In Between Lines

Hi, guys. My name is Donny Rouse, and you are listening to the podcast One Life In Between Lines. Words carry meaning. Words also carry energy with it. And that energy is determined by your upbringing, your culture, your religious upbringing. And all these things influence the words that we use because we attach positive or negative connotations to it. I was doing a brand archetype exercise for both Rous Coffee as well as for the Donny Rouse, my personal brand, and the onelight, and looking at the archetypes, I was trying to figure out which one is the archetype for my brands, because they are really the same, but there is kind of a different tonality between the two. And as I was looking through these three of them that stuck out, there was one that was called the Magician, another one called the Explorer, which is totally it. And then the last one was Hero. And when I was thinking about the tone that I wanted to have in my coffee, the tone I wanted to have in one life, it was around, like, this authority tone in the sense of. Not authority in, like, the negative connotation of how you could attach to it, but the authority in the sense that a coach that believes in you, believes in what you're capable of, is that that person who is your biggest fan and knows what you're able to do and pushes you, like, kind of, you know, keeps inching you forward to go towards those dreams. That was the inspiration. That was the intention behind the brands. So as I was looking through this, I was reading through one of the brand archetypes, which was the hero, and one of the hero, one of the attributes of the hero was power, powerful. And when I was reading that, it kind of struck me differently. Well, I don't know if I like that word power, powerful, because what is the. What is the kind of. Like, what did I. What's the meaning I attached to being powerful? Is powerful a bad thing to have power? At least I believe in Western culture, we think that that's. We attach a negative connotation to it because we think of the people who. Who are corrupt, people who manipulate. But I don't think that's real power, at least not now. I did just prior. I had this meaning guiding my definition of the word power literally yesterday, until I stepped back and I said, well, all right. Well, what is it? Right? Like, the brand archetype is powerful. It doesn't have to be a negative thing. So as I was breaking the word down, I said, well, what is the meaning that I'm giving to the word powerful? And exactly like I just said. I said, you know, corrupt, I think, manipulative. And I was going through these different things that all had negative connotations. But then I said, well, is that right? And what is real power? I said, real power is confidence. Real power is doing, you know, is bringing the best for others. Real power is being like. I don't even remember what I wrote. But nevertheless, what I wrote down was different than. I created a new definition for the word power. And as a result of creating that new definition, the words change. Different. Like, it changed the wording of it. I was like, okay, well, yes, I want my brand to be a powerful brand. I want my, you know, I want to be able to influence. I want to be able to inspire. I want to be able to empower people. And that to me was like, all right, well, that is a powerful brand. Who's able to do that? It's also being confident and rest assured, assured that this is the value you're giving. It's like, if someone's powerful, they don't have to prove themselves, right? True power is being confident and centered and knowing that your value is intrinsic, knowing that what you have to give. So that was the takeaway. And then I was, well, how true is that of life, right? Think of anything you have a negative connotation towards, right? There's different words that all mean the same thing. I mean, you could use different words for the male genitalia, and you can say them, and different words can have a different shock value, but they all mean. They all refer to the same thing. So what is. How do you describe yourself? So where I'm going with all this is, how do you describe yourself? Because in doing the brain archetypes, I was also looking at how I describe myself. I was thinking, well, powerful. Do I want to be powerful? And I was like, no, no, no, I don't want to be powerful. No, powerful is a bad thing. But then if it's the power to influence people in a positive way, if it's the power to get people to follow their dreams, if it's the power to inspire, hell's yes, that is what I want. And stepping into that, when I acknowledge that I felt powerful, I felt more confident. I felt like, all right, I'm stepping into who it is that I am meant to be. Because it was like, a part that I was denying. What is it for you? I mean, what is the things that you may have denied because you just thought the word was negative? And culturally, maybe it wasn't okay to stand out, right? No, you don't want to be a big deal, because everyone's gonna feel bad because all the eyes are on you, whatever it may be. And is that right? Because by choosing to refrain from a word or choosing to refrain from that part of your personality, you're denying a part of yourself. And it's that very part of yourself that you need to probably to spring you forward to do some of the things you want to do. Maybe it's, you know, you want to have that Fortune 500 company that you want to create that's going to change the entire world. Well, that's going to require a different part of you, and it may be a part of you that you denied some time ago. So the goal of this is just to really realize what are the parts of yourself that you've denied. Another way of looking at this is if you see some people, right? They said if you look at someone and you start to criticize somebody because, like, oh, they're in this position, they're blank, right? It's often we criticize people because it's a part of ourselves that we denied. So I want you to become aware of those parts of yourself that you denied. So this way you could integrate with them and realize that there's positive and negative anything. And it all depends on who you are as a person, right? If there's dark in you, then you're gonna. That dark is gonna be amplified, say, with money, right? They say money is a magnifier. Money magnifies who you are, right? So if you're an evil person, money is going to magnify the evil person. If you're a good person, it's going to magnify that you'll be given charities, you'll be doing all these other things. So what's the part of you that you've been denying? What are the words that other people may have used towards you? And then you kind of, like, push them away because you thought they had a negative connotation. And I want you to take those words and then write down, all right, what is the real. What are the positive attributes of this word? I mean, if it's just a purely negative word, then maybe like, evil, or if someone's saying evil, I don't know if there's a good one. Unless you're being typecasted for an acting role, in which case, if you play that role and you do well, then that's awesome. But look at the words that you have negative connotations to, like discipline, power, confidence. You might think oh well, over the confidence. Not good. People may judge you look at all these things, then flip it, write down what you mean, what the meaning is currently, and then write down what the more empowering meaning is, the opposite, the reciprocal, the light side of that word, and just see how you feel with that. I'm my guess or I'm certain. Not even a guess. I'm certain that what those words that you were shying away from, when you actually look at the positive attributes of them, it's going to change the way you feel of it. Now all of a sudden you might. If it's something that you've been denying, you will likely feel more comfortable stepping into that role as a result of this new meaning you've attached to that word. That is all I've got for you guys today. Hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, please give it a thumbs up again. Invite your friends to subscribe and check out the OneLife podcast with Donny Rouse. If you have any questions, you can send me a message via Instagram. Onny D O N N Y R A U S and lastly, if you enjoy awesome coffee, check out rousecoffee.com I have three coffees that are probably gonna be changing very soon. Sumatra, Laos and Ethiopia. They're all awesome. You can get a discount by using the discount code onelife. Again, the website is rous r a U s coffee dot com. That is all I've got for you guys today. Hope you enjoyed this post. God bless and I will see you again soon.