You have a brand, you say. Because you have a logo, a tagline. The whole lot. And yet there you are, waiting like the prom queen for someone to ask you to dance. I’ve seen brands starve to death through inaction. And the opposite of inaction isn’t compulsive action. It’s thinking about who you are and acting accordingly.
Does my position exist outside my head?
Some people collect contacts the way they collect beer mats. People they want on their radar, prospects, colleagues. Fridge magnets. Look, I’ve been to Hanoi.
Others comment and like in the hope that one day the bell will ring. A notification. So-and-so has liked a post. Or better still: so-and-so has sent them a DM. I don’t know if that happens. I spend more time on the dock than on social media.
I used to work in sales. The kind where you play with a few thousand euros’ worth of perishables. Fish. Every night. You had to talk, listen, decide. And I happened to enjoy the game.
That’s why blank connection requests surprise me. You want to approach someone. There’s a box where you can say something. And you leave it empty.
Those three hundred characters stay in your head.
You can say a thousand things. You have 300 characters.
Hi, I saw your latest post and it got me wondering. Perhaps not the best option.
Or:
My doctor prescribed vitamins and stimulating conversation. I squeezed myself some orange juice. Downed it, of course, before the vitamins escaped. I’m a little more lost on the conversation front. Know anyone you can recommend?
The ones I actually send have more of an accent.
An opportunity. A fresh one.
A position.
What you choose to tell. The question you ask. The way you approach. Something that lets the other person know where you’re speaking from and see whether you share a language. Because you want to find that out too. Being interested in someone doesn’t mean any conversation with them will interest you.
We forget that too when we read a bio that makes our own feel the size of a button. Suddenly, the whole game seems to be about deserving the other person’s attention.
Recently, I was asking a colleague for something. We ended up talking about this. About writing to someone. About opening yourself up to a response.
I told her that whether she said yes or no, sending the message meant something had already happened.
In me.
I’d chosen what I wanted to say. I’d found the words. I’d decided it deserved to leave my head and reach another person.
Then their reply comes. Or it doesn’t. But you’ve already prompted the first reaction yourself.
People always say the worst they can say is no. I’m more interested in the yes you’ve just given yourself.
Sounds like nonsense. The kind you’d find on a mug with a cloud and a rainbow. Confetti.
And it’s true.
Nobody can take away what you thought, what you felt or where it came from. They can turn down the proposal. They may not be interested.
They might reply and you discover you weren’t that interested either.
There are always two people in that conversation. And both get to choose.
Standing by what you said, even when the answer is no, takes you much further than getting that little notification bell to ring.
If, instead, every response makes you disown your own gesture, you end up letting someone else decide even what you wanted to say.
I have magnets too.
The Las Musas ones, with that M and the yellow grid background. They’re bottle openers.
They leave the house, look good on the fridge and open the bottle.
I like to think a message can do that.
Go out. Open something. Then we’ll see whether we sit down and share a table.
Lines Aja
Brand Strategist & Verbal Identity Consultant — Las Musas®
cultooruido.com