In marketing and advertising, we talk about brands, logos and redesigns all the time. What makes them unique? Will it help the company with this change?  Is it worth the investment? Will this change, make a difference and ultimately “change” the ROI to be worth it? We can relate to this in our own lives too, especially those who are on a path to discovering who they are as a person and establishing their own brand identity.

I have literally taken a Break In The Action myself…a couple month hiatus, but now I am back, including having read several sports biz books on my previous post you can find here. I had been thinking of a good post…and there were so many topics I could choose from, ones that I related to and ones that were relevant to right now…I often channel what I am feeling through music lyrics, however, I couldn’t really do that either. I am excited to get back in the swing of things and start writing again. As always, topics are welcome at any time!

Knowing that my main focus of this post was change, I decided to look up the word: to transform or convert, to become different, to become altered or modified, to pass gradually into, a change or exchange, metamorphosis, revolutionize, modification, development; variation… there are a lot of meanings of the word “change”. Even over the past several months there is change all around you. All of a sudden Facebook statuses begin to go from “i am so hung over” to “I haven’t slept, the baby kept me up til 3am”. Still, way too much information to share on a social media website, but yet, it’s a form of change we are seeing more frequently as we get older.

I thought of how I’ve changed, if I have changed at all…I’d like to think I have toward a positive direction. I sat for a few minutes today thinking what has evolved over the past several months. Was I able to control it? Not even a little bit. Several recent “fortuitous” encounters had both fortunate and unfortunate consequences…could I control them? Nope. I have looked at those changes, or meetings or events as “happy accidents”. The recent changes have also made me realize that I need to stop trying to control and just let things fall as they may, obviously with proven effort behind it. Hopefully the good from these encounters will be bigger than the bad.

I’d love to share a quote that I read in a book I have just started to read. I have a feeling I’ll be jotting down a few of these quotes from time to time. This one reads: “Bread takes the effort of kneading but also requires sitting quietly while the dough rises with a power all its own.” How spiritual are we talking here? That’s for each person to decide. But it does give an important message. Not only is there effort to be made to get the result we eventually want, but the patience and resistance of not trying to speedy up the process of change.

While it isn’t exactly bread, although I do love watching Food Network (for hours) and attempting to make my own delicious creations, bread can mean just about anything, but allowing one’s self to do something different or out of our comfort zone while continuing on the familiarity lines we’re used to. I firmly believe life is very similar to the weather; we can predict it and try to expect it and attempt to prepare for it as best we can. Sometimes preparing works in our favor, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes there are disasters that happen so fast there’s nothing left to do afterwards but pick up the pieces and try to move on.

Look at the redesign Starbucks has done since the 1970s. They have created a more simplistic design and look, taking off the brand name completely because it is already recognizable. Other brands like Nike, Shell, and Apple have done this. Since Starbucks’ change in 2011, they have launched “green” campaigns with the redesign, emphasizing the current environmental issues in today’s society. Not only was there a logo change, but a company-wide change as well. Because of that, it continued to be successful. As a personal preference, I liked the older logo with the text, but not everyone would agree with me. With us as people, perhaps its also true we need a full-body redesign to accompany new changes that happen in our lives.

I have also noticed that a lot of change includes identifying certain things that we can see that might not have been there before, perhaps more visible, more vibrant. It is in our nature to analyze, over analyze and over analyze again to reach the ultimate satisfaction, but that too, comes with change. In marketing and advertising, sometimes, change is necessary, a logo here, a revamp of a package design to keep up with the latest trends and bring it into 2012. In sports it happens constantly, some learn to accept it and continue on much faster than others; and some completely are resistant like oil and water. That saying, “actions speak louder than words” emulates into business and the value of life. At some point, changes need to happen and we can either accept it for what it is and roll with the punches and adapt to it, or crawl into a hole and live in a land of sunshine and lollypops (which, actually, would be kind of cool, but only for a couple days). 

I try not to be preachy, but I found myself setting goals for myself: for the day, for the week, for the month, whatever. Acknowledge feelings, talk them out. It has helped me and I am sure can help you, too, even if everything is peachy keen. