Clear message & brand? Let it go. Disconnect your Purpose from your brand. Allow yourself to evolve.

I was reading a book about marketing on social media and I was surprised when the author basically said go on social media. To be effective there, you need a clear, understandable message. You need a compelling brand. And when I read that, I was like, wow. So it's assumed that we all somehow through some magical process come to a clear, understandable message of our business, of our brand and then it just what stays like that. This reminds me of this idea about fixed versus growth mindset. I love this idea so much and I'm going to apply it now to branding and messaging and your marketing. So a fixed mindset basically assumes that you start off with a fixed talent or intelligence. And you know, when you take a test or try to learn something, if it, if you know, if you do well, then it's a, it's a proof of your great intelligence or strengths or whatever. And if you do poorly on the test or if you try to learn a skill and it's hard for you, then you, your ego is, well, essentially it's a fixed ego. Your ego is hurt and you try to avoid taking such tests or learning such skills in the future because you don't want to. Your ego doesn't want to come under attack that I'm not as smart as I thought it was or whatever. So that's the fixed mindset. The growth mindset says you can become, you could become anything you want to be if you practice. If you gradually and patiently learn and try and practice, you can develop just about any skill that you put your time and energy into. That's the growth mindset. So how does the fixed and growth mindset apply to marketing and messaging? I guess like I said, fixed mindset teaching says you better come to social media or an online presence with a clear, understandable message and a compelling brand. Fully, fully, you know, figured out. And I have never even to this day, I feel like 12 years into my business, I'm just starting to come to a clear, understandable message. 12 years of full time business, 12 years and I'm just starting to come to a clear, understandable message. But all those 12 years I've been earning a full time income. So what does that mean? Yes, I'm telling you, even without a clear, understandable message, even without a brand, I don't have a brand. Do you think I have a brand? It's not intentional. I certainly don't have a logo, I don't have color scheme, I don't have a clear avatar, not really my avatar, my ideal client avatar keeps changing all the time. I'm like, forget it. I'm just going to let it go. I don't have a brand. I never worked on it. I mean, I worked on a little bit, of course, throughout the years I've tried, but it just never was satisfying for me. I could never figure out what was, what was, what was exactly the deepest connection to my purpose, etc. So I just let it go. And so, and yet since, you know, year one, I've been making a good income. So I'm living proof that even in such a competitive industry as mine, which is marketing, I'm supposed to be, if anybody has a clear, understandable message and a great brand, it should be the marketing expert, shouldn't it? I don't. So let me be proof for you that even without it, you can do really well financially. So growth mindset. So instead of, so please let go of this idea that you have to have a clear, understandable message and a great brand and then you put yourself out there, you create an amazing website and then people flock to you and work, let that go. If it's hard for you, if you don't have one, I mean, if you have one, then I, then I start to worry that you have a fixed mindset in your marketing. So a fixed mindset says, I got to defend my, my message and my brand and this is who I am. It's fixed. It's fixed. So it doesn't, it's not flexible and supple and allow. You allow your messaging and brand isn't as flexible to your, to your personal development as a growth mindset in marketing and branding. What is a growth mindset then? Growth mindset says this. We are continually clarifying our message based on our experiments and content, based on putting out different offers to see what people are really resonating with. We're continually based on our conversations with our clients and colleagues and potential clients, etc. We are continually ever refining, getting deeper, broadening, expanding, maybe, you know, shortening our message. We're continually clarifying, it never ends and it never has to end. It's just, just like, do you want your personal growth to end? Do you, do you expect that at some point I've grown up fully, I'm not going to learn anymore. I'm not going to grow in. I'm not going to grow anymore in love or wisdom or any other virtue. I'm done. I'm done growing. If someone says that, I would say, please go take a nap, please go have a vacation, because you're clearly exhausted. That's why you're done growing. But if when you're not exhausted, when you're fully resourced, when you've been well fed, you're not hungry, you're not angry, you're not lonely, you're not tired, then you realize, wow, life is about the growth journey, about continued evolution and expansion of our understanding and the deepening of our understanding. So growth mindset in marketing in your messaging means I don't have a message, I don't have a marketing message, I don't have a brand. I'm just continually clarifying it, just through experiments. And so what do I mean by continual clarifying? Well, first it's okay to just put something out there. Obviously you have to. If you're going to create content or make an offer or have even a one page website, you need to have