Meet Matt And His Shift

Amy Dardis 0:09

Welcome back to the Building a Clear Authentic Brand Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Dartis, and today I am so excited to introduce you to Matt Steinreck. Matt is a brand and culture guide, and he's the owner of Big Picture Consulting. He specializes in helping businesses, nonprofits, ministries zoom out to find their big picture so they can recover what's been buried. They can get a clearer sense of their own purpose and identity. Matt, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Thanks so much.

Amy Dardis 0:42

So, Matt, you recently have kind of made a shift into this brand identity space, but that's not actually where you started, is it?

SPEAKER_02 0:54

No, no, there's been a sort of an intentional shift that I've been trying to make over the past couple of years. But I I tell people I'm I've been making stuff for my career. I am a designer, I guess by training. That's what I've been doing maybe for about 30 years. I've I've been making everything from print, slides, websites, whatever. I tell people if you have specs for it, I can design it. So I've been in that space of making things for people whenever they need them. People will typically come to me and say, I need a whatever it is. And so I'll make that thing. But I because of a lot of different things that have happened over the course of time, became, I guess, increasingly more frustrated with working as a freelancer for sure. In the it became very fragmented. And I've I'd realized that what I do naturally is basically rebrand people anyway. When somebody comes to me with a website, for example, they say, want to make a website. And I would say, Great, what are we working with? What are your pictures and what are your messages? Because uh putting together anything, website, print piece, whatever it is, I say it's just it's just putting together a puzzle. The puzzle pieces are your pictures and your words. It's what you say, it's what you look like. And if you take all those puzzle pieces and you put them all out in the table and face up, it becomes a a ton easier to actually assemble that thing. But invariably, when I looked at the messaging, it wasn't connecting to their audience, it wasn't connecting in the right way, it wasn't selling them well. And I started thinking, man, you know what? Let me just reshape this for you a little bit. Let me figure out how to say this for you in a little bit better way. And invariably, I basically just wound up doing some fast rebranding projects for people and started to realize that, you know, this brand thing, this messaging thing, this identity thing was sort of at the, let's say, the headwaters of everything. It's where everything starts. So rather than do it quickly in the course of design, right in line with everything that we're trying to do, why not make that more official and hop in and let that be sort of a core thing to help people start with, to realize that what they really need to do is focus on their brand and their identity so that everything else that gets produced beyond that becomes a lot easier and a lot more effective.

Amy Dardis 3:04

How long do you feel like it took you to kind of start to make those observations of that connection between the identity and the brand?

SPEAKER_02 3:15

That's a good question.

From Design Work To Identity

SPEAKER_02 3:16

I think it started to come over the course of a couple of years as I started to evaluate how I was working. For a while, I was just head down making things in the course of what I what I would do. I think I I finally started to kind of come up and see the big picture for myself and understand what was going on and and how I could do this in a much more effective way. And so it was probably it's it's hard to identify and pinpoint. It probably happened over the course of a year or two, maybe uh a couple, couple few years ago. Then things kind of began to evolve out of that as I started to say, you know, I it could probably work in a little bit different way. As I I've made my pick business big picture a long time ago. I think realizing that that's the way that I think, that's the way that I see things in a big picture. I always had this tendency just to say, hey, let's just stop and zoom out and get and understand the context. And so really living into that and adopting that as a concept for myself and something that I could apply both to myself and for other people more officially, I think that's become a more recent thing over the last few years.

Amy Dardis 4:16

When you first got into branding and graphic design and web design, was that something that you intentionally pursued, or was it something that just ended up happening?

SPEAKER_02 4:27

I went to school as an art major. And so I actually graduated. Technically, I'm certified to paint, but I was never really, I never really sort of found a a style or anything that I was really leaning into heavily. It was just something that I knew that I'd always knew that I wanted to do something in art because I was always drawing. I was always making things, even when I was a kid. So I'm like, well, I I think I want to do something in this space, something visual, something to, you know, bring these things to life. So I went to school for that because that's kind of what I knew, and that was all that was available. And it was during college that uh computers and computer graphics were just kind of being introduced, and and there was a course on campus that helped that actually made a magazine for the town. And so they through the through the actual course, you would take the course and they would come and say, We we need people to take the course, write the articles and sell the ads and create the layout and all that kind of stuff. So I, as an art major, they were looking for somebody with an artistic background to come in and make the magazine. So I came came in and did that and didn't know anything about it. I never really touched a computer. I had maybe like one computer graphics class in college, and I said, and I asked a ton of questions and I created our first, my first 40-page full color magazine on a Macintosh SE30, which if you know anything about that, that's the ones with the nine-inch black and white monitor that has a 40 megabyte hard drive. That was that was what I did back then. And and I I just realized in that sense, you know what, I okay. This is, you know what, I think I could, I I like this. I think I could maybe I even earn earn an income at this. And that was sort of the the beginning of getting me into design. I got my first job in a design studio in '94. And everything since then has been digital design, layout, graphics creation, things

Accidental Designer To Digital Career

SPEAKER_02 6:10

like that.

Amy Dardis 6:10

Did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_02 6:14

No, that was never in my background or history at all. That's not part of my family, not part of my DNA makeup. I've worked for people for most of my career. So I have been with one, two, three, maybe four, five companies employed. And it was through circumstances and events that kind of moved me out onto my own. And even at that point, I was, you know, kicking up the job search the way that everybody does. You do the resume and thing. A friend said, Hey, you know what? You you need to just hang a shingle. Just start getting some food in for your family, search out there to do some contract work. So I did and um found a little bit of work, and God just kept bringing more, and I just kept doing that. And just it was a sometimes it was a lot, sometimes it was a little. So we've said for 10 years, God's been bringing us manna, you know, he's he's provided what we need. And so I just keep I I do what he do what comes along. And sometimes I I don't even really consider myself an entrepreneur. I just I'm doing what people ask me to do, and I do work, and they they give me some money and we're okay. And uh starting to really rethink, though, how how I approach that and and how I can approach what I do in a better, more official way to set up in a capacity that serves both others and myself and our family in a stronger way. So I think the the entrepreneurial thing is at this point, I I feel like it's where I want to be. I really enjoy being in that space, but it it definitely comes with its pros and cons.

