Wonderfuel Issue Number 16 – The joy of could

Could and should. Two words we use every day, but do we truly understand the power of these two simple words to limit what we do or pave the way for something a whole lot more meaningful?

The world is obsessed with should. You should reply to that email. You should be further along by now. You should work harder, move faster and do more. Should is the language of what we are obliged to do. Of rules written by other people that we’ve quietly agreed to live by and not question. Should sits on your chest and follows you around. It tells you who you owe, what you owe them and when you need to get it to them by.

Could is a completely different kettle of fish. Could breathes. Could opens doors instead of closing them. Could can take the same situation, the same moment and the same decision and hand it straight back to you. It turns that demand into a choice. And choice, it turns out, is where joy lives.

You should have received this newsletter yesterday. Monday. But Sunday night, as I sat thinking about the fact that I needed to write it pretty darn quick, I stopped. And I thought. I could send it on Tuesday. After all, who is actually going to read this on a Bank Holiday Monday when they’re sat in a queue of cars on the motorway heading to the beach or standing in line at the tip?

Should would have kept me up late on Sunday night, anxious about a deadline I’d set for myself or rather for you guys.

But could gave me back my Sunday night and Bank Holiday Monday morning. Could is giving you a considerably better newsletter right now.

Next time you catch yourself thinking you should do something. Stop. and take a second. And ask yourself what possibilities could open up the if you replace that horrid should with altogether more joyful, could.

Time on your hand for some more joy?

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// Quote of the week //

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// The founder diary //

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The moment I realised I could change the self-image I had been given by others throughout my life was a moment of complete joyvolution, to be honest.

I was lucky to be gifted Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz by someone who said I should mark the day I get it, and mark the day I realised the impact it was going to have on my life. I did and and oh, how right they were.

Reading this book, I sadly realised that for most of my adult life, and an extreme amount of my youth, I was obsessed with what others thought of me. Striving for their approval and love. Both professionally and personally.

I learnt that when people say they feel self-conscious, they actually mean they are others-conscious. They are worried about what others think. True self-consciousness is the opposite. It’s about turning the dial inwards and asking what do I actually think, not what will they think. Building an identity from the inside rather than waiting for one to be handed to you from the outside.

I had been waiting a long time for this moment.

Since I was seven, I’d been performing to an identity someone else had written for me. Naughty Sean. The attention seeker. The show-off. Labels handed to me by people who mistook a kid trying to be seen, for a kid causing trouble. I wore them for decades. Not because they were true. Because they were given to me before I knew I had a choice.

Reading this book gave me the choice back. Or rather, it helped me see I’d had it all along, I’d just been too others-conscious to notice.

The day I understood the proper difference between others conscious and self-conscious, was the day wondermental things started to happen

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// The joyful brand – Brompton House//

Most brands save their personality for the packaging, website or the big campaign. They treat copy like a costume, something you put on for the important moments and take off when no one’s looking.

Brompton House is not most brands.

Before you’ve seen a single product, before you’ve read a single word on their website about what they make or why, you’re asked about cookies. And instead of the usual legal boilerplate, three words appear on your screen “Let’s dough it.” Three words tell you exactly what kind of brand you’ve just walked into. One that puts the joy everywhere. Not just in the product. In the (digial) cookies permission form.

That’s the whole idea of Brompton House. A family-run business making brownies, muffins and sweet treats that sit on supermarket shelves across the UK, who decided that the category’s problem was it wasn’t having nearly enough fun.

But its all the details where the brand really sings. The copy that makes you smile before you’ve even picked the product up. The dot on the ‘i’ in muffin, rising like a freshly baked dome of goodness. Or the ellipsis that trails through the copy like a line of crumbs.

And underneath all the wit, something genuinely solid. Quality. Family. Pride in the thing they make. The best brands always work this way with values that run all the way through.

Brompton House understood the simplest of things. That your brand isn’t just what people buy. It’s every single moment of contact. Every word. Every crumb.

And all this summed up by their use of the phrase “Moments of joy”, enough said.

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// From the archives – Dirty Sixth //

Two words that already had legendary status. Named after Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, one of the most famous entertainment strips in America with Bars, live music, late nights, BBQ, smoke and mischief. The kind of place that gets under your skin and stays there. The locals call it Dirty Sixth for a reason.

My job was simple, to build a brand worthy of the name. One that earns it and one that that walks into a room with the same energy as the street that inspired it.

So I built a six logo that looks like it was forged rather than designed. Creating a maze line font with a path through it symbolising the Dirty Sixth had their own way of doing things.  The copy was tailored to speak same dirty language of the place: We’ve got a dirty secret. Talk dirty to me. The joy of six.

From the sauce bottles to the t-shirt and to the paper wrapping for the burgers, every touchpoint carried the same irreverent, confident and completely unapologetic energy.

Some brands spend years finding their voice. Dirty Sixth walked in knowing exactly who they were.

I made sure the world could hear it.

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// Word of the week – Enerjoy™ //

The world runs on energy.

Not the kind that powers your boiler or charges your phone. The kind that fills a room, shifts a mood and changes a day. You walk into somewhere and within thirty seconds you know whether the energy is right. You can’t always explain it. But somehow you can just feel it.

But, all energy is contagious. The negative kind spreads just as easily as the positive. Sit too long in a room full of the wrong energy and you’ll walk out carrying something you didn’t arrive with, a low-grade drain on everything good you were planning to feel today.

This means two things. First of all, you have to be deliberate about the energy you let in. Remove yourself from the environments, conversations and the people who consistently leave you running on empty. This isn’t selfishness. It’s a self-protecting strategy.

The second one is the one people miss the most. Being conscious of the energy you’re giving off. Because it’s just as contagious going out as it is coming in.

The person who walks into a room with genuine warmth, with curiosity, with that specific quality of making everyone feel like the most interesting person in the space, is someone who is probably running on enerjoy™ and everyone they touch goes home with some.

You are not a passive receiver of the world’s energy. You are a transmitter. And what you broadcast matters.

And what does enerjoy™ run on? Joy of course.

Joyfuel in, means joyful out.

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// Who or what is Wonderment? //

Wonderment is the joyful branding agency. We make businesses more effective by making their branding more affective. Wonderment isn’t just a name. It’s something wonderful, done on purpose. Something meant. Got something exciting brewing, drop me and email let’s chat.

View the Wonderment website