The Deep Truths You and Your Brand Need to Say with Rebeca Arbona [Finding Your Voice Series]: Podcast Ep. 179

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Rebeca Arbona:
You can’t draw the like minded to you if you don’t tell people what your mind is.

Carol Cox:
That’s my guest, Rebecca Arbona, talking about why we need to share our deeper truths. On this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast. More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses, running for office and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a TV political analyst, entrepreneur, and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies, and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is speaking your brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience. Hey there and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox. Get ready for an incredible conversation, one that you may just want to listen to more than once. Why do some brands resonate more than others. How can you connect with your audience in a deeper way, and how do you find what your deeper truth is? My guest is Rebecca Arbona, who is an expert in helping companies develop their brand voice and brand strategy. At one point during our conversation, we both literally stopped to write down what she had said because it’s so good. And here’s what it is. You can’t attract the like minded to you if they don’t know what your mind is. And that’s the deeper truth that matters to you, and by extension, matters to what it is that you do in your business. In this episode, Rebecca and I talk about the three layers of truths in your brand. So she goes through and she tells us what these three layers are and gives us examples along the way. We also talk about the key ingredient that you need to add to why you do what you do, and you’re going to hear me stumble through this as I share with Rebecca what our vision here is, is that speaking your brand? And then she says, well, this is what’s missing from it.

Carol Cox:
And so we talk about that. We talk about how our values connect to our deeper truths, why sharing our deep truths makes us feel more fulfilled, yet why we don’t share them in the first place. We talk about the paradox of being vulnerable. How same. What’s scary can actually be safer. I know it sounds counterintuitive. We talk about what it means to actually be authentic. Rebecca shares examples of brands that do this, that share their deeper truths. And then we talk about how you can identify your passion and the lens through which you see the world, so that you can start expressing what your deeper truths are. Because after all, the journey that we’re all on is to be more fully ourselves. This episode is the first in our new podcast series that we’re doing on Finding Your Voice. We have a new free webinar that we’re doing called You Say You Want to be a thought leader, what that really means and how to find your voice. So this is a topic that you’re interested in hearing more about. Definitely listen to this episode, listen to the episodes that are coming. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and register for our free webinar at speaking your brand.com/webinar. Again, that’s speaking your brand.com/webinar. Now let’s get on with the show. Welcome to the podcast, Rebecca.

Rebeca Arbona:
Thank you. Carol, I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am to be here.

Carol Cox:
Well, I am too. We are doing a series on the podcast on finding your voice. And I’m really excited to have you on because you have such a deep background in helping brands, especially large brands, really understand how to connect with their audience and how to set themselves apart. And so you work with big brands and, but I know that what you do also applies to those of us who are much smaller, whether we’re solopreneurs or we have a small team, whether we’ve been in business for a year or for five years or more. So what I want us to talk about today is how can we connect in a deeper way with our clients, our prospective clients, our audiences, to set ourselves apart? Yes. So that we can attract those clients and do great work with them, but also just from, from knowing you and from following your work. I think it goes even beyond just helping our businesses. I think really understanding why we do what we do and our deeper truths helps us as individual people to understand ourselves better.

Rebeca Arbona:
Well, I’ve been saying for a long time that professional growth and personal growth are completely intertwined. And I do think that the work of branding and personal branding are also intertwined. I mean, especially for an entrepreneur, but in general, as you can connect with truth in your authentic self, as a brand, as a person, it lends power to your voice and it makes your voice more distinctive, which is typically the point, right? In almost every category, we’re trying to stand apart from others. So all these principles that I’ve kind of worked out and learned from others over time, I think they apply so equally in both realms of personal and brand branding.

Carol Cox:
And if we think about just this year, 2020, there’s been so much disruption in our personal lives and in our businesses with obviously, coronavirus and the pandemic. We had the Black Lives Matter movement with the protests. We have the current occupant of the white House and all the things that he does. And so if everything feels very unsettling, I know it has just with with my business speaking your brand, when we can’t go out and speak in person anymore right now, and we won’t know when that will happen again. So we’ve had to adjust what we’re doing with our offerings and our messaging. But I have this white paper on the wall, and I always go back to this throughout this entire year, which is that on our vision is that through women’s stories and visibility, we challenge the status quo and change existing systems to benefit more people. So no matter what happens in the world, and no matter how much we have to change what we’re doing with our offerings, I have found that just holding tight to that vision has helped me to stay grounded through all the ups and downs, especially for this year. Is that is that what you have found for brands, whether it’s personal brands or business brands, is having this kind of broader understanding or deeper understanding of what they do helps them to stay tethered?

