Your Brand

Over the past two weeks, I'v gotten into more debates online than the past two years combined. Part of that has to do with being a little more exposed online via my posts on Forbes or debating Canadian news anchors on live television (hustle brag, yes I know) but the other side of that has come from picking sides. There are a lot of things that I don't have a well formed opinion on but I am learning a lot through the debate, gun control being the current argument du jour on my Facebook page. And then there are others that I can argue with the best of them. Earlier this month FastCompany posted an article called "Why Your Brand Should Piss Someone Off" and it had a few lines that resonated with me:

"If you are willing to be anything to anybody--to surrender your identity and your individuality--no one will have strong feelings about you either way...In business, a dull existence means a weak brand. If you want some people to love you, you’ve got to accept that others may hate you.... Polarization is good. Traveling the middle road, as broad and tempting as it may be, is always and unequivocally bad."

I've for a long time played the middle of the road and cared quite a bit about what other people thought. By hoping to please both sides of the fence ended up with no one engaging one way or the other. There is nothing to debate if everyone is right. But, as I have started to narrow in on the story line that I am telling, those that it pisses off and those that it appeals to is becoming clearer. It is definitely a work in progress, but, the more challenging situations I create for myself, the stronger the resolve and the more I understand the things I am confident in.

It is all a work in progress but, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."