What is the Connection Between Your Brand and the Universe? (pt 1 of 2)

Brand building leverages authenticity, core values, purpose and passion, given and propelled by the life giver and creator of the Universe.

I can hear you saying: “Leveraging WHAT?! The Universe? Isn’t it too big for that?”

My answer is simple and obvious: It is there, it is there for you, why not hitch yourself to its force, just like hitching a trailer to a vehicle, or a capsule to a rocket?! What’s the alternative? Stay on the ground and go nowhere?

I challenge you to think like a POET today.

There are two forces in the Universe, poetically speaking: either you are rapidly collapsing into an ever smaller version of yourself, like a black hole, or you keep expanding, like the Big Bang - that’s the universal binary language of zero or one, nothing or infinity.

Nature and Nurture

I was recently fairly astounded with the Myer Briggs’ personality test, which describes with amazing accuracy our natural personality traits that we are born with.

What it cannot measure are the acquired parts, from our family upbringings, especially when we were small children, the kind of environment we grew up in. The nurturing part.

All of us have our own mixed blessings of family baggage - who grew up unscratched?

All of us have our own inner insecurities - who doesn’t?

Embrace them all - your personality, baggage, gifts, quirks, traumas, vulnerabilities…

Accept them all.

Align nature and nurture with the deep, quiet, all-encompassing Universe out there.

Work on your strengths; work on your weaknesses.

Work on them all, for the rest of your life.

Then you can become more authentic to yourself.

The more authentic you become, the more power you have.

Leverage the Universe, find your passion, your calling, the reason why you were put on this planet.

Then, when you align your passion with the EXPANDING force of the Universe, when you leverage your self, - the tiniest speck of the minuscule dust on this teeny tiny planet (remember it takes a million Earths to fit into our very “small” Sun), when you align that tiny speck of your little self with the continuing Big Bang of the universe, and leverage it - what a joyful and meaningful life it will be! Your work is joy, your life is a passion, your relationship is all love.

That’s how to live your life to its fullest - never measured by the weighty materials you collect and hoard, but by the fully actualized, fulfilled, and impassioned living, daily.

A Full Life IS a Flawed Life

That kind of life is by no means flawless. No, the flaws are part of growth; the flaws make you authentic, vulnerable, and humble. Being aware of your own flaws make you WANT to grow, to expand, to live more fully.

So, accept yourself fully, totally, wholeheartedly, without reservation or hesitation, - the good, the bad, and the ugly; then and only then, you can do the same with others.

What is “good, bad, and ugly”? Who is to judge?

Well, is a meteor (yes, I mean a “shooting star”) good, bad or ugly? - It is what it is. When it pierces through the atmosphere, it is no longer what it was like so many light years ago and so many millions of miles away. It was transformed on its journey, almost unrecognizable, with whatever elements left when it finally arrives as a final flash of its life. Whether it is viewed as good or bad or ugly means NOTHING to it. It does what it does, propelled by the Universe, formed with its “core value”, and sculptured into its unique form.

Let Go of Control; Find Your Purpose

Each human life is just like a meteor. The way to live your full life, is to let the Universe propel you to your destiny: don’t fight it, don’t try to “control your own destiny” - you cannot. But if you just let go, you will have a thrilling ride on the wings of the Big Bang, literally and physically.

So my question for you is:

What is your calling from the Universe?

If there is a purpose for the life of a bee,

If there is a purpose for the life of a giant redwood tree,

If there is a purpose for the life of a whale as well as a life of a working ant,

- what is your own purpose for your short and spectacular life on this Planet Earth?

Because, my job as a brand builder, is to first find out what is your purpose in life, what is the meaning of your life, what is your “unalienable right”, your unique fingerprints, your own identity?

Next time, we will talk about “Leverage the Universe - the Extreme Micro of Branding (Pt. 2 of 2, which is “word by word, brick by brick, line by line, …”)

Before then, leverage the Big Bang and enjoy the ride! It is there for you, and it is FREE! 

Edited by Daley Toudic, Susan Olson  

© Joanne Tan, all rights reserved.