Amy Dardis 7:38

It does. It's definitely a roller coaster ride. I feel like there's entrepreneurship for me is definitely taught me to live a life trusting in God, you know, because there isn't there isn't that safety or that security. And it really does come down to like, okay, God, do I trust you? Do I trust you to lead me into this? And I really have to put my money where my mouth is, walking that path. And it's not something I ever imagined for myself either. I grew, I didn't even know business owners growing up at all. And to end up walking that journey, I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful for it. Clearly, it was part of God's plan for me, but not something I ever would have imagined or sought out.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Very much likewise. And I will tell you, it's sort of been a mantra for of mine for a long time. I've said, God's got my job. That's what I've said for a long time. Because through the early part of my career, after my first job, I never really looked for a job. I was invited to the next one. And to the next one, a boss or leaders would say, I want you to come here now. And so I was sort of God has kind of led me through this crazy career. And I'm like, God's really got this. Like it's been really cool. But when I moved out of being in a job to where I am now, I said it's it was kind of like hopping from a a cruise ship to a rowboat. And you know, you're now you're in the space where it's a little bit harder and it's a little bit scarier, and you're feeling all the bumps and bruises a little bit more. And as things kind of wound their way through that space, you it's really been a significant test of faith. And I've I've felt that say, okay, let's let's see how much you really mean that in terms of God's got my job and let's let's walk this out and see where it goes from from from from a lot to a little and from seasons of, you know, seasons of you know, uh a decent pipeline to seasons of I don't know what's coming next. And then more recently, even through sort of through a journey of a pretty deep wilderness and a desert season of some deep self-exploration and discovery. And so there's been a lot of faith tests and getting closer to myself and to God and how this how this is all working at the same time.

Entrepreneurship And Trusting God

Amy Dardis 9:50

What have you learned about your own wiring? I mean, starting out in design and kind of taking this artistic approach and then realizing over time that you were able to see the bigger picture. Even being able to recognize that, is that something you were always aware of? Or have some of these giftings been being developed through this journey?

SPEAKER_02 10:20

I think it's a little both and I think there's been when you walk through such a weird random set and random for such a diverse set of experiences, and needing to wear a lot of hats and needing to uh learn everything from big major national businesses, nonprofit, small businesses, olderpreneur. You learn a lot. And I've gotten to do everything from strategy to execution. I've had my hands deep in the weeds, I've seen big picture stuff. There's a lot of stuff that I've known about myself, but there's been a lot of areas of deep discovery and understanding things that have already been there, as well as, oh, that's a new skill set to add and some things that so I think I've always been pretty self-aware, but I've been trying to be become more self-aware, exploring not just like, oh, I know I can do all of these things that could put on put put on a resume, but what does that mean about myself and not only the skills that I can bring to somebody, but really what are the the ways I operate and the ways that I see and the ways that I think and just some of the ways that I am that I think lent could lend themselves to help other people. A couple of things that come to mind immediately when it comes to that sort of self-exploration. There's a there's a couple models that do this. Somebody recommended something called Icky Guy, which is these four circles that come together. There's another another one called the uh groundhog experience that somebody does, which is three circles coming together. But it in essence, it's looking at some key things about things that are true about you and the world that form that center spot of what's ideal. Like, what are you, what's what are you really, really born to do? So the the icky guy way of doing it, it's a Japanese thing of saying, what does the world need? What are you really good at? What can you get paid for? And then there's like one other thing. I mean, you find the confluence of all those things, like that's your sweet spot. Like that's what's really, really, that's what you're born to do. And one of the things that I realized for myself is that I want, I really want to make a difference for people. I really want what I do. Like I know it's moving the needle. I know it's made some significant difference. And I've thought for a long time, this is kind of what evolved me into this. It's like I can, I can make a brochure talking about your business. You can put it on your desk. Maybe it's does something, maybe it doesn't. I don't know. I don't know if it's moved the needle. I could even build a website for you, even if it's a really good business driver. Sometimes it's difficult to tell. Like, did that, did that help you? I'm not sure. But as I've kind of zoomed back from this and realized like one of the biggest, you know, putting all the pieces together, I want to know that I've made a difference for a company in the way that they think and operate, how they understand themselves, something that's from the top down, that they have a new awareness and a new aha moment that is said, you know what, this this floods into everything else we do. It changes the way that we message and communicate. It messages it changes the way that we operate internally. It really has transformed a key significant problem in our business. So, as a problem solver, I think that's one of the things that I've identified about myself is I I want to help, I want to help, I want to make a difference, I want to solve a problem and move the needle in the way that somebody operates in their world.

Amy Dardis 13:27

So when you are looking at this process, or you're looking at a brand or a company and you're kind of walking them through this process, how are you doing that or what are you looking for?

SPEAKER_02 13:38

I think one of the biggest things that I start looking at, even from a qualifying standpoint, is what's the problem? Do you have something that you've identified in your business that is it is a struggle or a pain point or something that you wish were different or better? And sometimes that's hard to articulate, especially we talk about brand all the time. I sometimes I come and I go about how much I want to talk about brand because sometimes it's it's a it's this weird concept that people don't really get. Most of the

Finding Your Sweet Spot

SPEAKER_02 14:06

time you say brand and people think logo, color palette, and fonts. It's, you know, very people identify it with an identity to say, you know, sometimes you say brand and people think, oh, you're rebranding, like, you know, Jaguar, Cracker Barrel or whatever. I'm like, we don't want that at all. Sometimes it has a negative connotation. But coming at it from the standpoint of what are you experiencing? What problems are you feeling in your business? And let's see if we can trace that back to some level of an identity issue, like what's going on there. What I try to not do or what I try to advise people against is sort of steering away from that core felt need. When somebody comes and says, I want a website, let's say, okay, why? Why do you want a website? What's going on? What do you think, what problem do you experience that you think a w a new website would solve? In fact, I I I have the domain called don't redo your website.com, which is basically just a landing page to help people kind of think through that process to identify like it's not your website that's the problem. If you really trace it back, there's something else going on. And if you fix from the top down, we can do a lot more. I I tend to want to look for problems, problems that I can solve that I can trace back to something that I can help I identify and impact through a brand reframing.