something out there. You need to just say, this is my best guess for now. You don't have to say on your website, this is my best guess for now. What I do. No, no, just say blah, blah, blah. Just state as if it's what it is, knowing that you could change it tomorrow. That's the key. You could change it next week. And so the scary part, there are two reasons why, I guess there are three reasons why it's scary for you to have a growth mindset in marketing and for your brand. One is because you're scared of being judged maybe, right? You're scared of being judged by your friends, family, colleagues. Oh, George just was that, that last week and now today he's this, he's such a flake and I had to deal with that. And in the beginning, and you know, in the beginning especially, you change very fast in the beginning because you still don't know if you're going to be this type of coach or that type of healer or this type of business or that type of service provider. In the beginning you're like changing almost every day or at least every month. You're changing what you're, what you're up to, what you're offering. Today I'm offering life coaching. Tomorrow I'm offering relationship counseling. The next day I'm a spiritual healer. The next day I'm a career consultant. Whatever, it's okay. Keep changing. Keep changing and ignore the people calling you flake. You know, my parents still to this day, 12 years later, don't really know what I do because I kept changing so much in the beginning they just like dropped it, right? My friends are kind of like, they kind of know what I do kind of. But you know, I'm always open to change. So the ones who are calling you a flake. Who the hell is calling you a flake, by the way? Who are you afraid of in your head? Oh, I don't want to become flaky to that person. Who is it? Because that person isn't your eventual audience. Your eventual true fans are in the thousands or in the hundreds of thousands. And that's going to be several years from now. You'll have 10,000 followers or fans or clients or whatever. Today, you may have a hundred followers or friends at least. You may have 300 Facebook friends, most of whom don't even. Can't even say what you do, and they don't even care if you change every week. But for the 10 people who are judging you in your head, let it go. Because they're not your. They're not your eventual fans. They're not. You are building your message for your fans three, five years from now. You're working on it for the future still. Currently, you can still get clients, of course, but don't worry about the ones judging you. So that's number one. Number two is you're afraid that if you don't get a clear, understandable message and a great brand, then you might be wasting money in your website. You might be wasting time and money, right? Investing in your business. If you don't know what your brand is, your clear message is, what your offers are, who the hell you are. You're afraid of wasting money and time. Guess what? If you hire somebody to help you figure it out and invest in this great big website and invest in copywriting and graphic design and all that stuff, you're going to be wasting. I can guarantee you you'll be wasting more money that way. So let it go. If you're not happy with your message and brand or not clear about or whatever, you can let it go. You can let it go. I never invested much. Actually, I have. Even last year, I invested a couple thousand with a friend, in fact, in rehauling my website. And throughout the losses, I'm like, no, I'm starting to feel that the fixed mindset is coming in again. So I let it go. I. I didn't even take the money back. You know, that was a $2,000 mistake. And, you know, it's okay. Taught me again that I don't want to. I don't want to get nailed down to a single message and brand. And it was that kind of feel, very constricting kind of feel. And, you know, I Don't need to. And maybe you don't as well. So don't spend the money and the dollars and the time and the energy like ossifying your brand, especially in the beginning, maybe later on you'll have so much more clarity and it's very obvious what people want to buy from you and where you make the most impact. And maybe at that point you want to concretize it with a lot of investment into a great looking website. But at the beginning, certainly in the first couple years, let it go. Let it go. You're wasting money and time, okay? What's more important is for you to be putting content out there, trying a bunch of different things to see what works, trying a bunch of offers. I'm going to do life coaching here. I'm going to do relationship counseling next week I'm going to do spiritual mentoring the next week. After that I'm going to do health coaching the week after that I'm going to try it all. Now you might not do it literally one per week, but you can try one per month. It's fine, it's fine. Who says it's not fine? Tell me, please, let me, let me debate them. Who says it's not fine to change from life coach to health coach to relationship counselor to spiritual mentor to, you know, software engineer to whatever I mean, you pick to arts and crafts to jewelry maker to every month. Why not? Especially in the beginning when you're exploring. Why, why can't you explore? Who says you can't Explore? Again, the 10 judgers in your head, you know, your mom or your, you know, your old classmate or who the hell are judging you? Just like, sorry, I'm in my exploration phase. And I will always be, by the way, just like George Kao is always in the exploration phase. So, so will I. So I'm sorry that it's not okay for you because you're used to the old school