The courage of those who communicate to become (not to please).
I’m listening to Surfer’s Rule (The Beach Boys) and that “damned” jingle grabs me in the gut, making me smile (“without asking permission”).
Damn surfers. They understood everything.
They weren’t imitating anyone.
They were becoming something.
Language, style, rhythm… icon.
Only they could think of challenging “walls of water” with "wooden boards" tied to the bed of a Chevrolet 3100, looking at an enormous, hostile, unpredictable force and saying: “Ok, come on… It can’t be that bad.”
Let’s try to understand it. Then to “use it.”
They played, yes… but they wanted to win.
Not against nature but “with nature”: understanding a force until it becomes approachable!
Enough to ride it.
Enough to let yourself be carried to shore without being destroyed.
From the big waves (beachfront)… to the big canals (under the bridges).
Asphalt instead of salt.
The mind races and thoughts, sensations are now so many, dissolved in the mood of the era… one image remains imprinted in my mind, as I listen to Surfer’s Rule…
The Ford Deluxe Convertible that teaches you what it means to “pave the last mile” in the Thunder Road Race: zero explanations, no doubts… the only thing that mattered was “leaving marks,” the dust behind you, tires on the asphalt.
A before and after. Nothing else.
Express the potential and concentrate it all in an instant.
Leave a mark: be (something or someone)… and be part of it, down to the essence.
Forces that oppose, “stress” each other, bend and, when you really go through them, transform you.
The disheveled one who becomes a surfer.
The well-groomed one who drives the “greased-lightning bolts”.
Not for show but by choice.
Some are born to write history and others, instead, to tell it.
Tell me about waves, listen to the vibrations: tell me who you are when you choose which side to be on.
And how do you feel when you’re in the deep blue sea: do you feel the cold water and the sense of emptiness or do you look around and still fear, emerging from the dark water, the jaws of the shark?
And that “fine-toothed” comb you keep in the back pocket of your blue jeans… do you always have a “spare” one in the inside pocket of your leather jacket?
And what happened to Danny and Sandy? did they get married? Or did they get lost on the “opposite side of their own coin”?
Because you see… while in Surfer’s Rule we find all the pride of belonging to a tribe, that “we” that identifies the sense of belonging compared to the rest of the world, that awareness that not everyone can understand, in “Greased Lightning” we find the “festival of masks” and of incoherence where, the only thing “gray” is the asphalt: either you’re in or you’re out.
“Who do you have to become to be accepted?
And how much are you willing to change to belong?”
Looking at and listening to today’s communication, I often think of identity as a “social performance that if you don’t control, the context will do it for you.”
“You fall in love when you transform, not when you remain true to yourself.
How much of myself, then, can I keep without losing my place in the world?”
True or false? Right or wrong? Much or little? Black or white?
Salt or “hair gel,” in your hair?
“The pressure of the context and the group, the need for recognition, the conflict between being and appearing, transformation as the price of inclusion.”
Tribe versus system.
Identity that precedes consensus or “negotiated” identity.
Both speak of identity development, only one experiences it as a conquest, the other as a compromise. Utopia that clashes with “the staging of reality.”
Identity is never neutral and, I’ll tell you, it’s in constant tension:
- belonging always has “a cost”;
- every era (re)demands a transformation.
Am I changing to become or to be accepted?
Do I chase the market or interpret it? If I don’t adapt… do I risk disappearing?
Am I telling a REAL evolution or am I building a “sellable mask”?
Communication as an act of truth: do you ever tell your Clients things they wouldn’t want to hear, knowing that “without truth there is no positioning”? Or do you just “execute brilliantly and that’s it” (leaving the Company “empty” and the business meaningless)?
Changing to become requires identity, time and courage.
Changing to be accepted requires only fear and speed.
The first path builds Companies (and people) that exist and endure.
The second produces Brands, Companies that work… until the trend passes.
A matter of “variables” and priorities.
Here’s what I learned in the field:
Use everything you have. Always.
To provoke a reaction or to get a return.
Don’t hold back.
Before communicating, don’t ask yourself how.
Ask yourself “why?” and, right after, “for whom?”.
Enter a Company as if it were yours. With respect.
Start from the small things: that’s where the truth is seen.
Before words, use your eyes and hands.
Touch the product (or the service).
Look the business in the face. Observe without interpreting.
Then speak.
The brief is only the polite version of reality.
If you really want to understand, get your hands dirty.
Go into the field. Listen to and observe people.
Every phase of the business needs a face, an image, a phrase, even just a saying.
The right visual associations and words are needed to get deep into the Company.
And into the mind of those who decide.
A brand, before being a sign or a word, is a promise.
Whatever form you choose, it will be fine.
But respect it. Always.
Motivate every choice you make. Always.
And remember: your way of speaking is already a slang.
Listen to it.
Communication in “black and white” also works “in color” (not vice versa).
The nuances change, they are never the same.
Flat (solid) colors instead are clear and stable… they are defined and recognizable even when the context changes. Like people.
Let life “touch you”: creating means exposing yourself, risking “ridicule,” getting it wrong version after version, processing and reprocessing, “tuning” what you are, not just what you show.
Echo your inner voice.
Along your path, make sure you don’t leave “ruins” behind you.
But if it really happens, make sure the people left after you know how to pick up those stones on the ground to make something more stable and lasting.
Today we too often forget that wishing is not enough: wishing is easy while creating is uncomfortable. And today, more than ever, the market recognizes “who becomes” and unmasks “who disguises themselves”.
Then there’s us, with a board under our arm or a leather jacket on, deciding what kind of mark we want to leave (and what kind of dream we want to live)… but let’s stop confusing oil with “hair gel” or the doors of the home wardrobe with surfboards: “GREAT JUPITER”, we’re adults now! Or not?
