Where Branding and Faith Meet

What could a business branding expert like Rich Kozak of Rich Brands have to say about faith? Well, a lot! In fact, he has found the intersection of faith and branding and he’s stopped by The 21st Century Christian to talk about how his passion, branding, intersects with God’s purpose and how we can use it to enhance our relationship with the Father.

Website: https://RichBrands.org

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Transcript

Welcome And Roadmap

SPEAKER_02 0:07

If you're listening right now and you're a follower of Christ, then you, my friend, are a 21st century Christian. And if you're new to the faith or interested in getting deeper into it, you're in the right place. Welcome to the 21st Century Christian podcast. It's that time, people. Time for another episode of the 21st Century Christian. And what is it that I have for you today? Well, I have a chat with Rich Kozak, who talks about the intersection or branding, a clearly business concept, and faith. It's a fun and interesting discussion, but before we do that, we'll talk about questions, both the disempowering ones and the empowering ones. And then we'll talk about the intersection of work and faith. And that's all before we talk to Rich. Then after we talk to Rich, we'll end with a fun call to action that will have you tapping your foot or bobbing your head. And who doesn't like a good head bob? God is good. Even when things aren't going so well, we need to know that we are going through whatever we're going through, good or bad, it's temporary. While we're going through it, we need to pray, trust, and ask God important questions. And the important question is not why, why me? Why now? It's useless to ask those questions. And it does happen to all of us. So the question is when you're going through a difficult time, a time of testing, a time of a trial, the question to ask is, what do I have to learn from this? Or Lord, what are you trying to show me or teach me? Things don't just happen to us. I mean, they happen for a reason. Sometimes we learn what that reason is. There are sometimes we might never know. I mean, Job went through everything he went through to show and to prove how unshakable his faith was. Peter walked on water and then he fell. And he fell because he took his eyes off of God and got distracted by the storm that was going on around him. Now I lost my home. And what I did, I started by asking God why. Why me? And I never got any good answers. But then I started asking a better question. What can I learn from this? And now the answer came swiftly and it came precisely. Manage your money, manage what I'm giving you. Say tithe. Do what your father, your earthly father, told you to do, or better. Now, daddy told me way back when, when I was getting out of college and going into the workforce, he told me that you tithe 10%, you save 10%, and you live off of 80%. Now, all of my adult life, I've lived off 100 to 120%. Heck, I didn't even save for a down payment to my house. I won money on a game show for my down payment. And if I'm being brutally honest, God gave me time after time after time to learn this lesson before he showed me a very, very harsh reality. Prolonged unemployment, losing my home, and eventually ending up in a homeless shelter for women, which by the way I am right now. I wonder if my journey would have been shortened if I had asked those right questions earlier in my trials. Not only if I would have asked those right questions, but then I would have taken the right actions. The right questions also lead to the right attitude. Why and why me are questions that lead to a victim response, a powerless response. And that's a response that will lead always to the wrong actions. In 2 Timothy 1:7, it says, for God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. So we are strong, we are generous, and we are disciplined. We need to believe as much. We need to speak as much. We need to act as much. At the end of the day, whatever hardship you're going through, remember weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. This too shall pass. But while you're in that valley, make sure that you're asking the right questions and cultivating the right attitude. Then taking the right actions. And along the way, really learn the lessons you need to learn. This podcast episode is brought to you by Concepts and Clarity, affordable Christian online courses for a very reasonable price. Get excited about reading the Bible and getting to know God better. Now we know Jesus was a carpenter and not a financial planner, yet a fourth of his parables deal with money and wealth. Why is that? And what are some of those parables? We talk about it in the five-week course, Jesus and Money. And it's all over at conceptsandclarity.com. That's conceptsandclarity.com.

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SPEAKER_00 7:19

Did you know?

