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Category: Inspiration

Silence as a medium

Silence can be uncomfortable, and it can be tempting to rush to fill “dead air.” When silence falls upon a meeting or lands abruptly in conversation, it can be unsettling and anxiety-provoking. You may question the efficiency of communication or worry that your message has been misunderstood.

But silence is one of the most powerful communication tools we can use. When harnessed, silence allows room for focus, self-reflection, empathy, and introspection. Sometimes, silence is exactly what is needed for a creative storm to follow.

The next time you find yourself in a silent standoff with a friend or among colleagues… pause. Invite silence into the space and watch what blossoms.

“Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Words come out of the void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.”

Wayne Dyer

Uncertainty as a compass

When facing uncertainty, it’s helpful to revisit what you know is true. These truths can act as your compass, keeping you focused on daily choices as you move in the direction of your goals. Ask yourself:

What do I want?

What feels aligned with who I am?

What are authentic expressions of my being?

What do I know to be true right now?

Which of my relationships feel supportive, nurturing, and life-giving?

Return to your answers when you feel stuck.

Starting matters

Starting matters. There’s no barometer, no baseline, no comparison. It’s 1/1, and the scale is tipped. Without the first, there can never be the ninth.

The effect shrinks when you reach 300. 1/725 hits different.

Remember that when you start: The first matters, but it doesn’t matter “the most.”

Take the pressure off and begin.

P.S. You can now find me on Instagram.

kettle with plastic cups prepared on wooden box

Your WHY

It’s easy to get caught up in choices that don’t matter: The website design, the colors, the marketing channel, the social media story.

Decisions should evolve from your WHY. If you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing (and who it’s for), details are irrelevant.

So if you find yourself focusing on unnecessary fluff, there’s a good chance you haven’t made the real decisions…yet.

What is marketing?

When I changed industries — from social work to advertising — I was skeptical. Why would an international branding agency want to hire me, a M.S.W. (social work) graduate from Columbia?

They did, and here’s why:

Empathy.

They knew I could question: How to analyze behavior and communities, how to look for factors that contribute to the way in which someone sees the world; how to start conversations to learn how people see themselves.

This is marketing.

As part of my social work degree, I had two clinical internships. For the second, I was placed in the counseling clinic of an all-girls college. My experiences prior to this was with drug and alcohol addicts, youth on probation, middle school students. Yet now I was playing the role of therapist in a clean office, listening to educated young women talk about their anxieties and frustrations.

These women had resources. They had money and options and opportunities. Yet their worries were the same as those kids on probation and the middle schoolers who walked up flights of dark stairs in Section 8 housing to go home.

Will he/she love me?
Will my family be proud of me?
What should I do for work?

Since then I’ve worked with Buddhist monks and young leaders in Nepal. Our yearnings are largely the same, but our resources are not.

If we fail to recognize these differences as marketers, we have no chance of winning.

I believe we can use this same awareness to create incredible marketing campaigns — and a better world.

Which audience will I care about?
Who do I want to impact?
Which traits do I want to develop?