Where does the balance fall between writing conventionally and writing with a unique voice?
If we take someone like Ayn Rand for example, it's almost guaranteed you are either going to be offended by the way she puts words together or you are going to be relieved that someone could communicate in a way that is so eloquently straightforward. My writing style involves a lot of uncommon pairings of parts of speech (such as "eloquently straightforward") that may appear as bad writing to some but refreshing to others.
Likewise, sometimes I'll use two modifiers that mean similar but distinct things because to me it paints a more accurate picture, but to others it may be redundant and pedantic (oops I did it again).
I think purpose matters too. The purpose of my book is not *just* to communicate useful information. It is to introduce me to the reader. I want them to feel like they are having a conversation with me, and that they recognize me behind the text. This will be even more evident as I narrate it myself. My writing has been referred to by some as "full of signature Diehlian wisdom" and "beautifully logical", but others have said I come across as verbose and intentionally condescending.
Here's an excerpt from the introduction to give you a better idea of what I mean:
Brand Identity Breakthrough Introduction
Imagine that you are aboard a plane which has crashed onto an unpopulated tropical island. You are the sole survivor. As you survey your surroundings and scavenge what you can from the plane wreckage, you find limited supplies to aid you in your survival in this unknown environment: a book of matches, a blanket, a pocket knife, packaged meals, and enough material to establish a basic shelter.
Considering how much worse things could have been, you’d be very lucky to start your life of survival in these relatively comfortable conditions. You don’t have to put out any fires just yet, or tend to any other time sensitive emergencies. You have the luxury of taking some time to survey your surroundings and think critically about what to do next. But eventually, you will need to make a fundamental choice. This choice will determine everything that happens to you from that moment on. It is the choice to play things safe and minimize the potential for loss, or to take strategic risks and maximize the potential for improvement.
Are you going to go out there and figure out how to hunt? Or are you just going to sit in your camp and hope somebody rescues you before you run out of supplies? Are you going to learn through trial and error how to fashion a spear and hunt wild boar? Will you discover how to collect rainwater and seek out sources for hydration? Are you going to experiment with building a shelter to withstand the changing weather?
Or, will you play it safe and hide away while you ration whatever dwindling supplies you have in the hopes of lasting as long as possible until some outside force intervenes and saves you from this unfortunate situation? Do you see yourself a victim of circumstance which only someone else with greater fortune could rescue you from? The longer you delay in making this fundamental choice, the more opportunity you will waste.
The everyday reality for entrepreneurs is like that survival scenario on the island. You are forced to sink or swim, either to make the most of what you have to work with in your environment, or refuse to take action for fear of making your situation worse. The life of your business depends on the actions you take right now.
At times, it can feel like you are grasping at every straw for meager results, and that you will always have to struggle to get by. But if you persist for long enough and learn from your actions, you will eventually become master of your environment. You will know without hesitation how hard to throw that spear at just the right angle to catch your dinner every night. Your identity will fundamentally change in response to the demands of the context you are in, just as it already had to your lifestyle before you ever arrived on the island.
The man who waits for rescue may indeed be lucky enough to be rescued. There is still a chance that he will live to see the future, but he will do so without having changed himself at all. He will have no new skills, knowledge, or character development. But the man who masters his environment, even if rescued and returned to his earlier environment, will come away a forever changed individual who is ready to once again adapt and master any other environments life puts him in. He is capable of performing many functions and holding onto many identities, seamlessly shifting as the situation calls for it.
Maybe you already think you have a pretty good handle on the business environment you’ve had to work with so far. Maybe your present level of information and abilities has been enough to sustain your personal brand or small business until now. But circumstances never stay the same for long. An entrepreneur, to thrive for any length of time, must be adaptable to the new environments he will eventually find himself in. If nothing ever changes, it simply means he is not growing. And in the end, we are all either growing or dying.
The fate of your brand identity will ultimately be a product of your own development as an entrepreneur. Are you willing to become the kind of person who works towards mastery of his environment? Or are you just going to sit and wait for circumstances to change in your favor? What defines a master of identity is his level of comfort in situations of the unknown. He may not know what he is going to do, but he knows down to his bones that he is damn well capable of figuring it out. An entrepreneur is able to make order from chaos, and spontaneously improve his situation by changing himself.
What if you don’t know whether or not you have the natural personality of an entrepreneur? If you’re coming from a traditional salaried employee position, you might not be used to existing in this way. It’s natural to be overwhelmed at the idea of being completely responsible for your own success in business. However, the fact that you are reading this book now speaks volumes more about what kind of potential resides within you, regardless of your past experience.
Many people spend their lives never seeing the furthest extent of their potential because they never made the choice to break away from the mold conventional society crafted for them. There are certainly jobs that do require you to adapt, and discover, and change yourself regularly, but most exist within the context of a larger a plan which is decided for you by people higher up in the company than yourself. If this is you, I sincerely congratulate you for taking these necessary first steps into a much larger world. This book is meant to guide you along the transitional journey from where you are to where you want to be.
And remember: the only real way to know your limits is to just keep testing yourself. I hope you take that to heart as you read the following chapters and begin to think about how better narrative, communication, and identity could launch both your personal life and your brand to new places if you are willing to adapt and thrive (not just survive) in the untamed wilderness that awaits you.