Work As Worship

Branding And Faith With Rich Kozak

SPEAKER_02 7:21

God cares about your work. The Spirit imbues all of your life, including your professional life. Think about it. First, after creation, when God created man, before God created Eve, he gave Adam a job. In Genesis 2.15, it says, the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Eve hadn't even entered the picture until verse 21. And this was verse 15. So before the fall, before sin entered the world, Adam was working. And Eve was created to be his companion and helpmate. What was she helping him do? She was helping them work. So work can be seen as a way to worship. Look at what it says in Colossians 3, verses 23 and 24. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. Knowing that from the Lord you will receive your inheritance as your reward. You serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever you do, you're doing it for the Lord. He's ultimately your boss. Now, God disapproves of laziness. It says so in Proverbs 18, 9. Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys. Slack is lazy, and the verse makes laziness close, like a brother, to the destroyer, one who destroys. So not only does God expect us to work, he expects us to work for him, regardless of what we would were doing. If you knew you were working for God, how would you work? Would you cut corners? Would you complain? Would you do the bare minimum? Would you be quick to say, that's not my job? Think about it. Okay, so I'm here with Rich Kozak, and he is of rich brands. Now, when Rich first called me, I was like, what the heck does branding have to do with Jesus? Jesus was a brand. And then I was like, okay, but what does that have to do with that? But the more I learned about branding, the more I thought, well, we we do need to have this discussion because if you think about it, brands affect your whole life. Um, I'll tell you right now, and I probably shouldn't be, but I'm a big Coke drinker. If I go through a day, I have to have a Coke. Now, what do I have to have? A Coke. What do I not want? A Pepsi. If I have to have a candy bar, I'm looking at one right now. It's a Snickers. It's not a Mars bar. If you give me a Milky Way, I'm gonna throw it at you. I'm really gonna throw it at you. So that is, and it's a branding. It's branding, it's there's more to it than the branding, but a lot of it is the branding. I had a really bad day the other day, and I'm like, I'm going to get a Snickers because I'm not myself right now. And that is part of the brand. You know, that is part of what makes it what it is. And when we talk about branding, what makes the branding interesting to me is that it's so close to us. It's so close to us. We don't even see it really for what it is. But that's what we need. We need to really divide, really go into what makes up a brand. So we can understand, oh, that's what that is. That's why I feel this way. This is why I did what I did. And I thought, well, let's have Rich. Let's have Rich on the show. Because he's gonna talk about branding, and dang it, we need to talk about branding. So that's uh, Rich, welcome to the 21st Century Coach. Now everyone's gonna be like, she needs to be.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Karen, praise God. But I I'm gonna start by saying uh branding's not what you think, and your brand is not what you think or what you say. And the misperception of what brands are really comes from what you just described. It's big brands that have a lot of television advertising that try to get you to associate a feeling with purchasing their product. That is one huge, huge area of, let's call it big boy branding. Here, I'm here to talk about when does branding, your branding, you're listening to this right now, your brand, the perception people have of you, of your work, of your gifts, of the impacts that you've told them you can see making on them if they let if they let you in. Your brand, what is it, managing it, understanding what your opportunity is and when does it become God's work? That's what we get to talk about here. So I'm writing a book called Impact Driven Branding: Seven Steps to Ensure Your Brand Impacts People's Lives in the World. It is not a book about branding. And I don't go on podcasts to talk about branding. I go on podcasts to create clarity because clarity is what's missing. First of all, it's clarity about what is a brand. We're gonna take that right on by the bull by the horns in like two sentences that will change what you think about brand, what your brand is. Okay, we're gonna do that first. Then we're gonna talk about when does branding become God's work and how do you connect your faith and your business, your faith in your work, your faith in your, you know, your impact, your faith, and maybe you feel it's your calling to get closer to why you were made. Okay, now that's what we get to talk about today.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

The branding I just talked about with the stickers and the coat. Yeah, yeah. That is what I think most people think of as branding.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Certainly.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

You know, we think of logos, we think of taglines and campaigns. Taglines, campaigns, color schemes. Um, the whole reason we think Santa Claus wears red is because of Coke. You know, they just designed a Santa with uh those polar bears with red. But what I that's what we think branding is let's start there as uh a brander with 50 years experience. Now you're not seeing him, but he looks dang good for somebody who has 50 years of experience. So thank you. What do you mean when you say a brand? Because that's what we think is wrong.

