What is Your Brand?

But everybody is doing it … This, is a phrase we have to contend with and fight with every day to overcome. The one we need to realise is the gateway to losing sight of our brand. What is your brand?

Do you want to be everybody, doing everything and going everywhere? If you try to do what everyone is doing, going, being and seeing, you will become a no-one, instead of a “someone”. If you are a no one or a “some one”, you will lack importance for yourself and lack any authority over your life. You, don’t want to be unspecific, chosen from the crowd because you were never a part of the crowd, you were never made for the crowd. You were made to stand in your own truth.

We gravitate to brands to gain recognition, so people can know who we are, but end up being a slave to the brand, being fake in the brand and killing self to remain in the brand. A brand that was created for nameless faces, eager to sacrifice the truth of who they are for unspecific generic identities.

Do you want to show the truth or create an image? Are you willing to keep up that image, can you? To have a brand you are asked to create an image, but if the image does not ring true then people will find out, eventually. Also, how far are you willing to go, to find your brand? Are you willing to fail, to be confronted by the truth, to have your pride destroyed and to have humility as your greatest shield? Are you willing to say no to being melted and moulded by idle hands that just want to play around and then move on? It will be important for you to expose yourself to yourself to see that you are a counterfeit of someone else’s dreams, ideas and good intentions. When you really see that following a brand is not on brand, then you will work hard at shifting far enough away to make space for real growth and for the truth to grow.

If you decide to hide in the shadows of someone else, you will never encounter your burning bush. If you hope for the truth of you, are you afraid you will lose those who just want to control and string you along? If you step outside of the shadows, you may find the truth has always been on the other side waiting to encounter you. You may see that the most perfect gift is yourself and not the reward of pleasing somebody else. But beware, the truth does not accept any excuse but refuses to conform and bend to the will of the foolish. Stop looking around at those around you, so you can create a brand not given to avoidable mistakes that slow you down and compromise your gains. Remember to look up, focus forward and you will see that you will create instead of duplicate. The thing you need to understand is that sitting down is your worst enemy. You have to look up, not around, get up and not be stuck being struck by a beautiful mirage and get moving so the hard things today will become easier tomorrow.

So, you may feel that you can’t that you are incapable but, you have to get up and create by being you. Do not sit in reckless comfort at the spot of waiting but get close to the edge of finding your brand and take the plunge. To wait for others to tell you your brand is to immerse yourself in self-doubt and regret but if the light burns then there are rays to capture and mould into a picture of yourself. Grab the rays that land in your hand and do not hesitate, make them work for you. Don’t wait, for someone to tell you what to do, seek wisdom from the truth inside of you and he will guide you to create. Now, be honest. Are you willing to participate in your rebranding? The ones who are successful are the ones who still hope, refuse to stay still and are willing to walk the walk of faith.

Change

“The only constant is change”.

Is this true? I think it is. What about you? So change lives with you, makes you stretch, reach, and see beyond your door. So, open the door and step through.

Octavia Butler once wrote, “All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change.” Do you really change where you go? Maybe so. After all, if you walk the same path all your life the green parts will give way to the dirt below. So even not changing brings change. To ride off into the sunset is impossible because the sun sets. The, sun, sets. Just before it disapears beyond the horizon and while you are jetting off into it, it leaves you for some time, then comes back up the next day, providing light. During the time it is gone, you have the ride the uncertainty of the moonlight, which is not bright enough. Does it mean when you ride off into the sunset you are persona non grata? Who knows. You still have to keep riding, even in the dark because the world will not stand still.

But Change is good so let us embrace it. Throw off all the misundertood and misunderstanding and just go forth. So as today melts into tomorrow, change greets us with hello.

Change in flight

I am committed

I wake up
in a cold sweat
the moon sneers - 
terrified - 
What have I missed.

Life kept life-in,
things
kept happening
while I was amidst.
Lost in terror
of fear
beaten down 
by wayward cares.

Finally,

the water receeded a little- 
thought I could walk on water
alone...
I must atone
To find my way home
I must walk in the sun