The foreigner

Memories of the now and not yet.

Heart filled with songs of forever.

The city that endures when all is made new.

The traveller or tourist?

The citizen or exile?

The forgotten or chosen?

A great fire burns but few stop by.

They crossed to the other side.

Marked as the enemy.

Forever by your side or fallen away?

Does the limitless have limits?

Mercy or love? Freedom or choice?

Complaining when ignored but loud when spoken to.

The light shone on the bannister.

I just had to take the first step.

The Viewing Point

Sitting or standing.

Cursing or praying.

Orthodoxy or heresy.

Limitless choice is the same as no choice.

Pandora’s box isn’t a myth anymore.

Or is it we are just dissatisfied with the difference?

The desire to feel right but removing the option to be wrong.

When there’s no alternative can you even call that a victory?

Love and loss are tugging at the same duvet.

But when the variables are unrelenting. Do we just relent?

Or is there something more to orientate our origin?

A map to ease the journey.

But no man ever steps in the same river twice.

So tell me this- if the lady gave her two coins.

And you gave all your notes.

Whose act is righteous?

It’s all well and good putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, but at the end of the day, you’re just the same person and the shoes still aren’t yours.

Infinity isn’t covered with a 360 perspective.

What strand do we follow in this magnitude of mixed moralities?

The narrow or wide path?

The well-trodden or barren?

The lonely or busy?

I say the unseen is the thing that needs to be seen.

The life origin.

The history.

The roots.

Death directs life.

But was I ordained to tell you the answer or are you meant to find it out for yourself?

The new religion consists of a congregation of one.

A marketing holocaust on all things ordered.

The way lost.

The I am turned into a question.

Diligent identity replaced by dangerous ideation.

Self-help.

Self-love.

Self-actualisation.

Except it’s not what the self needs.

Enough of any medicine turns into poison.

They all became addicted.

But when the placebo wears off and the honeymoon is over, what then?

We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war; our Great Depression is our lives.

Yet innate curiosity doesn’t stem from some sort of evolutionary idiocy.

Before my first day, there were thousands before.

Something does not come from nothing.

But it does if you want to pass your class.

You can’t plant a new crop if the seeds are on stony ground.

An effort to understand is needed.

The truth is hidden yet frees.

The lie is accessible yet imprisons.

Hell full of people thinking they deserve heaven and heaven full of people knowing they deserve hell.

Origin originated with the original orderer.

Except as soon as we got fruit we forgot the roots.

Looking at art do I see an artist?

Famous, yet they forgot his name.

So does the piece even exist or simply fade away?

The harvest is plentiful but the labourers few.

So we can’t stop in the trees when the viewing point is just ahead.

I know who I am.

I am who the I am says I am.

But do you know who you are?

Named, called, and chosen.

The burden heavy, but the yoke light.

Venture onwards.

Russian dolls and heretical questions

can help you solve your branding issues…

Here’s how:

First look at the default way businesses operate with branding- They follow trends, new technology, and industry norms. 

Why?

Because this is an easy way of delegating operations and marketing budgets. No real clarity is needed as others have done it for you.

But not only is this unsustainable but is a rat race to the bottom.

The chase to have the fanciest Tikok, the most money spent on Facebook ads, and outsourcing all work to cheap labour.

You have to make an active decision against that.

You need to play your own game.

But how do you do this?

You need to ask heretical questions.

Sound odd? Let me explain.

When someone has more money, time, and resources than you- ideas are what set you apart.

They are the thing that differentiates good from great. Get good at idea generation and you can bypass shortages elsewhere because 90% of the value is in the idea not in the delivery.

But getting these innovative, new ideas is easier said than done.

*In steps our Russian doll.

You need ridiculous (and often awkward) conversations that lead to these ideas that can’t be ignored.

Good questions can generate fresh perspectives that no money could ever buy.

But people aren’t brave enough.

Like the doll, there are big, easy questions all businesses deal with.

People solve these as it keeps them feeling productive and because everyone else does the same in their industry they don’t change.

Good brands can step a bit deeper by uncovering another layer of their brand identity through difficult questioning.

But rarely does anyone ask the awkward or even the heretical.

Why?

Because it disrupts, causes inconvenience, or offends.

These are the questions that when you ask, could shake the entire structure of any organisation.

You can avoid the intimate, heretical questions but that doesn’t mean you avoid the effects. Another brand will simply dictate the outcome of your business for you because they got clear and had the tough conversations.

It is the reason why Facebook hires people to expose their vulnerabilities:

“If we don’t create the thing that kills Facebook, someone else will”

Here are a few heretical questions that if you answer could reshape your brand and allow you to play your own game:

• What are you doing that undermines your value proposition?

• How would you put yourself out of business if you were a competitor?

• What is the elephant in the room you are scared of talking about?

• What is a bold action you could be taking but aren’t, and why?

• Do you really encourage people to ask hard questions?

Remember:

The best way to protect your house is to lose your own keys. Once you need to break in, you look at the weaknesses in a new way.