Brand Means Perception

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Let's here's what you you're listening to this, here's what you get to think. Your brand is a perception, it's not a picture, it's not what you say it is, it's not a story you tell, it is the perception in the mind of that target individual or target company or target industry, whoever your target audiences are, it's the perception in their mind that is your brand. It has things to do with all that other stuff, but your job in branding you, is you're not co, you don't have you know$10 billion to create, you know, addiction to your product so that people feel they have to have it. You that's not you. You get to affect the way you're perceived so that the individuals or businesses you want to impact think, you know, I think it's Karen. I think Karen's the one we need. You know, I I think it's I think it's Jessica. She's the coach that we need. The expert that we really need with this AI, it's Bob. I think it's Bob. If they don't let you in, you can't make your impacts. So your job in branding is to shape, use all those things that we all have at our disposal, but we can't afford all of them. Nobody can. Big companies can't, solopreneurs can't. So you gotta be selective about shaping a consistent perception in the minds of your most important target audiences. Don't care about everybody else, people 20,000 miles away who love to pet giraffes all day. I love giraffes, but you get to be concerned about shaping a consistent perception in the minds of your most important target audiences. So if you're a coach that helps people overcome the fact that they were sexually abused as a child, or you help people uh you help executives apply the power of neuroscience to the way they lead, or you are creating uniforms that have light wires on them that change the nature of safety in dark work environments. These are all clients of mine. It doesn't matter what you do. You have people that if you ask your heart, hey Hart, give me one that I really want to impact. And I know I can, I can actually see the impacts. I know my work, my business, my calling can bake on them. Give me one, Hart. And heart will give you, your heart will give you one. And then you describe it and you write the impacts, and then you say, Hey, Hart, give me another one. You don't need too many. Once you do that work, you can bake clarity into the way your, you, your brand, maybe it's you personally, maybe it's an entity you created, but your brand shows up, speaks, comes across with consistency across the board, and people feel the clarity. The problem in branding, people don't understand what it is, so they don't know how to deal with it. And clarity has been forgotten. It's missing. And when there's not clarity, when people don't feel clarity, let's look at on the other side. When people tangibly feel clarity in the way you speak, in the way you're being introduced, and the testimonials about you in the home page above the fold on the business card, when they feel clarity and they go, wow, there's something about this. Now you've got their attention. But clarity is the missing piece. How do you bake clarity into the way your brand shows up? Well, it's a really good question because the clarity with which your brand speaks, and that's words, it's looks, it's everything. It's color, it's your logo, it's the way you sh hold yourself on your Zoom call, it's the what you do on a stage speaking, it's the way you write your books, the clarity with which a brand speaks shapes its impacts.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

You know, it's interesting because as you're talking, I'm thinking a lot of us don't really know how we come across. We're not really good with that perception that we get. We think more about what we say, what we do. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, and people are just gonna love it because I'm gonna do this and that, but they don't realize that those things in and of itself don't make a difference. I um had a coworker, she was my boss actually, a few years ago, and she wasn't a person of faith, but she had a relative, a close relative, who got sick, and she pulled me aside and she said, Can you pray for her? And I'm like, Why would you ask me to do that? But it was the brand that I created, it was the perception that she had of me as someone who can do that. On the other side, I know people that claim to be very, you know, devout, very, but at the same time, I've seen you more than once gossiping about people and just being kind of left it at church on Sunday, did they? Yeah, and so I'm like, Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm not perceiving what this person is trying to come across. They're saying I'm devout, I can quote scripture, I can do all this, and I'm like, that might be true, but there's this thing I've I've seen you be critical, I've seen you judging, I've seen you gossiping, I've seen you being, you know, insincere. So that is the brand that she has. It's not that what she thinks she's putting out is not what people are picking up.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Your brand is a perception. That's a great example.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Get which I'm putting down or do you think you know, is no, we don't because of that disconnect. There's what people perceive, and there's what you put out.

