I can’t hear what you’re

saying because who you are is

speaking so loudly
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whether you are an insurance company, selling exotic coffee beans, a workspace startup, a publishing house – I could go
on for pages – what I'm offering is very simple. I want to help you find that story at the core of who you are, the story
that beautifully captures the truth and essence of what inspired your company into being, and utilize it as your
foundation to maximize emotional impact and resonance as you present yourself to the world.

The process I am introducing to you here works. Whatever your goals are with your company (I hope they are
lofty), you really can't find massive success unless you're telling the truth. I'm not talking about the truth of what
your Q4 numbers are I mean the fundamental truths of why you exist. I want to show you how to tell that truth
in the most captivating way possible, and I promise you it not only works, it's a crucial component to becoming an
iconic company/brand.

You will find when we work together I'm going to ask a lot of questions. I want to know who you are and where you
came from because that is truthfully the crux that holds this all together. It's your hidden superpower.

Why? Because right now the world desperately needs inspiration. I promise you this. Hear me out.

The mere fact that you had the guts to go out and start a business tells me that you've already bet on your dream, or at
least bet on yourself to be more than just somebody else's employee. I can't begin to express the significance of that.
90% of Americans do not own their own business, and the world is having less and less faith in the crumbling
employee model. We are veering back into self enterprise, and very soon the only thing that will feel safe at all is
determining the value that you hold, and leveraging that into income.

What does this have to do with your company?

A lot -- because I promise you that of that 90% of people who don't own their own business, 90% are reaching for
freedom and independence, they would choose it if they saw the path. They're seeking the answer and hoping to believe
a little bit. As you and I know, it feels really good to believe in yourself and your dream.

I’ll break down why this is all relevant:

• The mere fact that you had the guts to step out of the status quo is inspiring in and of itself.

• The world is desperately reaching for inspiration. (look around and count how many self-help
books you see daily)

• You create a story rooted in the same essence and truth that inspired you into action.

• This story becomes the foundation of how you present yourself to the world.

• You create deep emotional resonance BECAUSE the truth of who you are has connected with
the truth of who they are. (When you're watching a movie and you have that moment of goose-
bumps, or a sudden influx of emotion because of a particular moment. Every single time it is
because the core truth of that moment connected with the truth of who you are.)

• It all comes down to this:

Whatever inspired you to create, is what will inspire them to choose you.
At this point it may seem like my intention is to help carve out an epic tale of inspiration for every company. Let me be clear -- that
is absolutely not the case. Stories makes us feel things not because of what is literally happening in the story, it's because of the
essence of truth that is erupting from it's core.

Whatever story you carve out doesn't have to be “about” your product or service – it just needs to tap into the same core fundamen-
tal truths.

If you're a diamond company you don't write an inspiring diamond story you'd likely write a love story. That's an easy one. If you're
an home insurance company rather than tapping into the fear of losing your home we tell a story about that sacred moment of
owning something for the first time, not a home but anything, because the feelings behind it are connected and consistent to what
drives you to be of service and value.

Now let's dive into an example, and my intention by the end of it all is you see how this all ties together beautifully. This is one
single example of implementing a compelling narrative structure around a company, but there are countless directions we could
take. That's whats so wonderful about this gift of story – there is a never ending supply, and the routes you can take are nearly
limitless.

Example

A Motorcycle Company

You have a new company that builds and sells motorcycles. Awesome. If you started a motorcycle company I'm willing to bet there's
a pretty cool story of how you got there. I bet there were roadblocks along the way that you had to conquer. I bet you lived your own
little slice of the hero's journey.

I would want to know what inspired you to start this company? It's a common theme for those with big lofty visions is that they
came from a more challenging upbringing. It wouldn't be a stretch to say you learned about motorcycles from your father. Maybe
your father was obsessed with bikes, but struggled financially and never was able to buy one himself. Perhaps he worked his ass off
at a job to provide for the family, and from a young age you knew there's something fundamentally wrong with the fact that a good
man like your dad working so damn hard isn't able to reward himself with his dream bike.
 Howard Schultz of Starbucks made it so that even part time employees received full
benefits and tuition assistance, employee stock options etc. That's a bold move for such
an enormous company, and that decision was rooted in the fact that Schultz father was
financially crippled by becoming injured and not meeting the standards of health bene-
fits as an employee. That's how great leaders think, they create from their own source of
inspiration and that's how companies become more than just a service or product pro-
vider. They become symbols and icons.

