practiced and perfected in a career that has mixed politics (both as a consultant and as a successful candidate myself), tourism (both as a client needing to make payroll and as an agency advising clients), higher education and now technology.