Amy Dardis 15:20

People redoing their website is also what got me on to this path as well of meeting with clients and them redoing their website and then learning that they were struggling with messaging, they were struggling with understanding their audience. And the reason their website wasn't working was because they couldn't articulate what they were doing, why they were doing it, who they were serving, and then building a website in a way that served that purpose. And I saw that over and over and over again. And I was like, my gosh, you this isn't about the website. The website is the symptom, but it is your identity that is the root. And I started to see that a lot of solutions out there, marketing solutions, lead gen solutions, website solutions were all just surface level fixes, and they never really tackled the root problem. But teaching a business to understand the root problem is a journey all on its own.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

Yeah, it is for sure. I think there's people I was talking to a friend about this. We we identified I there's kind of people who kind of get it and people who don't. Like there's people who really understand my brand needs help. In their head,

Start With The Real Problem

SPEAKER_02 16:47

they kind of know it. There's a there's another segment that I think it is takes some some level of education to pull them into that space. There's a there's a picture that I've been using for a long time. I feel like it it helps people quickly understand the whole ecosystem and the whole way the whole cycle works. I put basically I have the an educational picture of a water cycle where you have at the top of the mountain is brand. That's I call it the the headwaters. So it starts there and then when it melts and flows down off the mountain, that's design, brand design. Well, the visual artifacts to tell your story, whether it's a pamphlet or a video or a website or a slide deck or whatever, like that's all the even your logo kind of flows out of that. That's that's where a logo comes in. That's not the top of the mountain, that's your brand design. And then once all the that flows down off of there, there's a river. It flows down into the river. That's marketing. When somebody says, Oh, you're in marketing, it's like, no, I'm not. Marketing is that that carries all that stuff. That's the activation of your brand. That takes it out to your audience. It goes, it's you know, figuring out who you're talking to and how to get to them, where they're listening. And, you know, so there's all the all different kinds of tributaries about where that goes, but that's marketing. And then I used to stop there, but I've realized I kind of drew the cycle back up into the air, something that another gentleman calls brand atmosphere. I've kind of labeled that as brand culture. That's where your brand intersects with your culture, and your culture internally is informed and driven by your brand. It's where your identity seeps back. We've woven back into the fabric of the culture of your organization, and you begin to think and make decisions and act and behave and do things that are synced up with how who you believe that you are, you begin to live that out. And I've had an increasing passion for that as well to help organizations connect to their culture to their brand. But that's, I think that's the ecosystem. So when somebody says, you know, where does design come in? Where does marketing come in? Well, marketing, like you just said, marketing is an activation of your brand. And if you if your marketing sucks and you're having a really hard time connecting your Facebook ads to your audience, it don't throw more money at your Facebook ads. Figure out, go back up to the top of the mountain and figure out why. What am I missing? Where, where is my message not connecting to the people out there on the front end? It start all the way upstream, all the way at the headwaters, because that's generally where the problem lies.

Amy Dardis 19:11

Why do you think we struggle, business owners struggle, brands struggle, with this core identity piece?

SPEAKER_02 19:20

I think a lot of people haven't even really given it a thought. I don't think they really don't even they probably don't take a minute

Brand Headwaters And The Water Cycle

SPEAKER_02 19:26

to to stop and and kind of dig into it or let themselves do that. My guess, my tendency is that people get into business, they start working a thing because they're like, this is what I want to do, this is what I'm good at, this is what I'm passionate about, this is what I think I can do, and they just start doing it because that's just who they are. And then business, I call it operational sediment. It's just the layers of stuff that happens over time and they just have to go and go and go and they just race forward, but they never really take the time to stop and think about who am I really? Who are we really? Let's let's take some time to define this and figure out if we can put some words and some articulation to who we actually are and try and figure out how much that would impact the the course of everything else. I think most people, if they in their mind, when they think about it for two seconds, it feels really frilly and froofy and fluffy and like that that doesn't mean anything. We need to make money. We need to just go. Let's go do our thing. We need to show up at work every day and make the thing and do the stuff and take care of our staff. But stopping to think about who am I? Like it feels, it feels like it's it doesn't really have an impact. It doesn't have an ROI. So I think it's really hard for people to kind of take a minute, step away from this operational sediment, fig give themselves the time to think about it for two seconds, or that they're doing it themselves or they bring in somebody else to help. I think it's I think it's really challenging.

Amy Dardis 20:48

Do you think that if they were to take the time to do that, it's just a matter of time, or do you think that when we try to do it ourselves for ourselves, that that in and of itself is a challenge?

SPEAKER_02 21:03

I think that really depends on the person. I think it depends on the leader, depends on the situation. I think some people are really self-aware and they can they might have the tools and the ability to do it. But I also think that it's hard to see the label from inside the bottle, right?

Amy Dardis 21:19

So hard.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

It it it really is. So so yeah, I think you have a to have a a huge degree of self-awareness, uh, maybe some some tools, maybe a little bit of training, a really good thought process, being able to ask really good questions and and know who to ask them to, to be very honest and transparent. But I think it probably takes a lot more time.