Rebeca Arbona:
Yes, 100%. But I would add a layer to that around emotion. So as we get to deeper and deeper truths and we get to things that we care much more about when we’re more emotional than cerebral, that’s where emotional connection with us can happen. And that’s where authenticity lives, right? Authenticity is more than just truth. The current occupant of the white House is someone whose name. I also don’t like to say Carol And but what you just talked about brought to mind a really powerful example that lives within that. I was teaching a branding course at the local university here in Cincinnati during that election, and I was struck by something not that far into the election. Um, I remember there were still a lot of Republican candidates, but I was struck by the two big surprises in the field were the current occupant and also Bernie Sanders, both of whom astounded everyone. And you can look at how they did so well through the lens of branding. They both had powerfully authentic voices. So if we were to think about Hillary Clinton and the white paper on your wall, I think that she embodies that very much. But I think she embodies it as a policy wonk. And in contrast, the current occupant of the white House was seen is still seen by many people who fully understand that he lies often. As being authentic and a guy who tells the truth because he’s telling the truth. On an emotional level.

Carol Cox:
Oh, this is so fascinating. Rebecca and I have never looked at it that way.

Rebeca Arbona:
I was blown away by it, and that was before he won. And I’ve just seen it continue to play out. She wasn’t lying, I believe. And yet, by being someone who had been perhaps, perhaps because she’d been so criticized and so beaten down for 30 years, being so reliant on her facts and policy analysis, rational thinking versus someone shaking his fist and spitting a little with his passion. That’s why there’s so many contradictions in this work. When I talk a little bit later about the stuff I’ve been talking about lately, um, I’m struck by how many things contradict. And here’s a big one of these contradictions, people say. I know he lies sometimes, but he’s real. What the heck is that about?

Carol Cox:
It’s the emotional piece.

Rebeca Arbona:
Well, that’s what that’s about.

Carol Cox:
Yes. No no no no no, this is great. Okay, so if we think back to that statement that I read to you from my wall, through my stories and visibility, we challenge the status quo and change existing systems. So yes, there’s no emotion tied to that statement there. So and as I’ve talked about on this podcast previously, I am a cerebral person. Like that is my default personality. And it makes sense based on everything that I’ve done in my career. And so it’s, this is where my challenge comes in is to dig deeper into the emotional aspects of it. So how do we do that, Rebecca, for our personal brands and for our business brands?

Rebeca Arbona:
Yeah, I love it. Yes. This is what you and I were talking about before a little bit that when we tell people, you know, be authentic and tell your truth and live your truth, it becomes a little bit of an exhortation, you know, like cracking a whip, go do that. We don’t often hear about, well, how do I get that done? And so what I’ve worked out for myself and for my clients to is that there’s kind of three levels of truths. Because when we say tell the truth, it sounds like don’t lie. Well, yeah, don’t lie, of course, but we need a little bit more guidance than that. And so I think of the first level of truth. That’s the obvious one that we’re all really familiar with. I call it the surface truth. That’s. Hi, my name is Rebecca. I’m a brand strategist. Hi, my name is Carol. I’m a political consultant. And I coach speaking like you have to tell that truth. We’re selling cookies, donuts, kittens, airline seats. But typically when you’re saying something like that, that surface truth, you’re saying the same thing as your competition. They also are selling a cookie or a cupcake or a kitten or an airline seat. So how does that differentiate you at all? So while that’s a very, very important thing to do, it is not sufficient Unless you’re, you know, the first comer in a category. Actually, I’m selling this little doohickey to wrap up your phone charger wire.

Rebeca Arbona:
And nobody has ever sold one before. Doohickey. That’s all I need to hear. But in a world of doohickeys, if I need to understand why your doohickey is better, we need to start going deeper beyond surface truths. Okay, so the second level, which can be very, very powerful. I’m searching for a better name right now, but I’ve been calling it the social truths because they’re about others or seeking to connect with others. So they’re about like, like, who is it that you serve with, with yourself or with your brand? What is it that they need? Of course, we need to connect to that, but again, it might not be sufficient. So this is about, you know, you do your consumer insight work. You realize what they’re looking for. You serve it to them. And it’s a slippery slope that can easily become pandering. I sometimes call it gold digging. You know, we are just disgusted by gold diggers. Why? Because love should be deeper and more sincere. And love should be meeting your own needs too. And when we see someone that’s like, hey baby, I’ll be whatever you want me to be. And really young and cute while I’m doing it and like just serving the other, it’s gross. It’s maybe an overstatement to call it gold digging for a brand or a person in their brand to, to only focus on the other. But it, it is not going as deep as we could go.