Stop Separating Faith From Business

SPEAKER_01 22:04

It's like your actions speak so loudly we can't hear the word you're saying. Kind of thing. You know, it's like, oh hey, I just helped uh a client uh finish, uh we define, we designed it, we structured a book called The Power of Aligning Your Faith in Business. And it is a phenomenal book, says uh coach uh Dale Young. And it speaks directly to that common thing that we have our faith and we have our work, our faith and our business. And if the faith lives here and the business lives here, and my hands are far apart, and we don't combine them, like what are we thinking? When really we get to make sure that the work we do, the way we spend our time, is congruent with our connection with our creator and with our relationship with Christ. We get to do that. And we can ask for it. We can ask when we read the word, Lord, let your word, let your will land on my heart. Help me be a bastion of your will in my work, in my relationships, in my marriage, in my by the way, I've been married for 49 years and 54 Valentine's Days. Woo! Yeah, just saying, just want to get that out there. I'm a I'm very I'm a lucky man. Uh very blessed. And anyway, so we can ask for that, combining them. It's like, but it doesn't, to many people, it doesn't feel natural, oh, you know, it'll hurt my business because it'll weaken it. It's like these are misperceptions. And we just wrote a book, masterful book. Um, and a lot of thoughts came up during that book about the way people avoid allowing their faith to be integral.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

I think people a lot of times want to compartmentalize everything. You know, I have my faith over here, I have that I'm a Panthers football fan over here, I have my family over here, I have my football. Yeah, I'm a Panthers fan.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Now I'm originally from Cleveland, so I could be a Browns fan, but I'm pretty much a Panthers fan because well, anyway, brand switching going on there, but okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

But um you have to have we in our minds, I think, as humans, want to compartmentalize. We want to say, okay, here's my face over here, here's my business over here. Never the twain shall meet. When God is a god of all of our lives, so he's the god when we're at work, he's the god when we're at the game, he's the god when we're up at night, and so we have to allow our lives to mix, and I know that makes a lot of people uncomfortable because you've gotten used to um this on this day, um this on that day, but your perception to go back to branding needs to be across the board, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 25:19

It well, the wonderful statement is it can be. And it gets to be if you enable it to be, if you allow it to be. It gets to be the same. We were all, let's talk about how how we'll we all have the same opportunity. We're all created by the same God. We're created with unlimited power. People take it away before we even know we have power or we give it away. We can get it back, but that power thing is in. But we have unlimited power. The faith of a mustard seed moves mountains. So, and we have gifts. We all have unique gifts that make us us. My mom was an English teacher. I think it's to make us we because it's a predicate nominative, but who would say that? Anyway, I know, just saying, Hey, mom, hang on. So she's in heaven, she made it to a hundred years in five months, like praise God, okay? But she still corrects my grammar, and those predicate nominatives will get you every time. She used to stand behind me. Uh, I booked bands in fraternities when I was in high school, and I'd say, Yeah, this is him, and she'd stand behind me and go, Richard, she was from the South. No, Richard, honey, it's predicate nominative. It is this is he. So that's the voice in the head.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Anyway, as mothers are funny because my is really big on diction. So if uh we were at the table and I mumbled something, she would be like, Kiren, you don't need Kirin, and so just like you hear your thing with the predicate nominative, I think.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Oh my god, that's classic. So so when we get to put it together, so for me, in my work, this first book is the foundational book. I've been teaching and and coaching and uh speaking to individuals for the last 10 years. So the 20 years before that, I was running big companies, I had partners in 21 countries and certified global branding consultant. But in the last 10 years, I only work with individuals. The first book is impact-driven branding, seven steps to ensure your brand impacts people's lives in the world. The second book is impacting humanity, stories of impact-driven brands. And the third book is brands in God's hands. And we all What's that one about? We all are brands in God's hands, the connectedness of how we choose to live with how we were made. And it's that oneness. And it's realizing when we have a business or a livelihood or a vehicle to produce our livelihood and make our money, that it's as much a part of us and of the way we were created. It's not separate. We only make it separate. Look, humans do that, you know, humans do that with other humans too. Oh, I don't like people like that. You know, it's like, well, what happened there? We have the weans and the they ins now. It's like, you know, people do that. They they, you know, they create separation when, and why should we create separation with our God? We shouldn't. Everything we do gets to be for his glory. At least that's the what I read in the book I read every day. And and frankly, the book that you and I both read regularly says that we're here for two reasons, and everything else is man-made. The two reasons are share love and praise God. If we don't get those two right, you gotta go back to share love. Yeah, you share love by running a podcast. I share love by coaching people how to language and step into the brand they will become to get to their impacts faster, to get to the money faster, and to build a platform where they can more easily step into why they're really here. So evolving, impact-driven, heart-centered people, evolving their personal brands with deep clarity, because the clarity is missing, so that if people feel it and they're let in, they can make their impacts more quickly and with energetic longevity, so they can do it for more decades and with divine purpose. Praise God. Brandy guy, really.

