Functional Branding by Patrick Cummings

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Play the Game You Can Win

You will never win, playing a game that somebody else loves more than you.


→ Gary Vaynerchuk, How to be a Great Communicator in 2020


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The brands & leaders who survive this mess will be the ones who aren't in business because it's easy money or because there's glamour in calling themselves an entrepreneur.


Those who get through it will do so because they love the journey more than they love the comfort of easy excuses. They'll come out the other side of this by remembering why they got into the game in the first place - the necessary creativity, the hopeful uncertainty, the excitement of playing on the razor's edge between anxiety & boredom.


For some, this global shutdown will be the excuse they've been looking for to move on. It'll be the cloud cover they've needed to escape with their egos in check.


For the others, it'll be a return to those fire-in-the-belly days, those weight-on-my-shoulder-days, those prove-myself-to-myself days. On some level, every fighter has to love getting hit in the face.


There's no other way he could coax himself back into the ring match after match, session after session. It's a pursuit that self-selects for the few who find beauty in both its glory & its ugliness.


Standing up & working to instigate the kind of change you're looking to make in the world - it isn't that different. Fight on if it's a fight you love.


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