The Art of Doing Less
The wee hut in Vermont where I rang in the new year and decided to do less.
The abundance mindset is a human invention
The idea that we can have everything we desire, if we just hustle a bit more, or add it all to a vision board, or use the right software…? It’s bullshit.
Okay, actually the vision board thing is probably the most legit of the above because you try creating a vision board that has too much stuff on it and you’ll see (or you should see) that it’s just TOO MUCH. It’s a cluttered mess. It’s a visual representation of you trying to make sausage out of too many dissonant ingredients (and mixed metaphors) and it’s ugly, it’s not working, and it needs to go in the trash.
The universe may be infinite but our lives are not. Our days are not. We have limited time in which to chase our dreams, so what will we do with our one precious life? (Apologies to another great poet, Mary Oliver, for dragging her into this, but it’s true).
Knowing you have a limited amount of energy to pour into things, we have to ask ourselves what really matters?
How branding ACTUALLY allows us to say more, with less
The same is true for communications. We can’t say it all; be it all, solve it all, and frankly that all-in-oneness is not a great look. It’s fed by internet culture and capitalism but it is, in the end, a reactive, fear-based approach.
In its purest form, this what branding is for. It’s not just a way to look cool, with fancy logos and catchy campaigns. Branding is a framework to help you own what you’re about, and what you’re NOT about.
Think of branding as a filter that you’ve helped design
You get to sit down and decide, up-front (not every day! Not every moment!): This matters, this doesn’t, this is what we say and—this is important here—this is all the stuff we we don’t say, don’t share, don’t do, and don’t try to be.
In so, so many cases, true branding work has a trickle-up effect… Wherein working with program/product people to help them articulate things, we’re also helping them to discover what it is they are honestly offering, and what’s just unnecessary noise.
Because the truth is we can’t have it all.
We have to—get to—choose.