Rebeca Arbona:
It is a great second step. But of course, I’m headed to a third one, which I call the self truth. Right. That’s like, why are you in it? And typically with the self truth, you start connecting to why’s of how did you get into this kind of work? Why were you destined to do this work? You know, laying the trail of breadcrumbs in your story. Why you do it the way you do. I mean, if I go back to my silly baked goods, cookies and cupcakes, family recipes, growing up baking with grandma, we see lovely brands have gotten very smart about this. You know the about section on a website? We see lovely stories. They matter. They matter. And this connects so much to what’s going on right now with this political moment, with brands taking a stand politically or choosing not to. That’s about getting to third level, deep truths, you know, self truths about the brand. And let me be clear, you and I have affiliated on this call about a particular political leaning. But people that are on the other side of the aisle, all these things hold true just as well. We tend to have a model for how business is done that’s left over and branding, right? That’s left over from like the 50s from, you know, a successful company was Kraft and it was one kind of cheese and it was processed. And that was good because it was uniform and you could trust it.

Rebeca Arbona:
And it was pure air, even if it was Day-Glo orange. Right. So we’ve clearly moved away from that. And yet we tend to think of business, the mental models we have for how business unfolds come from those times. So for example, we say, don’t say anything offensive, right? For you. I’m sure it was a journey facing your audience in a way that’s very political. And yet I’m sure you’ve reaped rewards from it. I have two, and this is really critical. This is why very few of us are serving the whole population, the whole market. We’re not Walmart. We’re only going to serve a small slice anyway. There aren’t enough hours in the day. We just have two hands. We just have one voice, right? When we are vanilla, when we say I’m Tic Tacs, you know I’m inoffensive. Some people like us, some people, uh, maybe don’t love us. Hardly anyone hates us. Hardly anyone loves us as we stand for who we truly are. Our deep truths, the self. And we say I’m not a tic tac. I’m an altoid. And some people think it’s too spicy. People. Nobody does tic Tacs except my husband. I can’t understand it. Many people hate Altoids, but many people love them. They’re not as big as they used to be for a lot of sad reasons, but there’s still people that have a tin on their desk always, you know, that they love them more deeply.

Carol Cox:
Okay, so what you just outlined here, which you call the three S’s plus one gold star for the alliteration. So we have surface social and self. And I think those are great. So then when you’re talking about the self, which is the the third layer here, the deeper truth. So it’s tapping into our why. What are we passionate about? You mentioned values. And then before we got into the three S’s, we were talking about emotion. So our values and emotions the same thing. And if not, do understanding our values first can, can that lead us to the emotions? Is it a separate exercise. Are they related?

Rebeca Arbona:
What a wonderful question. They are definitely related. They’re not the same. But really living with or against your values is probably where you’re going to get that emotional power from. So it’s important to do the exercise of saying, what do I as a person, as a professional, we as a company value. And then, all right, I’m a little irate because someone cut me off in the parking lot line. That’s not, you know, something that’s worthy of a brand communication, nor is it violating your values. But this brand is going to stand up for LGBTQ rights or not. That’s typically a relevant thing for a brand to talk about. If something is going on socially that warrants comment or, you know, because certainly because it violates their values. So, and it’s okay to do that, standing up with a fair bit of emotion, again, not necessarily spitting while you talk frothing, mad, gesturing and screaming, but it is okay for us to show our passions in that way as linked to our values is relevant for our business.

Carol Cox:
So I’m thinking about values and some values that are coming to mind right now. And then we’ll talk about emotions. So values would be things like equality, fairness, justice, belonging, kind of like the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, like in that middle tier. Sounds like of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, where it’s like these things where they’re, they’re kind of abstract concepts, but then they can be applied to say things that are going on in the world or going on in society. And so those get applied and those are like, what are the values that you, that you stand for that you believe are most important to you? Now the emotion side, obviously there’s positive and negative emotions. So negative ones are like fear, anger, frustration, outrage. And then there’s the positive emotions, love, joy, maybe humor. I don’t know if humor is emotion, but things like related that would things that would make you smile or things you feel. Yeah. Things you feel or, or like being awestruck. Okay, so if I think about this for, for speaking your brand for myself, and I think about the values of, say, like equality and belonging and fairness are the values that come to mind. Emotions around that would be what things like love.

Rebeca Arbona:
Yes. And also outrage.

Carol Cox:
Okay. And An outrage.