Start With Impacts Then Be Consistent

SPEAKER_02 29:30

So, for the people who are listening, let's say they need to polish up their brand, or they really need to look at their brand for the first time, not what they think branding is, but truly creating um this this impact, look at the perception, shaping the perception. Yeah, how give maybe three tips that people can do to work on their brand and improving that perception.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Watch this. Oh, you thank that's a great question. You know, and I'm not a tips guy, but then maybe I am a tips guy, because literally I do a I do a master of two free master classes a month, and one of them's called an hour of brand power. The four things a brand must have or it will fall flat, and seven things that brands commonly do that hurt them, and you need to stop right now. That's tips. But it's tips that are like icebergs, you know. There's the what's at the surface, but there's all the the knowingness that's underneath it because I've been doing this for 50 years. So look, ideal in straight talk you can trust and deep experience you can count on. I don't use branding jargon. You'll never hear me use a lot of the words that are used in branding. Well, today you need a fill-in-the-blank, you know. I don't do that. I don't. Okay, so tips, ready? Don't start with what, you know, with picturing what your brand is. Start with picturing the impacts you know you want to make. Picture that in your mind's eye.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Pretty much start with the end in mind.

Words That Transfer Energy

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Well here, I'm gonna connect the dots. We've we've heard clarity's missing. Imagine that you have reached into your heart and your mind's eye and seen the impacts you know you can make and really want to make. And you could literally write those down. We do this every day here. We get, you know, sometimes it takes a little while, but when you get it right, it's like, oh yeah, that's good. Yeah. Okay. But it's on paper, it's right there. Imagine if you're talking to one of those, hey, Hart, give me one right fit clients or customer, and you say to them, you know, Karen, I've heard what you've told me about your situation. I'm I'm I'm right there with you. I get it. Here's what I see for you. Karen's antenna are gonna pop up. And the words you use after, here's what I see for you, are gonna make you a magnet or you're gonna fall flat. When you have pre-thought the impacts and pre-seen the impacts, and you can share, here's what I see for you, and you can paint a picture with words that is clearly what you see for them, and you know what's possible. They might not even see it for themselves, but if they know you see it for them, you're in. That's why you start with impacts. And you start with impacts on those people or businesses or type, but maybe it's couples, it doesn't matter. Maybe it's an industry. You know, I have one client who wants to change the nature of safety in the uniforms business. I have one client who wants to change the nature of the way people are perceived in the prerequisites to become partners in law firms because they take on what we've defined as uh the way they see the power of human diversity through God's eyes, um, the po the true power of natural diversity. And they have a global cultural competence, and that is a prerequisite, as far as we're concerned, to be a leader in the future, to have that global cultural competence. Well, wait a minute, what's that? I want that. Yeah, good question. It's an intangible brand problem. So when you can have the clarity, because you've started with the, like you said, the end in mind, start with the impacts you know you want to make and know you can make, and you can clearly see it on certain types of people or businesses. And you start sharing that with consistent language the same way all the time. So, number one, start with the impacts. Number two, realize that consistency is your enemy or your friend. Let me put it this way: you hire somebody to do a job, and they do it great the first day, and they show you how they did it. The next day they do it a different way. Maybe it was equally successful, but they do it a different way. The next day they do it a different way. How are you feeling now? You have no idea what to expect from this person because they've been inconsistent. Inconsistency breaks trust, consistency builds it. So saying who I am and what I do, saying this brand is an expert at in unique ways that transfer energy is so important. I'll give you two examples. One in the healthcare field and one in a very mundane field called bookkeeping. Okay, here we go. Guy comes to me and he says, Look, I uh lost my wife through a disease. I started looking at my health. I do things differently now, I change my health style. I understand that, you know, I'm not gonna do just what a doctor tells me because they sell pills and you know and band-aids, but I don't want pills and band-aids. I want, you know, root cause, root cause, you know, we want to deal with the root causes and get rid of things and have a healthier life and and and you know, and live longer and and you know, and not lose my mind, you know, and can't find the car key. And so I went, I got Daniel Leyman brain training. I learned about mushrooms, I learned about stem cells and how we can improve by nutraceuticals, improving the stem cells. And you're thinking like, oh my God, this guy doesn't know who he is. What does he do when he does all this stuff? It's like so he doesn't really know what he does. Do you want to hear his brand?

