• by Erin Everhart , Yesterday

My toxic trait is that I do not replace things on any sort of schedule. Cars, phones, sunscreen past its expiration date. I live and die by frugality’s motto: “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” 

This is not my husband’s motto. He is routine, schedule, and order though and through. He changes air filters every three months and knows when to change the batteries in our smoke detector before it starts beeping. Bless him for carrying the load of that quiet, recurring maintenance that keeps things running. I just don’t have that gene.

Most of the time, these opposites complement each other, but last year it came to head when he said it was time to buy a new mattress. Our thirty-year-old mattress, I should add. Calm down, we’ve cleaned it; I’m not a monster. Still, it wasn’t broken. It was doing the job. We were sleeping. Case closed.

My husband did not agree, and over the course of many months, it caused more arguments and more headaches —something that might have been caused by the mattress in question — than I care to admit.

In the end, we bought a new mattress, one with all the latest gizmos and gadgets. Turns out, mattresses have come a long way in thirty years. Our next guest knows that first hand.

He’s the CMO behind some of the most recognizable names in the industry. He knows that comfort is personal, sleep is a necessity, and that trust is earned over decades, not quarters. He’s modernizing a portfolio of legacy brands during a time when shopping, discovery and intent looks drastically different than it did thirty years ago.

Tim Oakhill, CMO at Serta Simmons, told us all about it. Listen to the full episode here.