HELP! I'm STUCK.

Ayyyyyy Ooop Duckie,

Hope you’s rate? And you’s had a great week, like?

I feel very very very privileged and stupid saying this 

But, is having too much amazing advice a bad thing?

I am SO SO SO incredibly pinch-me-lucky

After recording +300 podcast episodes

I’ve become mates with some Big Mother Fucking Dons

Got some pretty incredible mates at the end of blower or WhatsApp message

These legends are unshakeable and formidable 

They built, and, are building some of the biggest brands in the world 

This week,

I’ve felt really really stuck really stuck

No idea where I’m going 
No idea what I’m doing 
No idea what day of the week it is

Been meeting these ABSOLUTE DONS for advice 

the more wisdom the better, right?

Wrong.

The more wisdom, the more confusion. 

Everyone’s idea is AMAZING and feels SO BLOODY BINGO THAT’S THE TICKET GEOFERRY

Delicious fun, but, completely and utterly, discombobulating 

Drowning in different amazing opinions  

My mind is like an electric-pinball machine sliding down a slippy washing up liquid drenched a Helter-Skelter 

Keep changing my mind every 2 mins

Anyhoo, as Rumi says

SO FUCK IT. Let’s keep going. Let’s Keep This Keep This MuthaFucka Moving..

Anyway 3 Tingz Manz been reflecting on recently

1. The Status Game and The Death Of Status

It’s often easier to understand heady “ideas” or “concepts” in the negative or reverse.

What is a brand? Hard to understand positively .

What is a brand? Easy to understand negatively.

Reverse or negative of “What is a brand?”

Would you wear a Jumper if it was worn by Jimmy Saville?

Absolutely NOT.

All the negative associations of that jumper blossom into egregious perceptions.

Brand is the opposite of the negative associations.

Let’s apply this to Status

1. What would you dislike if it didn’t give you status?

2. If you took the status away from the things you like - how would you think it was stupid?

My Reverse Status list

• Circoloco raves and after parties (went to one in Thailand was actually fucking pony)

• Private Members clubs

• Stanley Cups

• PRIME

• Tattoos

• Supreme garms (it gives us status)

• Channel or Louis Vuitton

• Balenciaga (it’s fucking hideous)

Most of the shit we obsess with and buy is purely because it gives status, connection or freedom from fear.

Your consumers are dying for status, if your struggling to understand status, think of it in the reverse.

2. Some Hard Questions for Your Brand:

Chris Williamson has two questions he asks himself at the end of each year.

1. What do I think is unproductive but is actually productive?

2. What do I think is productive but is actually unproductive?

very interesting. Even more interesting when applied to brand building.

What do I think is unproductive but is ok actually productive… for brand building ?

• long walks without a podcast (WHOOPSIES!!! shouldn’t be saying that)

• long team lunches

• out of office days

• in store sampling sessions in far away towns

• field sales with your whole team to ask consumers/customers ACTUAL questions

• reading fiction for 20 minutes in the middle of the day

What do I think is productive but is actually unproductive… for brand building?

• tracking every performance marketing details

• office every day

• spending too much time in excel

• meta ads

• above the line tube campaigns

• endless slack chats

3. Self Help Is Pointless

Sometimes out the blue, I’ll wake from a peaceful slumber, my mind hectic squalor.

It arrives unannounced, doesn’t even knock at the door, doesn’t even take it’s shoes off. Farts a tornado of egregious tripe through my brain

My mind, can, at times, be a right little mendacious fucker.

Overthinking used positively is creativity.
Overthinking used negatively is anxiety.

Anxiety is the price you pay for creativity. Accepting that. Leaning into that is freeing.

Writing helps. Running helps. Exercise helps. Letting the mind monkeys out the zoo for 45 minutes, let them run wild, allow them to come back exhausted.

Anyway I picked up a self-help book. “Don’t Believe Everything You Think”. After reading a few pages, I realised it’s fucking pointless.

The Self Help category is just overthinking about overthinking.

All Self-Help is LITERALLY just one sentence by Mel Robbins, 5,4,3,2,1. GO

5,4,3,2,1. GO.
5,4,3,2,1. GO.
5,4,3,2,1. GO.
5,4,3,2,1. GO.

The only way to smother your anxious thoughts is through action.

Out “action” your self doubt

Toodle Pip, Bon Voyage

Popey xx

Still Hungry? Course you are…

Please feel free to gorge on the most downloaded podcast episodes of all time (these are CERTY: BANGERS)

1. Rory Sutherland: Why Challenger Brands Must Never Follow Logic to Truly Disrupt Categories 

2. Waitrose CEO: How Challenger Food & Drink Brands Can Win and Build Profitable Partnerships with Waitrose - James Baile

3. Spencer Matthews: How Spencer Matthews Built Unshakeable Resilience and Raised + £10m to Launch Clean Co. in Sainsbury's, Tesco and the U.S.A. 

4. How Grenade Exited to Mondelez for £200 Million and Lessons in Unapologetic Authenticity- Juliett Baratt

5. Tyrells Tycoon: How William Chase built and sold Tyrells for £50 million and sold Chase Distillery to DIAGEO 

Or read our most read articles of all time

1. Quick quick - we must escape the Middle

2. You moron you let the disease infect your mind

3. do you like bad sex?

4. raving in Ibiza taught me six brand building lessons