SPEAKER_02 35:42

What?

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Today, Barry Bevier is the founder of the legacy brand Mindful Longevity. Renew, rejuvenate, revitalize, holistic health mentoring that empowers lives. Give me some of that. I get a chill down my spine. I get a chill down my spine when I say it. I created it! I mean, you know, big through brand accelerator mastery through this eight-week program we have. But we created it. It's like I've heard it a zillion times. I still get a chill down my spine. That's what we're talking about. So here's the here's the other one. Patty runs a bookkeeping, but it's bookkeeping, she has 15 people across the country. Um, some of them specialize in industries. And when she was on the brand accelerator mastery program, I said, I don't, I'm not getting what makes you different. And I know bookkeeping. I learned QuickBooks when I was, you know, booking bands when my dad said you're gonna have to do your tax return. So he took, he gave me a correspondence course in accounting. So I do debit credit. I could create a chart of accounts fast when you can name your first child. It's like, but you know, you do bookkeeping, right? So it's like, what makes you unique? And she and I said, So just stay when we take a lunch break, stay with me for 20 minutes. I got some questions. And I ask her, so I'm a new client, and you're gonna sit down with me. What happens in that first meeting? Talk to me. And she goes, Well, Rich, you know, in booking like that, everybody has a general journal. You know, they have QuickBooks or they have like Peach Tree or they there's always a general journal. But now these days, there's all these other things that are attached to it. You know, there's merchant service, uh, there's you know, functionality program, there's AI things, there's this, this, this, you know, all these things are attached. And if you don't have the right tech stack and you're you want to grow fast, you're in a fast-growing industry, it will slow you down and it might even take you out.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Because you can't control tech stack. I just had a bookkeeper talk to me about tech stack. Okay, so here is here's Patty's number one cat category of expertise. The woman speaking at the Rapid Growth Business Conference next year is an expert at, I need to go into her zone. Hold on. Okay. The woman speaking, the woman speaking at the rapid growth business conference next year is an expert at the critical tech and accounting decisions for your business to reach millions. I mean, tech and accounting, they don't even talk to each other. What what? But for your business, it's like, what when is when is she speaking? You know, it's like it doesn't say like bookkeeping. It's unique language that transfers energy. For her target audiences, right in that crosshairs, hears that language and goes, I need that. Who is that? Who's speaking? Wow, I want that. Okay. So unique language that transfers energy is really, really important. And you might be good at language, you might not, but point is, once you land on the language and define a language of the brand, it's consistent forever. The way you explain how you do things is the way you explain how you do things. You don't say it differently every time. There are things that get codified because it's there's uniqueness and energy in language. Somebody says, Rich, oh, you're a branding consultant. 50, that's a long how's come you're not on a beach or a yacht. And I say, well, I'm on Zoom, so take advantage of it or, you know, skip. But they say, Well, what do you do? If I said, well, I manage the 32 iterative steps of the branding continuum, they'd be asleep or they'd be running away, or they'd be going, oh, hey, Bob, and talk to somebody else. But if I say, well, people, you know, I do a lot of things, but people say we put rocket fuel in their branding gas tank. The example is not because that's what I say, but I use that example to point out words have energy. Words have energy. And when the words represent your authentic you for Patty, she's very practical. She's uh she is techno tech-centric. We're not, you know, posing that's that she's on the edge of technology. She is on the edge of technology. She will tell you. I was on a podcast just the other day talking about this concept. I'm in a group in Atlanta that meets and talks about the next level of accounting and bookkeeping. She's on the edge of technology. She's comfortable there. Her brand gets to share that. So, you know, the critical tech and accounting decisions necessary for your business to reach millions is right up her alley. She's very comfortable in that zone. It's not posing. So when your language is completely authentic to you, literally the process of defining and languaging your brand using the seven steps of impact-driven branding gives you access to your own authenticity. Why? Because you start with the impacts you clearly see making. And everything is driven by that. What characteristics must the brand be known for to make those impacts faster? Must you be known to be empathetically listening? Must you be known to be technology-centric? Must you be known to be values-driven? Must you be known to be heart? These are important questions. Then we prioritize the top 10 characteristics. And when you take photographs, we bake those characteristics into the photographs with hand gestures and facial expressions so we can caption and people see the photographic and go, oh, yeah, I see that. I've been doing this for 50 years. Branding done right is a process. And I want you to, if you're sitting there by yourself thinking this is crazy, I want you to say, you know what? It's just a process. It's just steps. Branding, your brand, making branding you authentically to you is just steps. That's it. That's what I want you to hear. That's why I'm writing this book. I want millions of entrepreneurs that aren't done, that know there's more, that know they're ready to take it to another level, but there's a locked gate to the next level, and they can't seem to get through it. To know it's just a process. And evolving the perception, which is your brand, is art is your job. Evolving that consistent perception. How do you do that? Well, what if there were seven steps? There are. I'm just saying. Okay, this is like, oh, by the way, did I mention I do not enjoy this at all? Did I mention that?

