Throughout the various podcasts that we’ve been grateful to appear on, it has been such a joy to speak to other experienced leaders who share similar passions as we do. Having the opportunity to help guide visionary leaders convey their message to the world is extremely rewarding, especially when they are ready to let their true self reflect in the brand. We hope that you enjoy listening to the ...
Don’t Tell Stories. Excavate Them. By Jennifer Lawhead
“That’s the story!” I exclaimed to a client on a recent storytelling and content coaching call. If I’ve learned anything from our clients recently, it’s this: when it comes to storytelling, the story is actually buried in the story. Sometimes, the story is buried in the story inside of the story. In other words, there’s probably a cooler/more interesting/more fascinating/more authentic story ...
Synthesis Episode #12: Marcia Reynolds On How Coaching Can Shift Living
As Our twelfth episode features Marcia Reynolds, Psy D., Marcia is the author of three books, The Discomfort Zone, Outsmart Your Brainand Wander Woman, with a fourth book on coaching in the works about how to get into a inquiry process. Marcia is real, frank and incredibly bright in her discussion with us and we cover a lot of meaningful ground. We cover how we remake ourselves, how coaching is ...
An Open Letter
We believe every great brand is a spiritual experience. A movement. A brand is the only place in business where your inner world is experienced by the outer world. For too long, we have accepted the belief that these worlds are supposed to be separate. We say no. When these worlds are kept separate, dissonance occurs. Identity crises emerge. Leaders drift from the mission. Employees feel ...
Market As You Would Like To Be Marketed To
By Emily Soccorsy + Justin Foster In our world, the most egregious violators of the Golden Rule are marketers. By in large, they do not market unto others as they would like to be marketed unto. Sadly, the marketing industry supports this disconnection between humanity and marketing. Way too many marketers go for tactics that use the ball peen hammers of coercion, scarcity, and intrusive, ...
3 Corporate Habits that Will Crush Your Entrepreneurial Spirit
We heart entrepreneurial people. We heart them wherever they may be, and whenever they might find us. In the last year, we’ve seen an increasing number of what we term ATLs, or “about-to-launch,” folks who have finally found the corporate structure too oppressive to their souls to abide any longer. As they prepare their escape, they reach out to us. We meet at the junction and help ...
Know Thyself: A 21st Century Branding Principle
One of the most surprising moments of a Root Session is when our beloved client has the realization their brand was already inside of them. We did not tell them what their brand is. They discovered it. How is this possible? It’s been taught that branding is an external thing. Something you want to be, some construct you build, one aspirational and slightly delusional brick at a time. The ...
A Very Different Kind of New Year’s Resolution…
New Year's resolutions are lame. For the most part, anyway. They are generally some in-the-moment super important idea abandoned as quickly as a battery-less toy on Christmas morning. But setting resolutions is fun! At least for self-improvement nerds like us. In looking back over more than 25 Root Sessions, 15 presentations, four BrandLabs, three Synthesis episodes, buckets of ...
What does culture have to do with brand?
We are five years into the Human Age. In the 21st century, leaders must go beyond taking care of their people to embodying a new level of caring for people. Taking care of your people is a minimum requirement - compensation, benefits, work environment. And even in the Human Age economy, there are still plenty of places to work that are sweatshops and boiler rooms - just with healthy food, ...
I’m ready to tell my story. Where do I start?
First, congratulations to you. You’ve discovered the work that’s behind you is not the work that’s in front of you. It’s not your life’s work. It’s not what lies at the center of your heart. It is not the impact you want to make. And now you’ve decided the time has come to redress the balance and spend your resources on realizing a new direction. It took a lot of work to get here. ...