Paint what you feel, not what you see.

Posted on January 26th, 2011 by Robbin and currently 4 commenting.

Monday night, our friend Libby was in town. So Cordell and I had dinner and some wine with her. It was great to catch up with Cordell. We’ve been like two ships passing in the night lately.

And Libby, well she’s just pure sunshine.

Greg started talking about his kids (he has twin 11 year olds). This weekend they were painting and he realized that they were at that interesting age where they’ve started getting frustrated about not being able to paint something or draw something exactly the way looks.

Weird when that self-conscience-ness (is that a word?) takes over, isn’t it?

He reminded them (and me by sharing his weekend story) that it’s important to capture what you feel when you express yourself artistically. Don’t just replicate what you see. In my opinion, that ability to express what you feel is what separates the great from the good in so many things. Writing, painting, acting, communicating, leading. You name it.

Most things are better when we embrace and connect with what we are feeling.

Then Greg took out his iphone (I love how so many of use our phones like scrapbooks these days to capture memories) and showed me their paintings of Lewy, their cat, What captured my attention and imagination was the one he did to show his kids how to capture a feeling. The feeling of Lewy.

(Trust me. This painting of Cordell’s absolutely nails the way that cat makes me feel.)

I just thought the whole story was such an awesome reminder of a couple of things.

First of all, never lose your child like wonder.

That ability to express what you feel without worry of what others will think about you. It’s a way of seeing the world that keeps you in the moment and keeps you drawing with wild abandon. Both really good things. Try really hard to hang on it in all that you embrace and do.

And then this:

In business and in marketing we use our grown up heads too much.

We get focused on product features and demographics and target markets. We see things how they are. It’s way more important to remember how our services or products fit into a person’s life. How it makes them feel.

We just started working with Remington Products (the community facebook page has only been up about 24 hours, so it’s in it baby stage). The focus is on building a community of real women and stylists who believe that every women is beautiful. (I can support that with all my heart. Because I absolutely believe it..) Hopefully in the days to come, it will be a place to so share ideas and tips to empower women to get ready for anything.

I was checking in a moment ago and saw this remark.

“Remington Red Chair Ready page got me to take a deeper look at myself yesterday afternoon and realize that I need to change something! So I went shopping for new clothes for work and woke up extra early to make sure my hair was looking AWESOME. Loving today!”

Now there’s the passion conversation. It’s simply not about the tools.

So. How does your product or service make someone feel and how has that changed the way you think about connecting with you advocates and fans?

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