Rebeca Arbona:
So I would say that the values are the things that you believe, the things you stand for, the things that you in outlining that you believe them and you stand for them, that you’re laying down, that you will work for them. The emotions are the things that happen in reaction. So as a company, again, as a company, as an organization, you might be delighted that your best friend won the lottery, but you’re not going to post about that on LinkedIn. But if something happens, a Supreme Court decision that the organization feels is relevant to your mission, you get to post about being delighted about that because it’s intersecting with your values. Now, this makes me sound like I think that brands should be an emotional hot mess. And so my brand, my company is called Brand True because I feel so strongly about these truths. And no doubt that’s why I started thinking about them deeply enough that I decided there’s levels. Um, I have really struggled since the quarantine for the pandemic about what am I going to say on LinkedIn? I promote my business primarily through LinkedIn. That’s, I call it my shop window. You know, people aren’t going to stroll by and see brands in the shop and the shop window and say, oh, that’s a pretty brand strategy on the mannequin. Let me go in and shop. Right? How they see me and find out about me is on LinkedIn through my content. So during these times and, and even more so in the last three weeks or so since the racial unrest has started to happen.

Rebeca Arbona:
I don’t want to just be doing my you know, I talk about names because I do a lot of naming on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I post a video on Wednesday. I don’t want to do this in a really tone deaf, rote way, because it’s what I’ve always done. On the other hand, I go back and forth because it’s like, geez, I’m not. I’m not a political commentator. This is not what my brand is about. And this is not why we’re on LinkedIn. And so I’ve tried to find the relevant ways to comment the relevant ways that intersect. So the day that we’re recording this is the day after a bunch of brands, um, started to announce that they’re not going to, you know, Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s and Mrs. Butterworth, that they’re going to walk away from really, um, offensive iconography. Right. That’s something as a brand strategist that I get to comment on, and I’m happy to do it, and I’m sure that it has brought you, Carol, more business to be so authentically who you are, even if that means that your politics are on your sleeve. I am willing to bet money that when you ran that series about, let’s elevate women’s voices and voices of people of color, which was like around two months ago. I’m willing to bet that that has only reaped good things for you. And maybe you lost a couple of people. Oh, well. And I’m also willing to bet that you’re more fulfilled with your work since being more authentically yourself. That’s the thing about these deep truths.

Carol Cox:
Yes, Rebecca, that is 100% true. And here’s what’s interesting about you mentioned the Choosing Women’s Voices campaign that we did in March and some of the podcast episodes related to that. So last year in 2019, I was in a small mastermind group for podcasters. And in that mastermind group, I was talking to them about the content. And you know, how I, the podcast content is great. Guests like you come on, deliver so much value, but there’s, you know, you kind of talk about certain things related to speaking and they’re like, well, what else do I want to talk about? Like, I want to, I want to move the conversation further. I move the conversation deeper than just kind of surface level things related to public speaking. And so I mentioned in this mastermind group, I said, I want to talk about, I want to talk more about feminism. And, you know, and feminism is such a loaded term depending on kind of your age when you went to school, like how you associate that word. But feminism has been a positive word for me my entire life. And so I was talking to this mastermind group and, and about my uncertainty about talking explicitly about feminism on the podcast, which seems so strange to even be concerned about it.

Carol Cox:
So they kind of challenged me and said, well, what would it look like if you did? And you know what? Like, what would be what would be the worst that could happen? I was like, well, nothing really. So that and then by March is when I finally implemented those episodes to go with Women’s History Month. And, you know, definitely you have that, that little bit of fear of, you know, how is this going to be received? But to your point, it was received really well. I feel so much more fulfilled having done that. So what is like, what is the hang up for us as, as businesses, as brands? Why we don’t do this sooner? Because I could have done this a year prior to when I did it. And so I’m thinking about this out loud to help the listeners to figure out like, where are they right now with the content that they’re creating for their business, and how can they push the envelope that they haven’t done so yet?

Rebeca Arbona:
Yes, yes. Well, I think it’s, it’s one of the first paradoxes. I promised you some paradoxes. So here’s one. It’s scary because it’s potentially alienating to pull those those truths out from deep inside. Right. Uh, Brene Brown, everyone loves her talks about vulnerability. She talks about when we share them, we have a vulnerability hangover. Like, oh, did I overshare? I love that term. So the first paradox is while it feels scary, it’s safer. It’s safer for a couple of reasons. The first is because just like you felt more fulfilled with your work to be truly known, it feels safer to be out there instead of hiding. But also, it’s safer because of what I was talking about before that more people will love you. We think where it comes from is what I was talking about before. We think that professionalism means blandness. Professionalism means middle road walking and offending. None. But if we offend none, we offer nothing for people to bond deeply with us. And so it’s competitively a bad idea. I have struggled with this myself. I have been like, oh well, I might scare off. I mean, my clients are big corporations. I, I am skating a line. Sometimes I worry, and yet I think that there are plenty of people who don’t like me. Your guests can’t your, your listeners can’t know that I have hair and some very bizarre colors not found in nature, in hair.