Your father not being able to have his bike becomes a core motivational factor in your future endeavour. Even if it's deep rooted and
has become a little more subconscious, it's there.

I would next want to know what is it that specifically makes you interested in motorcycles? The thrill and the freedom and courage it
takes to put yourself at such a risk. Other key factors like the power of a great machine, the precision of focus. All of those answers
broadly resonate with the human condition. We are ALWAYS reaching higher, reaching for more thrill, reaching for more aliveness,
more flow. Nobody wants to feel numb we want to feel alive.

You probably have knowledge of the mechanics and aesthetic you want. You are an artist at your core, and what you desire artistical-
ly/aesthetically/mechanically comes from that same fundamental essence. The great artists of the world worked from that flow and
created unique beauty that wasn't dictated by data analysis and trends. Could you imagine Picasso studying the market before he
began painting? Or John Lennon writing Imagine with the target demographic in mind? Me neither, and your creation of this compa-
ny is as much an art form as anything else.

So let's so you like a gritty design that focuses on the unique mechanical nature of your bike being a large part of the aesthetic. Now
I'm not a motorcycle designer, but I can see a pretty cool image from that thought alone, and of course the right people exist out there
to bring that into fruition.

So we have a product, we've acknowledged some very fundamental truths stemming from your essence (Thrill, courage, greatness,
focus), we've identified a core motivational factor (the father) and they are all ingredients to build an emotionally captivating
narrative.

My instincts would tell me to create a narrative about a character who feels trapped. It could be anything. You could go trap him/her
in prison, or you can trap him/her in a bad relationship, or you could trap him/her in a bad job. So a story about someone who reaches
their breaking point while being trapped in undesirable circumstances. I'd also want to incorporate great machinery, as the bikes
design is heavily rooted in its mechanics. So our character is being overworked almost to death a complex machine factory. Brooding
dangerous machinery all around him or her. (what a great aesthetic!) The atmosphere is heavy and mean, she's getting screamed at
(I've decided she's female), it feels dystopian-like. She's uncomfortable, she's trapped, she's tired. It almost feels as though if goes on
another minute, she'll be dead. We make the stakes high, it's a now or never scenario. She feels it and we feel it, it's now or never –
she makes a run for it.

To hit that breaking point in regards to a bad situation is a thrilling adventure in and
of itself. When enough is enough and you take your life into you own hands for the
first time -- I get chills just writing about it. You've either experienced it, or you crave
it one way or another. It takes courage, there can be extreme risk and uncertainty, you
leave behind everything that's comfortable and familiar. Also more importantly, this is
a played out, dramatic manifestation of something the father was never able to do.
Regardless of who you are, you are already painting a picture.

So our character is now on the run. As I write I have an urge to make it even more dystopian like. They set the dogs on her. Suddenly the
sole focus for her is to escape -- for everyone else it's to prevent her escape. She's working her way through a maze of machinery, dodg-
ing obstacle after obstacle. Until she arrives in a big open space. The massive door to freedom is in front of her, bright white light shining
in, but it's very far away, too far to run. She see's a glimmer -- It's through a small hole in a concrete wall. She can hear them coming. She
reaches in and tries to break the concrete away with her hands. Bit by bit it opens up. She kicks a bigger hole in the concrete.

We start to see it.

A beautiful motorcycle, somehow completely standing out and blending in with the raw and gritty aesthetic. It's half covered. Eventually
our character breaks through. She gets to the bike and throws off the tarp and the full, gleaming, sexy, powerful beast of a machine sits in
all its glory.

Another note: We are already fully engaged in this narrative before it becomes about a motorcycle.

