when the going gets tough…

when the going gets tough…

put on your blinders, and run your own race.

treat you with kindness

there’s a great scene in mark twain’s almost-children’s book, almost-adult book titled “advice to little girls” where he writes:

“if you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust, while one of your more fortunate little playmates has a costly china one, you should treat her with a show of kindness nevertheless.”

compare mode will always surface. it never ages. so-and-so has a better title; so-and-so got promoted; so-and-so has a graduate degree; that’s why she’s further ahead than you, right? wrong.

stop.

treat her with kindness. more so though, treat you with kindness.

mirroring your company’s core values

your copy should mirror your company’s core values – you can’t attest to transparency and then deliver content that’s tight and restricted and awkward.

test it. ask an outsider to read just a snapshot - maybe one or two web pages - to see if they get the jist of the company or brand; then, ask someone closest to the company to read the exact same.

great follow-up questions to those readers' observations:

• what’s similar in the observations?

• what’s different?

• did the casual observer totally miss your core values?

• did the one closest to the company totally miss your core values?

in communication - or two ships passing in the night

does your website designer talk to and/or engage with your copywriter?

does your brand strategist talk to your graphic designer?

or are they all just ships passing in the night?

if they’ve never spoken to each other before, get them in communication with each other – they’ll support each other better than you realize AND their brains will work together better than you think as they’re most likely both visionary and big-picture thinkers.

is it a match?

there’s voice and character to your website, your blog, your ig captions, your marketing materials.

BUT - does the voice match the design and the imagery? is it all the same brand?

think about it: if you use a bold, brazen, fiery, short, staccato voice, and you have beautiful, ethereal images, you’re sending a mixed message - versus a consistent message.

your goal across your content - from voice to visual - should be consistency.

is it a match?

content and voice

there’s content, and then, there’s voice – voice dictates content, sometimes literally.

what’s your voice?

what’s your content?

do you know or feel the difference between the two for yourself?

if you don’t know the difference, how will your audience?

humanizing communication

toth shop’s tagline is: we humanize communication.

what’s that mean?

it means:

• we pay humans to write copy for humans

• we want it to sound real - like someone said that same line to you across the dinner table

• we’ve removed the fluff and bullshit that extends word count or allows the machines to pick it up and repurpose it

• it hits you in the gut, the head, and the heart

• it sounds like something YOU would say or write or think

“…if someone just explained them better?”

here’s a thought:

"how many great ideas have already been discovered but could grow 100x or more if someone just explained them better?" – morgan housel

h/t to my friend, daniel adeyemi, for that share.

‘relentlessly committed…’

a couple of weeks ago, i went to a three year celebration breakfast for a client who does deep work in affordable housing. 

the company’s ceo stood up and thanked her mentor, praising him for being “relentlessly committed to doing the right thing…’ 

what are you relentlessly committed to? 

when was the last time you practiced relentless commitment to doing the right thing?

“not a bad place to begin”

marketing guru seth godin shared a great gold nugget of a blog today;

i’m copying and pasting below in hopes it helps you as much as it

helped me:

"Fabled author Ursula Le Guin had a sign over her desk:

Is it true?

Is it necessary or at least useful?

Is it compassionate or at least unharmful?

Not a bad place to begin."

one non-negotiable

we all have that ONE thing.

that one thing that’s vitally important, that we’ll plant a flag for, that we’ll go to the end of the earth for, that we believe in wholeheartedly.

what is that ONE non-negotiable when it comes to people, character, and business?

climb the mountain

climb the mountain - the view from the top will always leave you breathless, for both the effort and the awe.

waking up to life

"but then, as the minutes drifted by, I realized that I had been through too much to have this be my end."

That's one of my kenyon college classmates, sherry wherry, in her piece, "waking up to life" that she wrote originally in July for National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month.

with Sherry's blessing, I'm sharing her piece with you; sherry's willingness to tell her story so honestly via her LinkedIn newsletter took deep-in-the gut courage that is so unique, so powerful. i read a lot - and i don't read pieces like this often. when we, as writers and thinkers, are able to do that, we shift the tectonic plates - for ourselves and others.

there's a trigger warning and resources at the top of her post, so please be mindful.

read sherry’s piece here.

balconies and basements

there are people in your balcony - cheering you on from above; there are people in your basement - criticizing or challenging you from a dank and musty cave. 

who’s in your balcony? 

who’s in your basement? 

who’s balcony are you in?

redefining an impact report

the world of communications, marketing, and media has told us to expect an impact report to share your company’s news on your environmental impact, your stance on sustainability, what you’re doing to support, mind, and care for planet earth. 

what if we chose to redefine an impact report - with your company’s, your brand’s, your personal impact on the world. 

what are the three highlights of THAT impact report for 2023? 

what does it mean to ‘zhush’?

our weekly newsletter from toth shop is aptly named ‘the zhush’. a lot of people ask why - what is ‘zhush’? What does that mean?

the dictionary defines zhush as both a noun and a verb; each respective definition runs along the line of: to make something more stylish, lively, or attractive.

what zhush really means: to add your flair, to add your style, to add your character, to write, edit, and refine in your light.

figure out what’s you - and what’s not you

Figure out what’s you - and what’s not you. This is a life lesson, I know, and sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn. And that’s okay. (That’s the point.) But there are some moments and again - things - you can identify as yours.

Is it a bold color vs. a muted color?

Is it a sharp, crisp sentence vs. a William Faulkner run-on?

Is it showing up when everyone else has bailed?

They don’t have to be big throwing-the-ring-into-the-fires-of-Mount-Doom choices - they can be daily choices that you make - that are yours. Make a list of five choices you made this morning - how do those speak to your brand?

Or - better yet - did you make a couple of decisions that you knew in your gut were wrong?

slow your roll

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that when I ran hard and fast on a Monday morning, I was literally over working out completely by Wednesday, and then I wouldn’t work out the rest of the week. It was absolutely a pacing thing. I need to slow my roll to be able to work out over several days. It’s the same with branding. When you sprint to stand something up, you’re damn exhausted. And then, you can’t sell what you just sprinted to create. Pace yourself.

Graphic designer Merle Fisher said it well in this IG post several years ago - if you can’t afford to stand up a full brand, start with one piece that’ll take care of a lot very easily. Then, build around that. Slow your roll; pace yourself. Yes, it’s a race - it’s a long race - it’s a marathon; stop acting like it’s a 5k. If you’re creating a brand right now, stand up one piece by Friday.

stay in your own lane

Stay in your own lane. This is hard. Lord, this is hard. And social media makes it harder because we see what everyone else is up to. That can be great if it inspires a new idea, but it can be not-so-great if we start copying others in order to compete or get noticed. At that point, it’s about attention - and, quite frankly, insecurity.

To be blunt: you’re copying them because you are not confident. Stop. Draw yourself a lane - seriously - on a piece of paper - and stick it somewhere you’ll see it. That’s your lane. Stay in it.

don’t go trying to use the same route twice

At the end of C.S. Lewis’s epic story, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the children go to see the Professor; they confess that his fur coats are missing from the wardrobe; then, they tell him where they’ve been. They gush over their wanderings and then ask him how to get back there - how to get back to Narnia. The Professor, who doesn’t seem surprised at all by anything they’re saying, cooly and calmly replies,

“...don’t go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don’t try to get there at all. It’ll happen when you’re not looking for it.”

He’s not talking about being indifferent or inattentive - that it’s not something worth seeking; he’s actually talking about the exact opposite - pay attention, live your life, go about your day because the magic finds you.