Amy Dardis 21:38

There is this going back to this idea of wiring and natural gifting. You are a big picture thinker. You naturally want to zoom out, you naturally want to ask

Why Identity Gets Ignored

Amy Dardis 21:50

these deep questions, which leads into this gifting to be able to look at identities and find the patterns and help them work. Walk through that journey. But if you have a lot of leaders that that's just not their gifting, you know, their gifting is running a great operations or building houses or serving clients. Their gifting is there. And so it's not sometimes even a matter of you just need to figure it out or you just need to be better. Sometimes it's work with someone who has that natural wiring to help you figure that out. Just in the same way I would not go build my own house. No one would want to want that. I wouldn't want that. I would hire someone who knows how to build houses to build my house. I used to get frustrated with this idea. And sometimes I still get frustrated and I have to check myself to be like, why don't people get this? Why don't people take the time to figure this out? But then I also am always talking about wiring and realizing like I'm taking for granted like how I process information and just assuming that other people should be able to process it this way as well, when that's not fair, nor I think is that the way God intended it for it to be.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

No, I think that's true. I think what I hear you saying is one of the is for one of the core initial things that we would always challenge our clients with. And one of the very first things is who are your clients and what is their problem and how do they think? And so sometimes it's easy for people in our space to talk all in terms of our our our con our our jargon and the things that we say. And, you know, you need a brand identity refresh and things like that. But to realize who are we talking to and what are their day-to-day issues and what are their problems and how can we speak in a way that helps them to identify that the thing that they're feeling is actually it's the thing that I can help with, but you're not going to respond to my jargon. You're not going to respond to marketing language. Because I think even in our industry, all of our language gets thrown around too much. We don't even understand what it means. Everybody has a different understanding of what the word brand means and marketing means. It's like, oh my gosh, this is just ridiculous. So coming into a client's world, coming into their space to say, where is your head at? What are your problems? What are you experiencing today? Just don't even talk about marketing or whatever. Just like, what are you feeling? Then trying to kind of come alongside them and say, I think what you're sensing there is something that is really at the core is an identity issue. And so yeah, it's probably one of those lessons number one and sort of physician heal thyself. It's like, how can we come and identify with our clients the way that we want them to identify with their clients?

Amy Dardis 24:34

Do you feel like going through this identity process for your own business

Why Outside Perspective Matters

Amy Dardis 24:40

has been easy?

SPEAKER_02 24:41

No, it has not. The process that I've kind of been working through, unfortunately, not sort of taking my own advice in that either, because I feel like I'm an I'm an identity expert. That's what I'm supposed to be able to do. So I I have been able to, or I've been trying to see, see the label from inside my own bottle. And so I've kind of been working on a bunch of stuff myself and working through a bunch of self-exploration and self-identity. And I think I've been able to kind of get to some pretty decent places, but it's taken a long time. I feel like sometimes I've I've I've often thought, man, I wonder what would happen if I were to give my own identity over to someone else to help them walk be through this the way that I help other people through this. I mean, a lot of times a doctor might want to go see another doctor, even just to get a second opinion. You know what I mean? So I think that I think it's wise to do, even if they can self-diagnose themselves. So I've been, I've been pushing through my own journey, but it it has taken a while. I think to your point as well, I think we talked about this before. I'm I might be on iteration, who knows what of my own website, building my own thing. It's because I'm like, I can do this. I'll put up another one really quickly to kind of refresh identity 2026 this year. But I think it's been hard and frustrating, but it I think also the iterations have taught me a lot and have given me an interesting pathway to look back to find out where have I come from and why am I here. And I think even part of that as I reflect on it is that there's an this awareness that an identity isn't something that's set in stone. It changes and it can't, it should change. I mean, you should evolve, you should move, you should there for a number of things, whether it's just because you've changed or the market has shifted and you need to kind of pay attention to what's going on out there. I think some level of an identity exploration is it's it's a it's an evolution. Hey, let's check up on this in five years and find out like well, where are we? Like what's changed? So continuing to allow your identity to evolve. Like I'm not the same person I was five years ago or 10 years ago. And so identities move ahead. And so allowing ourselves to bend and flex and explore along the way and letting our businesses adapt, I think that's important.

Amy Dardis 26:54

I also have struggled with looking at myself, my own identity and my own journey. And I've honestly said the same thing where I'm like, man, I wish somebody like me could just come in and do what I do for other people because trying to do this for myself is exhausting. Like I feel like it is so hard. And I think there's value in having some external guidance, some wisdom, somebody else looking into my life to say, I see this in you. I was even taking a behavioral assessment the other week, and I was being asked these questions, and my husband was in the room next to me and he was reading the questions, and here I am, like himming and hawing about which one I am. And he's like, You're this one. You're this one. And I was like, Oh, thank you. But just because he has a different perspective into my life, and I'm he's not in my head. Whereas, I mean, I do the same for him. If he were going through the personality behavior assessment, he would also be hemming and hawing about his own answers, and I would be like, You're this one, you're this one. And I think that's so helpful. And I think it's so necessary. But I think there's a part of the struggle of the journey of going through this myself and failing in so many ways and struggling in so many ways that has helped me, and maybe you've experienced this too, but be able to better relate to what somebody else is going through and why it's so hard and why they feel so stuck. Because you've experienced how hard it is. And I think there's there's power in that. A lot of times our greatest pain becomes our most powerful message because it's the things that we've had to walk through ourselves in order to be able to ever speak into somebody else's journey about you know what they could do differently.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

No, I think that's totally true. That's uh not to take it too far out of context, but I think it's a second Corinthians principle, right? Of comforting others with the comfort that we've received ourselves. So if whether that's comfort, whether that's guidance, like you've learned something, you've walked through a thing, whether I've walked through it five years ago or whether I've walked through it two minutes ago, to turn back around and say, Hey, let me take you through this thing that I've just been through. It adds power to it, it adds empathy to it, allows you to see, you know, just to connect to that and to them on a different level. So I think it it it definitely adds

Fear Anxiety And The Therapy Effect

SPEAKER_02 29:36

a layer as a a guide uh if you've been through something yourself.

Amy Dardis 29:40

I have been finding more and more that sometimes it's not even the fact that we do have it all figured out, but it's the willingness to just share what it is that we have been going through that one can help people feel more willing and more comfortable to have that conversation, to open up, to be willing to explore. Because when we're talking about identity, we're talking about some very like that's some deep stuff, right? Like that's I mean, talking about your marketing strategy and your lead gen strategy, like that's one thing. People can do that all day long. But to talk about identity, to talk about what you're struggling with, that takes trust. That takes vulnerability. And that's a place a lot of entrepreneurs and business leaders don't really want to go. So how have how do you find yourself kind of navigating that?