careers where you work for General Motors for 50 years doing this, you know, in one career path. That's not, that's not this world. This world, you are something different every month until you, until you try enough things, make enough offers that you're like, oh, I really liked it when I was doing health coaching. Oh, I really liked it when I was counseling people on the relationships. Well, let me do more of that then. You have to try different things so you don't have a clear understanding, clear understandable message, just like I don't. Right now. You are continually refining, exploring the expanding, deepening, reordering the Things that you talk about, you're continually refining it. And so I was going to say that the three problems were. One is you're afraid of being judged as a flake. Two is you're afraid of wasting time and money, which as I said, you know, investing time and money in this, in a, in a strong brand and strong message, especially in the first couple of years, you're wasting time. I can pretty much guarantee you because you're going to want to shift, you're going to want to change, and what happens, you're going to have what's called the sunk fallacy. Some, some cost fallacy. It's like, well, I've already invested so much in that website, I can't change now. Which you have just limited yourself from exploring your, your true potential. Let it go. Even if you invested a bunch, let it go. Just like I did. Now I invested the 2000 and let it go. 2500, I think. Just let it go. Whatever, it's okay. I'm gonna move on and explore. I'm not gonna let that tie me down. Okay. And then the third reason why is that you feel like you, you must have, there's a whole, there's a whole industry now on purpose coaching, right? Purpose, Purpose work. Purpose coaching. And I do value it. But the thing, the place where I get worried about the purpose work, purpose coaching is again, the fixed mindset stuff. It's like you're somehow supposed to do the purpose work and then come to your career purpose and go, that's my career purpose. That's it for the rest of my life. Who the fuck said that? I mean, didn't you? What, you can't explore anymore? You can't be something completely different now. By the way, those of you who are purpose coaches, like George, you're getting it all wrong. If you, if I am, please comment below. That's not how it works. Comment below and let me know. Clarify for me. But basically a lot of the common idea about purpose is like, I got to figure out my purpose, put it into a message and a brand and a great looking website and voila, people flock to me. And I feel so satisfied every day doing my purposeful work. Yeah, right. Isn't that what, what you thought it was supposed to be? Well, let me tell you, after 12 years of doing this, let me tell you, purpose is in every moment. I hope that you will detach your purpose from your brand. I said it. Let me say it again. Detach your purpose, your career purpose from your brand and your marketing message and Your offers. Let me say that a third time. Don't think that your service, your product, your brand, your website, don't require it to express the fullness of your purpose, because that is impossible. The fullness of your purpose is far greater than any product, service, even career. You know what I think? I'll tell you what I think the purpose of life is. I don't know if you agree with me on this. The purpose of life is to love and to grow and to grow in love. So is there an end to it? Is there, like, I figured out my purpose? Well, what does it mean to grow? Well, that's up to you. To explore and find out. What does it mean to love? That's also up to you. To explore and find out and get deeper and deeper by the year. So for me, purpose is not in my brand or in my work or my offers. No, I detach it from that. I'm like, my business is my business and my purpose is my purpose. No, sorry, it's not that way. My business is my business and my purpose is. Is surrounding all of it. But my business is just one aspect of my. My larger purpose. Purpose happens in every moment. Before I came to this, you know, video, this, this sharing with you, I did my energy reboot, which reminded me again that the purpose for my life is to essentially connect more deeply, more truly in every moment with God. And, you know, for those of you who are offended by that word, I'm sorry, but whatever, you can use your own word. Actually, please tell me, are you offended by the word God? I've always been curious, like, does that somehow offend you? Too masculine to. Whatever. I don't think God is masculine, but whatever. So I think my purpose is to bring more of God into every moment of my day. And God represents joy, love, gracefulness, forgiveness, gratitude, joyful diligence, persistence, gentle persistence, growth, wisdom. To bring more of that into every day and to be more aware of that every moment. Now, that is a glorious purpose that I can really find meaningful every day. No matter if I'm doing, you know, life coaching or I'm doing bookkeeping, or I'm doing, you know, arts and crafts or I'm doing, you know, cleaning up my computer desktop. All of it is purposeful work. Not my brand and my. Sure, my brand and my message. Explore. It does express some aspect of my purpose, but it's far, far. It's tiny compared to the whole thing of purpose, which is in every moment. So don't get so caught up with having a clear, understandable message. Just know that every day you're continuing to clarify it through your content offers. You're exploring. Let yourself experiment. I hope this is encouraging for you. Be well and thanks for joining me.