Rebeca Arbona:
For the last few years, that’s my own, you know, midlife crisis, My Little Pony kind of phase of life. But so some people are like, oh, get that away from me. That’s fine. But also I find that people remember me everywhere I go. I walk into a restaurant and they say, welcome back. And I think I’ve been here 10,000 times, but only in the last year do they recognize me. Why is that? You know, so right. When we give of ourselves, it’s actually a stronger competitive situation. I mean, of course we can’t be insane about this. You can’t be beating your drum about something that no one else cares about. And that’s why that second level of truth, of really connecting with your audience and figuring out what they care about is critical. Of course, let’s talk about Nike and what they did with Colin Kaepernick. I wrote a long piece about it because at the time, because I was amazed by what was going on, there were people burning their Nike gear when to commemorate their 30th anniversary as a brand, they ran an ad where they took this long standing slogan of Just Do It, which is kind of edgy, which a lot of brands probably would have been like, just do it. We can’t order our customers around. That’s obnoxious. Right? And look how well that worked for them.

Rebeca Arbona:
Okay. So after 30 years of just do it, they put some teeth into it by really imbuing it with deep meaning. The courage of your convictions, standing up for what’s right. No, it doesn’t only mean put on your shoes at 530, even though you’d rather be sleeping. Go for a run, right? It means all those things. Okay, so a lot of people burn their gear, but they added $26 billion in value in a year. Now, I am willing to bet that as much as they were living their deep truth and this was their conviction, there are a bunch of business people. They were publicly traded corporation. You know that they looked long and hard into who are their core customers and what is going to happen. A brand as ubiquitous as Nike, as successful as Nike. So many categories, so many consumers, so many different sports that they touch. They’re right on the edge of being ho hum. Who cares? It means sports. That’s fine. When you do something like that, that people adore you for the stance. You’re going to reap more rewards from that financially. And yeah, a few people burned their stuff to a few people violently disagreed. But it was a numbers game for them. It’s authenticity and it required the vulnerability of that risk. But playing it safe is riskier. That’s what I mean by contradictions.

Carol Cox:
Yes, Nike is a great example because they they were ahead of this. I mean, ahead of the movement a bit as far as like with all with all the brands are doing today in 2020 Because this ad came out several years ago. Then they had the Dream Crazier ad with Serena Williams about women in sports that came out not long after that one. And it reminds me, Rebecca, of another brand, much smaller brand than Nike, but larger than our brands is King Arthur’s Flour, and they have a fantastic Instagram feed. I remember that right before Memorial Day, they put a post saying that they’re giving all of their employees the weekend off, the three day weekend off because of the pandemic. They’ve been basically in overproduction mode, trying to make more flour because we all were buying all the flour off the grocery store shelves to make our banana bread and all of that. So they’ve been in the past few months, all their employees have been working extra hard. So they said, we are giving all of our employees the weekend off. That means no online orders will go in. Like basically the the shopping cart on the website was disabled. We’re not going to be producing things. We’re not going to be shipping things for this Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And they posted on Instagram and most of the people following their customers, of course, were like, wow, thank you so much for honoring your employees and for basically like being authentic, not just at the level of marketing messaging, but throughout your entire company and actually doing what it is that you say that you do in your messaging.

Rebeca Arbona:
Yes. And in a market where, you know, when we go to the store shelf, there’s going to be a couple of different brands of flour, a much cheaper store brand. And it’s freaking flour. It’s pretty commoditized, right? By living their values, truly not just lip service, but good on them for getting credit for it and posting about it socially. Why not? Right? Letting people know who they are at the level of their deep truth. That’s a reason that, you know, I will say, what’s the price difference? $0.60. Oh, they can have it. And we see that throughout a lot of companies. You know, Patagonia is such an interesting company. They feel the courage of their convictions so much with their commitment to the environment, and that alienates some people. If you start googling, you see definitely see places with people saying, you know, boycott Patagonia for one various stance they’ve taken or another. Most recently, they got a corporate tax cut that they donated back to the environment rather than keep it. And they were really outspoken about why boycott Patagonia. Yeah. Their business is doing just fine because they understand that they draw the like minded to them. And you hear, here it is. I never thought of it this way before. You can’t draw the like minded to you if you don’t tell people what your mind is. That’s the thing.

Carol Cox:
That is going to be a quote right there. Rebecca, you’re gonna have to make a little quote card for that, I love it. That’s great. Okay, we’re gonna drop this down right now. I am listeners were jotting this down and I’m gonna put this quote in the show notes so that you can grab it there. Okay, so you can’t attract the like minded if they don’t know what your mind is, right?

Rebeca Arbona:
Exactly.

Carol Cox:
That says it all. Rebecca. Well done.