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Good question. I think navigating that personally or navigating that with other people, probably all the about. Oh. Yeah. Gosh. There's I mean, for for me, it's been just just a ton of deep self self-exploit, exploration and facing facing my own fears, facing my own struggles and and hurdles. Something that I've been learning recently is really looking at at fears and what they what they mean, how they what they mean, not long term, but long from you know, deep deep in your past, where are things rooted, what's going on, why do you feel stuck? A lot of the reasons that you feel stuck are are because of fear. We operate, 99% of us operate out of some level of fear. So it's either some level of self-protection or self-preservation, self-preservation or self-promotion. And a lot of those are out of some level of fear that keeps us rooted and stuck in where we want to go and prevents us from taking that next step. And so I've really needed to, you know, look up very deeply to figure out in some of the areas where I'm feeling stuck and moving ahead, what's really going on and what does that mean in my identity? And how can I live much more in a connected identity that God's called me into? So there's there's been a lot, a lot of that for me personally. And the season of moving through this as a as a solopreneur has probably been one of the hardest ones that I've I've ever faced. I have been through levels of fear, anxiety. My wife, God bless her, has been so great at kind of walking through this stuff with me. And we've kind of gone back and forth. There's been moments where I've been great and let's go and everything's fine. And then there's been moments where I've kind of been, you know, in a crumpled mess. And so we kind of play off of each other back and forth in that. And I've talked to several solopreneurs who are in very similar situations as well. But I think as I as I think through like my core level of wanting to make a difference in someone's pain, in someone's difficulty and the problems that they're facing as a as a business, that inherently raises the question, what are you facing? What are you, what is your pain point? What's going on? Where are you stuck? Where do you feel like you can't move forward? And where's that coming from? So as we dig into that, sometimes it's just a it starts off at a business analysis. And it's it's weird because we we feel like we're dealing with issues of just a brand. Oh, what's your brand? What's your, you know, how do you put put yourself out there into the world? But it eventually moves into some level of you know, business consulting where you're dealing with what's really going on, not just on a business level and a, you know, ROI and your sales sheets and everything, but what's really going on under the surface that is keeping you stuck and prevented from moving ahead. And man, that that's it's therapy. And I say that because I've had a couple of experiences where some of the clients that I've worked with have been through some brand exploration and they're like, man, nobody's ever asked me these questions before. Like this has felt like therapy. Like this has felt like so cathartic to be able to explore this stuff and talk about this stuff and get it out into the open and move into areas where we haven't even given ourselves the opportunity to think it through. So combining and layering all of those things and just listening and asking good questions, but moving into areas where you typically don't move into, I think it is very therapeutic and can

Founder Identity Drives Brand

SPEAKER_02 33:46

push, push in a good way, people into some new spaces.

Amy Dardis 33:49

So you're finding that there is a connection between individual identity and brand identity.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

Yeah, I think so. I think definitely so. I think, man, I think it's natural. It's I think it's really not only natural, I think it's very common and maybe should be looked at even more so. I'll I'll go here. One of the things that that I do a lot, I I have a sort of a magic question that I enjoy asking in my brand explorations that I was very curious about at one point. I was I was curious about it for myself. And I decided to layer it in with my my brand exploration. And the question that I was curious about for myself was what makes you cry at movies? I thought it was a really interesting question because there's different movies where every once in a while we're just like, oh, there it is. It got me again. Like I know it's coming. I've seen this movie a hundred times, or or there's a show or whatever. It's just like all of a sudden, it's just like, man, like what is that? Like, what is going on there? What is it that what is it that makes you cry at movies? And I thought if you can find that, if you can find that thread, it tells you really something interesting about yourself. If you can find that thing, that theme that suddenly makes your heart leak out of your eyes, there's something inherently true about you that moves you as a person. And when you find that theme, you often find as a founder, if you're talking to a leader, a business leader, the person who's in charge of a brand, that that theme also very likely will tie into their brand, the reason that they started the business, why they are in the place that they are. And so whether it's restoration or hardship or it's I think it's different for everybody, finding that theme that is deep within the heart of a person is very likely one of the biggest reasons that is that they started to they they started a business to move into that area of helping the world and impacting the world. So I'm really fascinated in that space of tying in that personal journey and the heart of someone, the deep heart of somebody into why they started their business and how how we can make their brand resonate and tell the story of who they are as a person, of why, why they why they are who they are. Long way to answer, yes. I think there's a deep tie-in with personal journey and how a brand represents itself.

Amy Dardis 36:10

Why do you think having that clarity around identity or even around brand identity? You said you wanted to do something that moves the needle. And, you know, we've talked about how having this clarity helps you with your marketing assets

Borrowed Identity And Lost Confidence

Amy Dardis 36:26

and your marketing message. But even deeper than that, what are you seeing as why brand identity ends up being the core of how a business operates?

SPEAKER_02 36:37

It goes back to that that Simon Sinek message of the why. Everybody likes to talk about the why. It's like that's that's your why. Like that's the, that's the that's the heart. That's the thing that makes your heart leak out of your eyes. It's like that it's when you when you understand that and own your identity and you just live into who you are and you're just comfortable in yourself. I think everything else becomes easier. Everything else just becomes, you're not trying to borrow somebody else's identity. You're not trying to live out of something that it doesn't feel it doesn't feel natural to you. You're not trying to put Saul's armor on David. It's like this is like, this is just this, this is who I am. And this is, I'm gonna go out and work in the way that I'm comfortable with, the way that we operate. This is who we are, this is how we make decisions, and it's gonna impact everything else in our business. It just it makes everything else flow more smoothly.

