When I was a kid, I would dig holes in the dirt. I don’t remember why I was digging. For treasure? To get muddy? Or maybe to release my imagination.

As I started in the advertising business out of college, I shifted my digging from dirt into data. At that time, as a colleague and I recently reminisced, we were running MRI crosstabs printed on green and white dot matrix paper. We would highlight high-indexing hobbies of the target prospect. Time and time again, no matter the category, GARDENING was top of the list.

I was always skeptical. I don’t garden. I have no green thumb. I have whatever thumb it is where you even kill fake plants.

Many years later, I still don’t garden. But I recognize that the MRI data was and is accurate. Gardening remains many people’s favorite hobby and escape. I also realize that my favored hobbies—repeat not gardening—often borrow language from gardening. Think seed, growth, weeding, pruning, trimming, cutting, watering, thinning, and the always important patience. (Or is it impatiens?) I’ve learned a few things along the way.

If you are into collectibles, music, investing, or even podcasting, I believe you will see the cross-over lingo of gardening applies.

I wanted to see what one other data proxy had to say and searched gardening as a podcast subject on Spotify. I stopped scrolling when I hit 408 different titles. Dig that!

This is just a friendly reminder that so often we are not the target audience. What we don’t read, watch, and otherwise consume someone else does. Trust the indexes and data digging. Let the miracle grow happen.