Rebeca Arbona:
Well, thank you, thank you. It came to me in the moment, but. Right. That’s what it’s all about. And and I’ve given a lot of examples on the left. I’ve only given sort of one more to the right, which is chick fil A. But I’ll give you another, which is Hobby Lobby. So I’m actually a crafty chick and I have put so much money into Michael’s coffers, I won’t set foot in Hobby Lobby because they have some, uh, policies that I really struggle with. But I’ll tell you that their policies are not hidden at all in, I want to say 2016, maybe they took a case to the Supreme Court. They did not want to be obligated to pay for birth control as part of the health service, health insurance for their employees, because they don’t believe in birth control. We’re not talking abortion. We’re talking birth control. Staggering. Also staggering that the Supreme Court ruled in their favor. But with that having happened, a lot of people understand where what their stance is. Yeah. And the fact of the matter is that those stores are growing. They are expanding much more quickly than Michaels. Michaels is completely apolitical. And you know what? I’m not saying that every brand should be as political as a Hobby Lobby or a Ben and Jerry’s or a Nike, but I’m saying that it is not a bad strategy. It is actually an excellent strategy, especially the more crowded your market is. Be more fully who you are and people will love you. They’re drawn to you. They find you. You find your tribe.

Carol Cox:
Yes. And I and I have seen that for sure. And I and Rebecca, I actually was going to ask you this because I know that this is what some of the listeners are thinking is, well, what if I’m just not a political person? I don’t really I mean, yeah, sure, I vote, but I’m not really into politics. Like, I’m not into politics as much as you, you two are. And yes, you know, I believe Black Lives Matter and I would support that movement. But as far as like all these political things, you know, I’m just a web designer or I’m just, I’m just a coach. Do I have to be political? Do I have to make a political statement on social media when things like this happen? Can’t I just do my business?

Rebeca Arbona:
I love that question. I think the answer is super individual. For many of us, it’s not authentic or right to come out politically. And if that’s not really intersecting with what you sell, with what you offer, then no, you don’t need to go there. But I guess I’m using political stances as a really salient example of passion. Give me your passion somewhere else. So with the baked goods examples, I have this example that Carroll’s familiar with of kind of the three levels of truth. First, imagine a beautiful cupcake, like a beautiful, perfectly decorated cupcake, right? And that’s sort of the surface truth. Like, oh, that cupcake looks great. You know, it’s going to taste nice. It’s going to taste like a cupcake, right? Then kind of the social truth. There’s bakeries that make, you know, really beautifully decorated baked goods. We’ve seen cupcakes that are works of art. And that’s very, very enticing. But by the way, do they taste any better than the other ones? Uh, maybe a little, but do you, like, wake up in the middle of the night craving them? Okay, neither kind of cupcake.

Rebeca Arbona:
But then, like in my town of Cincinnati, there’s this bakery that I am talking about them everywhere I go. Um, that’s really a home. Baker who increased her skills more and more and more. And she is an incredible professional baker. But the things she makes, they are recipes that seem more homemade. The appearance of they’re gorgeous, but they’re not completely regular. They’re clearly handmade. And I mean, we have been in a cold sweat. We like me, my family, and everyone I know waiting for them to open during this pandemic. Where are they? We need them. And there’s the passion of the maker is there. I mean, I have this incredible quote. Oh, I don’t know where I put it. When she opened her bakery, she had a vision of people sitting there having a cup of coffee, sharing the moment she goes on and on, she waxes poetic. What is that? That’s her passion. You know, nobody cranking out a cupcake that might be from a chain bakery or might be from the local supermarket. Nobody there has a passionate fantasy of making people happy behind their baking.

Carol Cox:
Rebecca, as you were citing that example. And then I was thinking also back to your earlier example about the brand changes that Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth and so on are now making much, much too late. But we are where we’re at right now. And I was thinking for those listeners who are again, the web designer, the coach or, and or the marketing strategist, and they just say, well, I’m just not political. And maybe they don’t have like a jump out of their seats passion. Like maybe they just, they just haven’t found that yet or doesn’t align to their work. And I was thinking, well, maybe what would be useful for them for this? The third level for this deeper truth, the self truth is what is the lens that they use to look at the world? So for you, Rebecca, it’s branding. And so when the Aunt Jemima came out, it was, oh, that’s the lens that I can use to talk about this topic to show that I’m relevant and I’m current with what’s going on and that I care about what’s going on in the world. But the lens that I’m going to talk about it through is through branding. I don’t have to talk about it through, say, making a a political statement. You know, I mean, you could Rebecca, I’m saying for someone else who that’s not the angle they want to take. So for the listeners, if they can think about like, what is that lens that they see the world through? And when things come up, how can they use that lens, tie the emotion to it, and then share that with their audience?