Amy Dardis 37:26

I went through years of running our agency of not having that stuff figured out. One, not knowing really myself very well as a person or what I really stood for, how I operated, or what I valued. And that carried over into our business. And we were constantly looking at what everybody else was doing. What are they doing and what are they doing and what are they doing? And thus, you know, 50,000 iterations of our website and our offers and our messaging. And over time, all of that back and forth ended up really breaking down my own confidence as a human. It was detrimental. One website redo didn't seem all that bad, but 10 years of redoing your website 20 times a year, it's pretty detrimental because you get to a point where you're like, what am I doing? Why do I keep doing this? And what do I even stand for? I can't even trust myself to know what to do anymore. It was like I didn't have any confidence to move forward. And that's where that was a wake up call for me to realize that this is not sustainable. And I'd put all this effort into trying to figure out my brand and my business. And I ended up finding out that the the key to figuring out my brand and my business was first figuring out myself. Have you found that to be the case for you and your clients?

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Yeah, I think that's really wise. I think it sounds like there's a lot of focus on sort of an external thing, focusing on what, and I one of the things that I have fallen prey to a lot is this is this is what somebody else says that I should be doing. I'll spin up something and somebody says, Oh, that's really good. You need to do that. Like that's really good. The world needs that. Or and it's easy for them to say that and walk away, you know. But then you're well, I'll do that. Let me re-rearrange my whole world because the thing that the thing that you said, whether or not I feel like it's true or not, I think it's a really good idea because that's what everybody else says I should do. You take another course about, you know, this is hey, this is the right way to be doing LinkedIn, this is the right way to be doing all of the ads, and this is what everybody else is doing. And then you do that and you're like, well, that doesn't work for me. So spending time to just dig into yourself. Like, what is true to you? Who are you really? How should who are you called to? What is your purpose uniquely in the world? And I think that's beyond just simple value proposition. I think I'm beginning to think about that more. We say value proposition, like what makes your business unique? Because we always want to find that as branders. Like, what how can we position your business in a unique way that you're different from your competitors? I think that there's an even deeper route than that. Like, what makes you unique? How can we make your brand unique because of who you are as a person, because of who you are as a founder, and let your brand really represent something that's true to you? I think there's a there's a really powerful thread there to pull on.

Amy Dardis 40:22

So you talk about this idea of self-exploration and just having to take that time to figure out what you stand for. Always sounds easier said than done. But in

The Desert Season And Formation

Amy Dardis 40:35

in reality, what do you think that looks like and how long, long has that journey even looked like for you? And I want to kind of dig into this idea of the struggle and the messy middle and the idea that sometimes a lot of our deepest growth and all of these deepest exploration, self-exploration, I know for me, it came out of one of the ugliest, hardest seasons of my life, of the most failure, of the most obstacles, when it would have been easy to be like, oh, I'm doing something wrong, instead of realizing this is kind of what the journey looks like to get to the other side.

SPEAKER_02 41:19

Now I think I'm in therapy. I think we're going the other direction. Yeah. It has it has not been it's it's not been an easy journey. It's been, I mean, you mentioned 10 years. I th I I feel I think it's probably been about 10 years, 10 years this year that I've been a solopreneur, which is crazy to think that I've been doing things for people, making things for people. Hey, I need a new website for and but and and in that in that it that it's been a complete roller coaster. There's been a couple years that have been really, really good, but there's been most of the time that it's been like, what am I doing? Like how what should I be doing now? What am I doing today? How can I do this better? I have had, I've never had an anxiety attack in my life until this last 10 years. I've experienced them in a couple different instances. And I'm like, oh, that's what that feels like. Like legit. Like it's been, there's been some periods where it's been complete, just really, really challenging to figure out what the next step is going to look like. It's the the faith journey has been wild, trusting that, you know, God has the next thing for us. And I feel like most of the, how do I say this? I've made attempts to try to do this myself, to try and market myself. Like, hey, here's a new thing that I should spin up and put out. Because I I've made a little bit of money, money in that, and I think the world could need this. And I put it out there, and you know, it's been crickets. So I feel like there's it's been this weird, like asking God, like, what do you need from me right now? And for a long time that was in work, in like, what project do you need me to do? What how do you want me to market myself? More recently, it's been a lot of who do you need me to be? Where what do you need me to say or not say or do or not do that I'm not asking yet? There's been a lot of like, you know, God, where are you in this? Feeling very deserty, been leaning into a lot of, as I've been saying that a lot more, I've been leaning a lot more into that story of, you know, the Israelites in the desert. And okay, let's look at that for a second. If I keep saying desert, if I keep saying, you know, going through the desert or being led through the desert, what does that really mean? What what did it mean for them? What do you need me to hear, understand as I kind of walk through this place? Because I don't think it's just I threw it, I haven't really come to a place of saying, I've abandoned my faith, God's not here. I've I I feel blessed that I've come out of a place of some really deeply rooted theology. And I really have a a a faith that grounds me. I've said all the time like God's got my job, and I, you know, but I I really have been pushed into a place of saying, What what do you need from me right now? Like, what's going on? So, you know, Israelites were in the desert, they were led by a pillar of fire. Like, God was always with them. They knew that, but man, they they went through a hard time. And God had was trying to evolve them through what they'd been through out of years of captivity and slavery and in a headspace that was not their own, in a borrowed identity, in a place where they were like this is, and now they're in a place of saying, okay, now we're in this like new place of freedom, supposed freedom, but we we're trying to wrestle between who we used to be for 400 years and who you're calling us into. Like we want to get to the promised land. Yeah, that all sounds great. Milk and honey, yeah, get us there. But he was realizing, like, you're not ready to do that yet. There's a lot of things we still have to work on formative to get you to to be able to live into that place successfully. And so, like, the the message I feel like I've been getting is just trying to understand like how to come out of an identity that I've been in for a long time and some of the fears of my past and the hesitations, how do how do I really seep into like this new space where I am in a desert season of understanding myself in a new way so that the next piece of my journey is can be what it's meant to be, what he's called me to be, into that next place of purpose. And I I don't think I don't think any of that's wasted. I think all of that is all of that formation is really, really intentional. That sense that God is with all of it and supports all of it and leads me through all of it. But it has been some days and weeks and years of some pretty, some pretty deep stuff.