SPEAKER_02 42:08

It's obvious that you don't like talking about branding. But we're almost out of time. So for the 21th 21st century Christian listener, what do you want them to take away about branding?

SPEAKER_01 42:23

Wow. Um, branding is your brand is every bit a part of why you were made by God. So link them. You know, the brand that you will become is the brand you must become to make the impacts you clearly see making. God put those impacts in your heart. So listen to your heart, speak from your heart. Don't think you have to make stuff up or create some superhero costume that you can't fit into. Define in language who you are and what you do to be completely congruent with you. It's okay and it's and ask God for his will in all you do. You know, man makes plans, but God guides our steps. So ask God for his will.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Exactly. And I think whether it's your faith or whether you don't even have faith, it's important to be authentic. And your brand should always be authentic because God created us to be who we are. And you're right, you don't have to have some superhero persona, you don't have to be this magic person or whatever. You can just be yourself.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

I'll add one thing when work is love, when your work now feels like love because it's so congruent with your heart, and you feel like this is what I was made to do, that is a delightful feeling, and you get to have that feeling. I don't care who you are or what you do right now. You get to have that feeling, we all do. Praise God.

Work Heartily For The Lord

Playlist Challenge And Community

SPEAKER_02 44:04

Praise God. Let's revisit Colossians 3, 23, and 24. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Now I see people every day who don't give their all at work. Now I've been slightly guilty of that at times too. But if we're Christians and we're living our faith, then it ought to show in how we live our lives. And it also has to show how we do our work. This means showing kindness and generosity. But that also extends our works, our livelihoods, how we earn our living. People we work with should be able to trust us, to rely on us, to look to us for support. Now this is easy if we're doing our dream job or what we really want to do. But what if we aren't? What if we have a job that doesn't suit us? What if we have a job that doesn't use us to our potential? What if we just plain hate our jobs? Are we supposed to still work heartily as for the Lord and not men? Yeah, you are. And I know you're thinking, you don't know my boss. Well, I've worked for some pretty crappy bosses, and I've had some co-workers who would stab you in the back and steal your lunch while you were bleeding. So I know what I'm talking about when I talk about being in a job that's bad for you. But yes, you're still supposed to work heartily as for the Lord and not men, because you are working for the Lord. He's the one that's watching you. And do you think he's gonna promote you if you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing? Remember, he's the provider, not the person whose name or the company whose name is on your pay stop. He's watching you, and he's the one that will make that next job possible. Okay, let's have some fun. That is, unless you're one of the 3-5% of people who suffer from musical and hedonia. That means they don't like music at all, regardless of the form. They just don't like music. If you're not one of those people, your call to action for this week is to create a faith-based playlist based on your favorite type of music. Christian music spans so many genres that you can go from rap to country to contemporary pop, RB, rock. I have a great Afro pop playlist. This is your chance to have fun and make a playlist that reflects uniquely what you like and what you want to hear. So have fun. Now, if you like what you're hearing, feel free to donate at Dollarsign Karen Beach 921. That is K-A-R-Y-N. Beach Like by the Ocean 921. Again,$KIN Beach 921. That's K-A-R-Y-N beach like by the ocean 921. The conversation continues in the twenty-first century Christian Facebook group. Got questions, comments, feedback. That's where you go. God bless.