Rebeca Arbona:
I love that. Absolutely, I love that. I think that there’s a lot of ways to find deep truths we’ve been talking about here. I love that lens. I’ll give you two more kind of angles on it. So one is beliefs as relative to the work you do. I mean, they don’t have to be grand political beliefs. They can be okay. So for example, I’m a brand strategist. I worked in large brand strategy consultancies that had models and ways of doing things. And when I went out on my own, it gave me the opportunity to really think long and hard about some of these things. And I said, you know what? Brand strategy written with a capital B and a capital S is kind of sometimes BS. And I was like, do I dare to make that tacky joke to prospective clients? Do I dare to say it publicly? Hey, it works hard for me for the kind of person who is my client, who has maybe seen 10 million of these complicated models and has been like, wah wah, wah is what they hear when we talk about the nuances between, well, the, you know, the core brand equity versus the brand essence versus the brand idea. Wait, are they all three different things? Oh my God, stop talking. Right. So when I said, I believe very strongly that we should be focusing on these emotional truths and sometimes talking about them is getting into some really dangerous territory.

Rebeca Arbona:
We’re going to talk about them. We’re not going to say these dangerous things to the consumer. But let’s talk about it in defining what we stand for, like being like that passionate about how the work is done and what I believe about how the work can be done that has differentiated what I offer as well. So if you’re a web designer, you say, you know what I mean. I don’t know what they would be passionate about, but I would be attracted if I were redoing my website and looking at three different ones. And one said, okay, well, I can do that. And the other one said, oh yeah, we can do better. And we give good value. We’re not that expensive. I would be like, okay, okay. And then the third one says, no more pink ever. Because psychologically this and that. And actually it’s no. And our websites, they have bold colors because the psychology, I don’t know, I’m clearly making this up, but that person, I’m right away thinking they’re a little bit more expensive, but I believe them, I trust them, I’m drawn to their passion. They they backed it up in such a way that I’m looking at my budget to see if I can afford to give them a little bit more, because damn, that’s who I want to work with. So. Right. That’s courage of conviction, and that’s passion. And it doesn’t have to be political.

Carol Cox:
Yes, that actually was a great example. I, and I am totally with you there and being so much more attracted to that type of web designer than the first two.

Rebeca Arbona:
There you go. And then one more that came to mind when you were giving your I loved that, that clarification, that sort of making my point more pointed that you gave. Another thing that came to mind when you said, that is the idea of niching down. So I mean, think about what you do. You could be a coach, a business coach, communications overall, but you’re working with women, you’re working with entrepreneurs, you’re working with speaking, you’re working with, you know, um, even then, what is the thing that you say? It’s not values driven, but it’s something.

Carol Cox:
Purpose driven in the intro. Yes, yes.

Rebeca Arbona:
Hello. I mean, you’ve made a lot of choices. You’ve niched down. And there’s no question that by doing that, by making those choices, which takes courage, the the, the island that you stand on is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. That’s terrifying. Am I going to go hungry if I do that? If I niche down? But no, I think by now most people in business understand. And if they don’t, they should. That um, typically to be more specialized makes it especially for those of us that are small businesses, it makes it easier for people to find you, easier for people to recommend you, easier for them to remember you well enough to go looking for you or to recommend you for me again, with my business. Although I’m a brand strategist and had done a lot of things across the range of brand strategy before and even after I went out on my own, when I realized the work that I enjoyed doing the most is working on new brands and naming things. So sort of two little subsets of brand strategy that go together well. Those are the things that light me on fire. By the way, those are the things that link to my education. Oh, I was a linguistics major undergrad and I never thought I’d use it. And now I’m naming things. Huh? I speak several languages that wasn’t going to help me in business. Wait a minute. Like it starts connecting to who I am deeply. And also, by the way, when I’m working on a naming project, I will wake up at 2 a.m., roll over, tap 10 or 20 names in my phone and go back to sleep with a smile on my face.

Rebeca Arbona:
And regular old brand strategy. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I’m not smiling like that wasn’t a good thing that happened. So as I understood what is my passion, what do I enjoy doing? Well, it happens to be what I do. There’s a bigger delta, a bigger difference between how I do it and anyone else versus, you know, I’m a good strategist. Yeah. Like, you know, the vanilla path is not the path. So all these things may be a slice of your business that you’re more passionate about. Maybe a way the principles behind why your business is done differently. Maybe the values of your business. There are a lot of channels. Definitely only choose that which is authentic to you. So if outward looking political social justice statements, um, don’t feel like what you stand for, then the last thing you should do is go stand on that burning platform. But find something that is burning for you. And if there isn’t one, do some work about why, why, why do I do this and not something else? Why am I better than others? Why does this light me up? And when you find it, don’t keep it a secret. That’s your deep truth. That’s your self truth.

