I did nothing

Bonjour Bronkey-readers! Nowhere in the world is the weather talked about as much as in Belgium. This weekend (finally!) there was sun. That’s bad for my productivity. If there’s a silver lining to the months (years?) of rainy weather, it’s that I often hide in my home office to create. This weekend, I was lazy. Nevertheless, in my sunny chair, new ideas are popping up. I’d like to share one with you.

➡️ Creativity: Do absolutely nothing

But first, about that laziness in my garden. This weekend, I took the time to just sit in a chair in my garden and do nothing. It's usually super hard to truly do nothing. I mean really, absolutely nothing. No book. No podcast. No phone. I try it sometimes, and I'm really bad at it. Although it's often proven: Creativity starts with absolute rest.

Long workdays, countless meetings, webinars, ... All things that require creativity. But the more active we are, the less creative we become.
Creativity is about connecting things that at first glance have nothing in common. These connections only emerge when there's emptiness. That’s why I choose to do nothing now and then. Again, no talent here. But it's definitely worth trying.

Now it’s your time: try it too! Just take an hour to sit in a chair and let your ideas and thoughts flow freely. Little tip: Keep a pen and paper within reach!

➡️ Entrepreneurship: I have a new idea, what do you think?

During one of the interviews for the book I'm ghostwriting, I learned that putting an idea out there is smarter than quietly waiting in a corner with it. You never know what it might trigger within your personal community. By expressing your idea or ambitions, opportunities sometimes come along. And sometimes not. But that’s ok. Out of 100 ideas, often only one is feasible. I'm just someone with 100 ideas a month, so I'm going to share them here now and then. We’ll see. Here we go:

I'm getting more and more requests from smaller companies to help them with their marketing and communications. What's the pain in these companies? They have a golden junior on board with tons of potential, but sadly, this GenZ team member can't grow because there's no senior marketer profile in-house. So, I'm thinking about developing an offer where I define the mission, vision, story, and USP—basically, the marketing strategy - with the founders (and their junior marketeer). From there, I'd train and mentor the young GenZ'er in a kind of coaching role. The advantage? The young potential grows and conveys your company's message in a powerful way. You don’t have to pay a senior fulltime. You get the creativity from a Genz’er. But mostly, the junior finally gets senior and stays in his/her seat longer because he/she is learning. That's why many Gen Z'ers leave their jobs—they get bored and can't learn anything new. What do you think? Recognizable pain? Good solution? Curious about your opinion!

➡️ BrandLove: A lot of drama in BrandLand

The EBU Eurovision had a rough go last weekend. As of this writing, we still don't know the details of what exactly happened with Joost Klein or why he was disqualified from the final, but anyhow, whatever happened, the crisis communication was poorly handled. There's definitely damage to the brand.

Another major slip-up this week was from Apple. They have pulled their crush-ad for the new iPad model offline and have issued an apology. The ad is still up on their own YouTube channel, but the option to leave comments has been disabled. And I see why.

In Apple's "Crush" ad you see creative tools and everyday objects being crushed into an iPad. It was meant to represent how the iPad combines various creative and functional tools into one device. However, many viewers interpreted the crushing imagery as unsettling and aggressive. Zero points for Apple here!

Not all news from BrandLand was bad this week, because who did score points was Chanel with their Mother's Day ad. Marketing lesson: Simple can be powerful, especially when it resonates emotionally with your audience!

➡️ Leadership: “Normal” working hours

I'm an early bird. You might get emails from me at 5 AM on a Sunday. I do have a life, don’t worry. But I've structured my professional life to work when I'm in the flow, which is often early in the morning. I sometimes get comments from clients (and before of my team) about this. I'm not trying to promote this work rhythm. Everybody has the right to disconnect from work outside ‘working hours’. But what are ‘working hours’ today exactly? I've long wondered how to send emails without implying that I expect the same from others. Then I saw this LinkedIn post. Pieter Degraeve replied with this picture of an interesting email notice. Love this idea—soon, you'll see a similar notice when I email you!

➡️ To read: starting again

Doing nothing in the garden only works for me for a short while, so I’m back to reading again. These are classics, so I might not be telling you anything new. Here are the two books I’m currently reading:

• "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson

• "100 Million Dollar Offers: How to Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No" by Alex Hormozi

I wish you plenty of laziness—it's going to rain again, but anyway. I wish you lots of creativity. If you feel like brainstorming about your business ideas or mine, you know where to find me. 💥 Have a great week!

X Ingrid