If we take someone like Ayn Rand for example, it's almost guaranteed you are either going to be offended by the way she puts words together or you are going to be relieved that someone could communicate in a way that is so eloquently straightforward. My writing style involves a lot of uncommon pairings of parts of speech (such as "eloquently straightforward") that may appear as bad writing to some but refreshing to others.
Likewise, sometimes I'll use two modifiers that mean similar but distinct things because to me it paints a more accurate picture, but to others it may be redundant and pedantic (oops I did it again).
I think purpose matters too. The purpose of my book is not *just* to communicate useful information. It is to introduce me to the reader. I want them to feel like they are having a conversation with me, and that they recognize me behind the text. This will be even more evident as I narrate it myself. My writing has been referred to by some as "full of signature Diehlian wisdom" and "beautifully logical", but others have said I come across as verbose and intentionally condescending.
Here's an excerpt from the introduction to give you a better idea of what I mean:
Brand Identity Breakthrough Introduction
Imagine that you are aboard a plane which has crashed onto an unpopulated tropical island. You are the sole survivor. As you survey your surroundings and scavenge what you can from the plane wreckage, you find limited supplies to aid you in your survival in this unknown environment: a book of matches, a blanket, a pocket knife, packaged meals, and enough material to establish a basic shelter.
Considering how much worse things could have been, you’d be very lucky to start your life of survival in these relatively comfortable conditions. You don’t have to put out any fires just yet, or tend to any other time sensitive emergencies. You have the luxury of taking some time to survey your surroundings and think critically about what to do next. But eventually, you will need to make a fundamental choice. This choice will determine everything that happens to you from that moment on. It is the choice to play things safe and minimize the potential for loss, or to take strategic risks and maximize the potential for improvement.
Are you going to go out there and figure out how to hunt? Or are you just going to sit in your camp and hope somebody rescues you before you run out of supplies? Are you going to learn through trial and error how to fashion a spear and hunt wild boar? Will you discover how to collect rainwater and seek out sources for hydration? Are you going to experiment with building a shelter to withstand the changing weather?
Or, will you play it safe and hide away while you ration whatever dwindling supplies you have in the hopes of lasting as long as possible until some outside force intervenes and saves you from this unfortunate situation? Do you see yourself a victim of circumstance which only someone else with greater fortune could rescue you from? The longer you delay in making this fundamental choice, the more opportunity you will waste.
The everyday reality for entrepreneurs is like that survival scenario on the island. You are forced to sink or swim, either to make the most of what you have to work with in your environment, or refuse to take action for fear of making your situation worse. The life of your business depends on the actions you take right now.
At times, it can feel like you are grasping at every straw for meager results, and that you will always have to struggle to get by. But if you persist for long enough and learn from your actions, you will eventually become master of your environment. You will know without hesitation how hard to throw that spear at just the right angle to catch your dinner every night. Your identity will fundamentally change in response to the demands of the context you are in, just as it already had to your lifestyle before you ever arrived on the island.
The man who waits for rescue may indeed be lucky enough to be rescued. There is still a chance that he will live to see the future, but he will do so without having changed himself at all. He will have no new skills, knowledge, or character development. But the man who masters his environment, even if rescued and returned to his earlier environment, will come away a forever changed individual who is ready to once again adapt and master any other environments life puts him in. He is capable of performing many functions and holding onto many identities, seamlessly shifting as the situation calls for it.
Maybe you already think you have a pretty good handle on the business environment you’ve had to work with so far. Maybe your present level of information and abilities has been enough to sustain your personal brand or small business until now. But circumstances never stay the same for long. An entrepreneur, to thrive for any length of time, must be adaptable to the new environments he will eventually find himself in. If nothing ever changes, it simply means he is not growing. And in the end, we are all either growing or dying.
The fate of your brand identity will ultimately be a product of your own development as an entrepreneur. Are you willing to become the kind of person who works towards mastery of his environment? Or are you just going to sit and wait for circumstances to change in your favor? What defines a master of identity is his level of comfort in situations of the unknown. He may not know what he is going to do, but he knows down to his bones that he is damn well capable of figuring it out. An entrepreneur is able to make order from chaos, and spontaneously improve his situation by changing himself.
What if you don’t know whether or not you have the natural personality of an entrepreneur? If you’re coming from a traditional salaried employee position, you might not be used to existing in this way. It’s natural to be overwhelmed at the idea of being completely responsible for your own success in business. However, the fact that you are reading this book now speaks volumes more about what kind of potential resides within you, regardless of your past experience.
Many people spend their lives never seeing the furthest extent of their potential because they never made the choice to break away from the mold conventional society crafted for them. There are certainly jobs that do require you to adapt, and discover, and change yourself regularly, but most exist within the context of a larger a plan which is decided for you by people higher up in the company than yourself. If this is you, I sincerely congratulate you for taking these necessary first steps into a much larger world. This book is meant to guide you along the transitional journey from where you are to where you want to be.
And remember: the only real way to know your limits is to just keep testing yourself. I hope you take that to heart as you read the following chapters and begin to think about how better narrative, communication, and identity could launch both your personal life and your brand to new places if you are willing to adapt and thrive (not just survive) in the untamed wilderness that awaits you.
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