Now we're back into the large main area, someone hits a button and the garage door of freedom begins to slowly close. The villains are
running closer. Suddenly we hear the machine roar up and they all stop in their tracks. Almost as if the T-Rex from Jurassic Park is loose
and they all know it. Our character confidently rolls out on the bike. She stops to look at them. They look back at her and loosen up. She's
got the T-Rex, She's got the power. Everyone understands.

There's a minor stare down, but the door -- it's closing and the shadow of dwindling freedom begins to sweep over them.

She revs up the bike a few times, creates a smoke cloud and she's off. A straight shot, her versus the massive door. It's getting impossibly
low. She's either going to escape or die. (which totally parallels the beginning of this little story, except now we're seeing it literally).

She makes it, somehow. The door slams shut behind her. Now suddenly a wide open desert road. We hear nothing but the roaring sound of
the bike, and this courageous, and heroic daredevil in all of her freedom. Suddenly this bike is much more than just a bike. It is freedom
and courage, it is the redemption of the father never filling his dream encapsulated, it resonates with an overarching truth that many of
us can empathize with deeply.

Here's what you'll just have to trust me on. That story will resonate much much more BECAUSE you
presented it from the truth of who you are. If someone else wrote almost identical content but it
stemmed from some mix of data about what people like best from Harley's and Ducati's. It's inau-
thenticity will bleed through. People will find countless arbitrary reasons to justify why the compe-
tition is superior, but the truth is that they weren't captured emotionally.

Now here's the thing. What I just gave you probably ran through your mind like a commercial. Which it very well could be (if you
want to go that route), but I gave you much more than that. Imagine a website where the image of that bike, half under a tarp, in
that machine factory is the first thing you see. Imagine on social media or an internet advertisement, a picture with this character,
and that determination riding one of these bikes. You could expand it further and make it an overarching theme about freedom
which our specific story was just one of many. As long as it's stemming from your truth and essence, it works.

All of this can now be the entire identity of your marketing platform and it's incredibly powerful.

Many times, a client will go to a marketing agency without anything besides some sporadic ideas, or a certain “look”, or even nothing
at all. Now you have a rock solid, emotionally impactful foundation. (you can make it more rock solid, add details, use your imagina-
tion). So now the agency can crunch their numbers and do their analytics and if they're wise they'll integrate their creativity with
what you have gifted them and boom.
I'm not kidding here. Create an authentic story from the core of what you believe in, from the source of what inspires you into action, to
believe what you believe and to live the path that you choose, and you give the world what it is desperately craving and suddenly your
company becomes a symbol for that essence of which you represent.

The motorcycle company is one example and it's a fun one. Sometimes a companies most resonant story will be something more like a
literal origin story, or many times it'll be comedic in nature (Comedy is the same, your marketing will come across as forced and dishonest
if you aren't speaking from your essence of truth -- this years super bowl had a few cringe-worthy examples).

What I'm offering here works. Everything else will fall flat. Regardless of how immersed our consumer culture is with trends and
information, this stuff resonates 100% of the time. Emotional resonance isn't quantifiable, it doesn't fit into the data, so it's generally
ignored. Consumers will be emotionally gripped but tell you they love it because the screen is bigger. This is very obvious to me. Even
films today are created with data in mind over emotional resonance, that's why there are so many awful movies out there and producers
are (somehow) still scratching their heads as to why. That's why.

Two of the most iconic advertising campaigns came from Apple. In 1984 with their “1984” ad and again in the late 1990's with their think
different campaign. Those are still spoken about to this day as the two of the greatest advertisements ever created, and Apple is one of
the most iconic companies in the world. Neither of those advertisements were even about the product. They resonated so strongly
because they stemmed from the core values and beliefs of who they are, and the passion and responsibility they feel for being an
innovator on the world stage, for shifting the status quo and thinking differently.

It's really that simple. Your essence shines through every single time. We are sharper than ever at identifying inauthenticity, and in a
world that's full of it, we are seeking truth and resonance more than ever before.

I've identified that most (90%) of companies don't understand and/or utilize this foundational secret, and the other 10% are some of
the most iconic brands in the world.