Blog
Forty-three years later, a guy I met briefly in Nova Scotia found me on Facebook… His memory was flawless, while mine drew a blank (ah, the joys of fun in the 1970s!).
The timing was fortuitous because in my continuing journey towards minimalism, I’m looking at and re-evaluating relationships and connections professionally and personally. Having thousands of connections /‘friends,’ means nothing if we don’t know each other even in just the smallest of ways.
Imagine this, and it’s a true story… a gym where a trainer gave out pot brownies to people working out without telling them they were laced.
Imagine this too, and it’s also a true story… a gym where a trainer had sex with a member at the gym.
How your staff acts and behaves is a direct result of your brand culture and has a ripple effect that can be used for good or evil.
Pyramid and multi-level marketing companies and I crossed paths several times. Despite how attractive these opportunities always sounded because of the massive amounts of potential income to be had, it always sparked an allergic reaction. Now, in the age of digital marketing and sales funnels, I’m having the same allergic reaction to the methodology.
With having such a common name, when an Inc. 500-ranked company that does clinical trials for medical devices reached out in search of a writer and rebrand strategist to help humanize their brand, I assumed they found the wrong Susan Jacobs because of my complete lack of knowledge or experience in the medical and scientific fields. But alas, they wanted me exactly for that reason - to bring a ‘fresh outsider’ perspective. This wasn’t a ‘fake it til you make it’ situation… Here's what happened.
It’s a hot July Sunday. There’s no shortage of fun things to do, especially in the concrete jungle of New York City. Some friends are salsa dancing at the beach and others are having backyard BBQ’s.
Me? I decide to stay home and update my resume for no reason other than it’s one of those things ingrained in me that one should always have a current resume because you never know. It led to a few Exorcist-like head spins but then some cool revelations.
Earth Day is forever etched into my being. The first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, was celebrated half a block from where I grew up in downtown Manhattan. It’s also the day my parents serendipitously opened their new company, Earth Shoes, those odd looking shoes with the heel lower than the toe. The shoe was immediately adopted by the flower children and went on to make shoe business history.
When aha hits, you must listen. This particular aha lead me to Ghana, West Africa. I walked away from a fancy career and paycheck, needing to get as far away as possible to reconnect with myself, recharge, and gain clarity about my life while participating in a Kundalini yoga teacher training program. During the almost two months in Ghana I learned many-a-thing including how to haggle and negotiate. Check it out…
There's a method to my procrastination madness - it's part of the four stages of my creative process. After seeing the same thing over and over again, I was able to understand the pattern and now factor it into all timelines for client projects or my own, and let anyone I'm working with know what's going to happen. Unconscious procrastination became conscious procrastination. Perhaps the insights will help you!
There's nothing better than a fabulous kiss. Agreed? And great writing can make you feel like anything is possible, you get lost in the story, transported to another time and place, even if it's a self-help book. Arriving at a website that doesn't assault your senses visually or intellectually and conveys the who, what, when, where, and why with ease, well, is a like a perfect first date. You want to come back for more.
My love affair with New York clock towers... Once upon a time, we used pay phones, not cell phones; listened to records, not iTunes; ran home hoping to find an answering machine message, not having instant access; we drank coffee from bodegas, not Starbucks; and the city was dirty, gritty, dangerous, artistic, energized, individualistic, and so much more...
If you were more engaged with your cell phone than your mama's tit when you were a tot, then skip this post! Baby boomers, read on, I promise you're not alone in trying to learn, adapt, catch up, incorporate all this technology stuff. There's nothing wrong with you. As my mom says, "it's generational!"
