I am smarter than my brand suggests.
I DO know that it’s infinitely HARDER to sell HUSTLE than EASE. I DO know that tolerating — even EMBRACING — sloth and excuses and mediocrity and victim mentality is a POPULAR movement, passionately championed…
and that going AGAINST this — and promoting
ACTUAL accomplishment and achievement and pursuit and independence instead–
is beginning to be DEMONIZED by many…
And i, with my people, along with it.
I KNOW what sells easily… and for a long time:
- Women’s groups that promote “small, reasonable goals.” (Let’s not worry our pretty little heads about actually GOING BIG or swimming in the DEEP end of life or business!)
- Women’s “business” groups that LOUDLY proclaim that it’s not about selling, for them.
- Women’s “empowerment” movements that demand (and reward, of course) same same thinking.
It’s not that I don’t know…
it’s that I don’t care.
Because in the words of one of my “Birthing An Empire” wise women, the more I try to FIT IN to POPULAR RHETORIC, the “hole inside me grew deeper and deeper.” #Exactly
Because success built on EVERYONE ELSE’s terms — on ANYONE else’s terms — feels like PRISON to me.
And I’ve BEEN to prison.
To visit, but still…
When in prison, EVEN TO VISIT, you walk where they say walk, you talk at a volume they determine appropriate, you sit where they say sit and you touch ONLY to the extent that they allow.
I’m not made for that.
The very IDEA of being told what to do is CORROSIVE to my very soul, and I whole-heartedly — and immediately — reject it.
The WILD WOMAN inside of me runs deep.
Like a wild animal, I am fierce.
And intuitive.
And instinctively protective.
I am RAVENOUS in ALL of my pursuits,
fueled by a fire I cannot begin to understand, let alone reign in.
And I wouldn’t’ want to.
I was not born to shrink back.
Nor to be tamed.
In fact, if I had to boil my LOVE for my husband down to ONE quality… that has knit my soul to his… more than any other quality I love about him…. it’s that he’s never ONCE tried to tame me. He loves and is fascinated by my wildness… by my complete lack of domestication. Oh– he doesn’t completely understand it — but he also doesn’t try to tame it out of me.
But he is a rare find.
All around me i see the natural “habitat” for wild women being butchered and repurposed… chopped down and made smaller. I see the boundaries of what’s deemed “acceptable” dwindling.
Many women ran into the arms of entrepreneurialism to find their FREEDOM… to escape the clutches of conformity… to express their own wild woman.
And then…
when they finally embark on taking their own stage,
they’re told…
you know…
how to BRAND. =)
These MULTI-TALENTED and MULTI-PASSIONATE women are encouraged to whittle themselves down to a 30-second pitch. Like the corset in days of old, “branding experts” HELP their female clients SHRINK and SQUEEZE into a smaller space…. to DEFINE themselves narrowly… to create — in my estimation — a CARICATURE of who they really are…
Not unlike the “success tips” they received in corporate America… tips like “learn how to golf, regardless of whether you like to golf or not.” You know, because that’s where the boys are. #wishiwaskidding.
As my Momma used to say, “Not NO… but HELL no.” =)
Branding should NOT be something done by someone else. It’s not an action or a questionnaire or a logo or a color choice or a slogan. BRANDING — when effective — is a BY-PRODUCT of you..
yes, you.
Showing UP.
Ruthlessly and Unapologetically YOU.
and doing business.
So stop BRANDING YOU.
And start
REALLY
BEING you.
P.S. Keep your eyes peeled on the national conversation in the news. Currently less than 20% of experts in the media are women. BUT THEN.. WOMEN WHO WOW. =) For 2 days, me.. Diane White and 20 SERIOUSLY driven women entrepreneurs are going to be meeting with TOP producers in the media… in an effort to STORM the national stage.