Carol Cox:
I love that, Rebecca. Don’t keep it a secret. And just know that this is, at least for me, this is a process that never ends. It’s a continuous process. I don’t just have one kind of, you know, piece of paper where I put all these values and emotions and these deep truths on them, and then it stays static and forever. Yes, my deep truths about who I am. I’m a feminist, you know, I believe in racial equality. I believe in political progressivism. Like that is who I’ve been since I was at least a teenager. So those things are always going to be with me. But how how they show up in the business is never going to be static. And I think that makes sense. So for those of you who are listening, I know this kind of seems messy. It’s like, where do I get started? How do I do this? Like know that it is within you. And the more that you create content, especially on a consistent basis, and the more that you follow what other people are doing, comment on what other people are doing, that the ability to find your voice and to share it publicly will develop like a muscle that needs to be exercised. The more you do it, the easier and more fluid it becomes.

Rebeca Arbona:
Oh, I love all that, I completely agree. I mean, this isn’t about like that. We have to get it right. This is about that. We have to be getting it writer and writer and moving forward. Right. And, and you know what? That’s some of the fun. I mean, if you’re not okay with that, then it’s going to be rough to be in business for yourself because to me, you know, embracing the uncertainty, who is going going to email or call, what is going to happen next? What am I going to try and succeed or fail at? Like, that’s the fun of it. Um, I would, I loved everything you just said, Carol, in thinking about these things and these truths, I came up with this thought that was, you’ve got to share those deep truths, right? That’s everything we’ve been talking about. If sharing those deep truths is scary, you’re probably doing it right. Like that’s important. If it’s not deep enough that you feel a little like, ah, how’s this going to go? Maybe you’re only scratching the surface and seriously, consider going deeper. You know, I feel like if you tell the truth, if you truth it, they will come. You’re putting the signal out to your tribe. This is who I am. And that is so much more attractive than I’m here, just like everyone else. You know, I guess that would be my message to them is to find the courage to be more fully themselves. That’s what the telling the truth is about is being more fully yourself, because it’s safer than being nowheresville, safer than being nobody at all.

Carol Cox:
Bland and Rebecca, this is such a nice bookend to how we started this conversation with this idea that personal development and professional development go together and really be more fully ourselves. That is the journey that we’re on throughout our entire lives.

Rebeca Arbona:
Oh, God, so much so. And I guess also, you know, trying to come full circle with it. It’s so much less scary in the long run because as you’re as you’re being yourself, you can’t ever be found out. You know it when you’re living like, this is who I am. This is what I believe in, you know, if you don’t like it, I, I feel less vulnerable about this idea that someone might not like it than I did before I talked about it. It takes the fangs out of it. It becomes a more satisfying and, like, emotionally safe way to be. Even though I know I bet you that there’s people that are still listening to this even after the length of our conversation going, oh, I can’t afford to lose business by being out there. Okay, so then the right one for you to be out there on is not, you know, is not politics, but it is that everything you bake is gluten free because you think that wheat is the devil. Great. Go down on that burning platform. Okay.

Carol Cox:
He’s probably not really.

Rebeca Arbona:
Some people I don’t I don’t think.

Carol Cox:
I eat gluten all the time, so.

Rebeca Arbona:
But some people believe that. And you know what? If you. If today in 2020, you wanted to start a little bakery business, you’d probably be better off being a gluten free one than just any old one, you know?

Carol Cox:
Right. No. That’s true. Rebecca, you’re you’re fantastic. I love, I love how direct and that you are. And that’s part of who you are as your just yourself, your, your personal brand. And so thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I’m going to make sure to include a link to your LinkedIn profile in the show notes, because you have fantastic videos that you do. I love when you talk about different brand names and, and what those brand names signify. That’s so much fun. And I’m going to make sure to include resources. Some of the things that we talked about here today, you mentioned that you had an article that you wrote about the Nike ad, the Colin Kaepernick one. So I’ll include a link to that as well in the show notes so that people can find that directly. Rebecca, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Rebeca Arbona:
Oh, what an honor. I’ve been a long time listener to your podcast and to get to know you a little bit and to be on it. Thank you so much. Lovely.

Carol Cox:
Wow. I learned so much from that conversation. Thank you again to Rebecca for coming on the podcast. If you’re enjoying these episodes, could you leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts? I would really appreciate it because it helps new people find the show. Also, be sure to subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app so you don’t miss our future episodes. We have more coming up on finding your voice. And one last thing, be sure to register for our new free webinar. You say you want to be a thought leader, what that really means and how to find your voice. You can do that at speaking your brand.com/webinar. Again, that’s speaking your brand.com/webinar. Until next time. Thanks for listening.

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