Amy Dardis 45:23

The I love you and you wrote an article about this, which I thought was phenomenal. I think you're a phenomenal writer. Like you are just very good at communicating. Definitely a gift of yours, but you you worded it so well about leaving. We you leave as a slave, but your mindset is still stuck in slavery. And it's a process of learning to be free. And that doesn't change because you left your one location. And that we wanna hurry up that process. We want to speed up that process. I know I would love to for that to just happen in a weekend, like just God, you know, just change my mindset. And then I realize how long it's taken. But then I look back and I'm like, I I see that now. I see how angry I was, I see how stuck I was, I see how afraid I was. And I'm glad, you know, that you're taking me through this process because I wanted all these clients or I wanted this new business to work. But I realized now I I wasn't even ready for that. If if clients had come at that time, I personally would not have been able to have the conversations then that I'm even having now. And I wish I could see that while I'm there, but it is that process.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

It's a it's a complete process. And but everything is process. I mean, that's what we're that's what we're about. And and I think us going through the process and realizing that it it is about, it's always about the journey. It's not about the destination. I mean, it's uh how to get there. It sometimes takes a while. And you can never tell somebody it's gonna take this long because you just don't know. One of the things that has been a theme of learning, and uh I've heard this recently from a couple of other people is contentment and learning that about like how to just be okay where you are, how to not compare, how to realize that your journey is your journey and it's different from everybody else's journey, and there's no way that you're ever gonna be like, I wanna be out, I should be there, I should be here. The whole S-word is always such a hard thing to kind of get get rid of the shoulds and just kind of be where you are. And every time I think about contentment, I always have to go back to like the classic verse of Paul talking about, I found the secret to contentment. Like, oh, everybody's leaning in. Like, well, that's that's cool. Tell me that. And the things immediately preceding and immediately after are so weird to me because it doesn't almost sound like it fits. Because he's in it. We put that, so he says, I found the secret to contentment. I've had a little and I've had a lot. I've lived with a ton and I've lived with very, very little. And I've found the secret to be content. I can do all things with Christ who gives me

Contentment And The Waiting Work

SPEAKER_02 48:06

strength. And we put the second half of that on boards and we paint it and we put it in our house, and it's really pretty. And we think, oh, that means that I can whatever I want to do, I can do because God gives me the strength. He's like, no, that means I've been, I've been, I've been able to be content with very, very little or a lie. And really lean in that, into that to say, just wherever God's called you to right now in your journey and your process, like you can do that because Christ has given you the strength to do it. And I'm like, man, that is that is a hard context to sit in, but that is that's that's what that's about.

Amy Dardis 48:36

Do you ever think about the story of Joseph? That for me has been one of the stories that I go back to a lot in the sense that God gave him this dream when he was young and pretty spoiled and pretty arrogant and you know, at the beginning. And then what he takes him through. I think about Joseph sitting in jail for 12 years. And in that jail, there was nothing he could do to release himself. He couldn't try harder, he couldn't, he wasn't digging an escape. Like he wasn't trying to make the escape happen. He 100% was fully reliant on God. And I think there must have been something happening in Joseph's heart and character for 12 years in jail that must have been part of his preparation for then saving Egypt and leading them through a famine and stepping into the dream that God had given him years and years ago. And I think as a young entrepreneur, having dreams of God, I feel like you're calling me to this. But every time I step into this, it's a train wreck. It seems like it's door shut, door shut, door shut. But then realizing that, yeah, maybe that dream is from God. Maybe it is something that you have to keep believing in. But at the same time, knowing you are not the one to make it happen. And God cares more about your character and who you become through this process than he does what you're able to produce or achieve in the process. Has that story ever like stuck out to you like that?

SPEAKER_02 50:34

No, not yet, but it has sort of kind of resonating with it now. And I like it a lot because uh you don't think about the timing of how long he had to sit in jail and do nothing. And we say we, you know, nothing in quotes. I mean, that it's it's a it's really profound. I because that waiting period, somebody just told me about a book yesterday about how to make I can't remember the name of it, if it's something about what you do while you're waiting. And there's an acronym to the word wait and what you can do in these seasons where there's really nothing else you can do, where it seems like there's nothing else you can do, and how to wait actively, how to be how to use your time wisely. Like if he was in the cell for 12 years, like what can I do? How can I what can I do to ground myself or improve? Well, I don't even know what you do at that point because you're completely sort of powerless. But how do you use this waiting period with a time where there's intention and you're whether you're improving yourself or you're actively doing something in your world? Because I know there's there's times where God says, like, I need you to act. This is the old, you know, God can't see your parked car, sort of a thing. I mean, he can't, obviously. But you know, what there's times where like he'll say

Joseph Moses And God’s Timing

SPEAKER_02 51:36

to somebody in the Old Testament, like, Why are you praying? Like, get up and go. Like I told you, like, you shouldn't be here. You should be like going out and doing something. So there's that weird tension of like how to wisely use the time at your disposal to do whatever you sense God's calling you to do. But I also think about that period in Joseph, where like at what point would he ever have felt like, maybe I didn't hear that? Maybe that thing that I heard thought I heard a long time ago, maybe that wasn't because this can't be, this can't be it. Like, this can't be it. Like so the periods of doubting as well to feel like, what's what's going on? Did I really hear from God, or was that just like a figment of mine that imagination like that? I'm sure that could could definitely be a thing. You're nodding because it sounds like you may have may have felt that as well.

Amy Dardis 52:20

For sure. I just I'm I'm just fascinated by I wish there was context and insight into Joseph's life in jail for all that time and why it required all that time. But it must have required all that time. I mean, there was clearly a reason, but it also reminds me of just sometimes it's not about what we need to do to make things happen. I mean, there is that, yeah, get out of the rip boat, step into the river, you know, act on faith. But then also knowing that we don't make nearly as much things happen as we think that we do. I mean, I and when I look at my life, like if I were to actually look back, and I do this a lot, I do see that wow, I didn't make that happen. I didn't make that happen. I didn't make that happen. Like that was in God's timing, that a door opened, that a connection was made, that an opportunity happened. Most of the things that I've learned and experienced along the way were not even ever conscious. I was just living my life. And only in hindsight was I able to look back and be like, oh wow, I learned all these things from that. And I didn't even realize it at the time. And so now here as an entrepreneur, I'm trying to stress about making things happen or being where I need to be. But that's but it that hasn't been the trajectory of my life up until this point. Like if I actually look at all the things that have the things that ended up, I feel like being pivotal weren't my doing.

