You Cannot Trick Yourself
My own design, printed on silk on a scarve in my shop!!!
Originality and integrity, simple truths learned years ago that guide my way of being and doing things. This is that story:
It’s one of those moments you never forget. That day something important shifted inside me. It was not about art or design specifically, but what it means to be honest and true with yourself.
I was in art school when this happened. I had just gotten married and my husband at the time was a photography teacher there. Still, many students had no idea I was his wife. I was just another student to them, which I often found funny… quietly funny!! There was an exhibit of the class's work, photography used as a design tool and visual storytelling in the truest sense. This was one I would really enjoy so I was walking through slowly.
I stopped in front of one of the projects that really caught my attention. The quality, intention and depth of what it communicated struck me. It had received outstanding recognition, as it deserved and I knew the student that had created it. I was happily surprised and genuinely admiring it.
As I was standing there other students gathered around to check the piece. Since I was alone and silent, almost unseen, I guess, I heard someone say, in a low passing, that the project hadn't been created by the student whose name was on it. It had been done by someone else, another student, a strong designer I also knew…
I remember the feeling that came over me at that moment. I was not angry or even judgmental exactly. I think it was something closer to sadness. A question came to me that I just could not stop turning over in my mind.
Why would someone who is studying design, someone who is here, in this place, and art school, learning to create, convince themselves so completely that they are incapable of presenting something of his own creation?
That’s what happened. Somewhere along the way the student had decided he couldn't and rather than sit with that discomfort and push through it, he found a way around it and tricked himself into believing the shortcut was okay and that no one would know so the recognition would feel the good.
The reality is that it doesn't feel the same. It NEVER does and YOU will always know your truth.
The saddest part wasn't the copying. It was the self-abandonment that had to happen first at the moment someone decided their own mind and creativity wasn’t worth trusting.
That moment and that student have come to mind many times in my life. As a creative but also as a human being, I've had many moments of doubt. Moments where I’ve wondered if I am or my work is good enough. That's part of being human in this experience. I made a decision early on, one that was very clear that day and one I have returned to again and again: I will not trick myself.
Wearing one or my original scarves!
Not about my work. Not about my worth. And not about the people I work with…
Years later, when I started working independently, I saw a different version of that same self-deception. This time it was coming from outside. There was so much hunger everywhere. I was networking for the first time and hungry too. There were so many trying to sell things to other people who weren't ready for them, people who didn't need them yet, who would have been better served by something simpler and truer to where they actually were. I experienced it myself. I was offered expensive, elaborate solutions when what I needed was something much more grounded… but, again, I was also SO hungry.
And I thought: this is the same thing. It's the same trick, just from the other direction. Instead of convincing yourself you can't create, someone convinces you that you need more than you do so they can feel the satisfaction of the sale, the recognition, the number. Without really seeing you, at all.
I decided then that I would never do that. That part of being in integrity, real integrity, not the word on a values list but the lived thing is to take time to REALLY look at a person and see where they actually are. To ask what they actually need. And sometimes, to tell them honestly: not yet. Not this. Go here instead.
I have done that more times than I can count. Sent people elsewhere. Told them the truth about their timing. Watched them go (something very hard to do at many moments through this entrepreneur on the same journey too) knowing they might not come back and still knowing that was okay, because it was right.
I know how it feels to be on the other side of that. To be seen clearly and treated with care. And I know how it feels not to be. That knowledge lives in my body. It shapes every conversation I have with a client…
I have come to understand that my need for originality, the deep discomfort I feel when something isn't truly mine, when a choice isn't coming from an authentic place, is not just a personality trait. It is something much more fundamental to who I am. It shows up in my work, in how I move through relationships, even in how I think about my own body and the choices I make about it. Authenticity is not a value I chose. It is something I am made of.
And because of that, I cannot help but bring it into everything I do now with INTENTIONALITY and with a deep and true sense of self-respect and self-love. That includes how I work with the people who trust me with their brands.
Your brand is your originality made visible. It is not something that can be borrowed, copied, or templated into existence. It is essential that it comes from you, the real, specific, unique and completely irreplaceable thing that you are. My work is to get to know you and help you find that and build something intentional, clear and supportive to what you do in the world.
But only when you're ready and when it's true.
Because you cannot trick yourself. And I would never want you to try. 😊
If any of this landed for you…
If you read this and felt something, a subtle recognition that your own brand might not be telling the right story yet, I'd love to talk.
I created the Brand Clarity Intensive for exactly this moment. Two hours. Honest eyes on everything you have. A clear written roadmap of what needs to happen next.
Investment: $297. Spots are limited.
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