SPEAKER_02 53:51

That's a a really interesting observation. That's been very likely true, because we we stress and and struggle to try and do things the way everybody else around us says that we should do them. And then it's that weird tension of like, okay, what should I do today? Like if I, you know, like what is what's the what's the plan and purpose that I have, and how can I step into it in a way knowing like this is what God's got for me. And then when do I just step back and say, okay, this is you gotta just kind of leave me where you need me to go. And God doesn't care about my timing. It's all in whatever he's gonna do. I don't think as about Joseph as much as I've thought about Moses and how he had this big thing that he was called to do, and then he's out in the desert for 40 years saying, Well, I'm done. Like there's nothing else left for me. It's like, you know, he's in the palace leading out of the Joseph story. He's in the palace, and now he's he's all in the desert for 40 years, and then he's called back out into his ministry where he makes like he's the whole next phase of his life, and of again being in the desert and waiting and and being formed and being trained and being ready for whatever his next journey is gonna be. That is these big seasons of waiting and just kind of letting God do what he's gonna do and form us into who he needs us to be for the next season. I think it's it's really significant, but it's really uncomfortable because we have no idea how long we're in this space.

Amy Dardis 55:05

And I want to dive into just one more thing here before we wrap up, and that's this waiting and being formed, but being formed and coming into this acceptance, love, realization, boldness of claiming your own identity, like your own wiring, like into how God actually made you. And not trying to be somebody else or do it the way somebody else does, but really like embracing that. Do you what is what is what does that look like for you?

Naming Fears And Embracing Wiring

SPEAKER_02 55:43

What does it look like? What is it going to look like? I don't know. I don't know if I've been there yet. I think I'm still walking that out. I think there's still some of that process that's still still happening. I don't know, I don't know if we get there. Sometimes I look at people and I'm like, oh, you're there. You you've done that. You are and they'll they'll probably say, no, I'm still trying to figure that out myself. But I I feel like I feel like I'm closer today than I was yesterday. I feel like I'm, you know, have more more tools around me, more self-awareness around me, and more ability to get there than I than I had had in the past. And I think I'm getting there, get what to wherever that is more, more closely. I think one of the things that I, like, what am I missing? What are, you know, sometimes I ask myself that, like, what what's still in front of me that I that I feel like God's calling me to that I haven't quite done or heard or stepped into? If I were to do like the next thing, I think there's a couple key questions that God's kind of calling me in into, which are, what am I afraid of? What are the biggest things that that I feel like are the fear hurdles in front of me that are preventing me from being more fully connected to what his plans are for me? If I were to really look at those fears, what do those mean about myself and how I view God and how I kind of line up with him and who I believe him to be? And how can I put more truth into those situations to dispel some of those lies and some of those falsehoods and some of those fears? Because I think that's where that's I think that's where some of the the keys and connecting points are. So those are some of the some of the next steps for me to overcome some of the gaps and hurdles that I'm feeling from an identity standpoint is really looking into some of those, those key lessons I feel like God's calling me to.

Amy Dardis 57:30

Do you feel like you are fully connecting and aware of how God has uniquely wired you?

SPEAKER_02 57:38

Am I connecting with that right now? Again, uh I'm I'm getting there. And I'm not sure if I'm fully there yet, but I'm I'm starting to get more inklings of that idea. One of the things that I'm learning from somebody that I'm listening to a lot right now is God's unique name for you and who he knows you to be. I he uses the idea of Jesus as a shepherd, and I think he had an experience of being with the shepherd and he had a whole flock, and he could he had a sound or a name or a way to identify each sheep in that flock, and he could like call that sheep and they would know exactly. He said, if Jesus were to walk into the room and call out a name that you instantly could know that he was identifying you as a person, what would that be? Do you know what that is? Not like who you are, what you do, what your job is, like do you have like that name? And listening for listening for things like that, leaning into what what that is, understanding that I think that's kind of when it starts to come down into some real significant identity connecting points.

Amy Dardis 58:40

I even in my few interactions with you, I have just been like awed by your insightfulness. Like you are you are so insightful, you are so articulate and good at communicating and your ability to share your story to make people feel safe and and you say this and seen. And while I think you're going through this process of being seen yourself, I do think you have this ability to help other people and their own identities be seen because you create this safe space for that to happen. And you help with the insight into being able to pull that out because you can ask questions, because you can see that big picture. And I am excited for you on this journey because I am like, man, I feel like you're just on the cusp of God just doing some really cool thing, which he's already doing, right? He's already doing these really cool things, but it's so evident from an outsider's perspective, looking in and seeing this journey that you've been

Where To Connect With Matt

Amy Dardis 1:00:00

on. That I'm like, man, there's there's calling here, there is gifting here. And I and it has been, I think, God needing you to become who he created you to be and to fully step into that and know you the way that he's wired you brings value to how he wants you to engage and connect with people and businesses. And I think that's so exciting. It's so exciting that this journey you're on. And not to say that I'm not on this journey, I am too, but it's also easier to look into your life than it is to look into mine.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:35

Thank you. You're very, very kind to make those observations. It's something that I, again, tough tough to see from the other side sometimes, but I appreciate you saying that. Thank you. Oh, thank you.

Amy Dardis 1:00:45

Well, I am so glad that you joined us today and you were willing to share. My thought, that was so encouraging and so authentic, which is my heart for relationships and obviously for this podcast too. But for people to follow you, connect with you. You are active on LinkedIn at Steinruck, and then big picture consulting for his business. And I'll put those in the show notes. But that is all for us today. We'll see you guys next time.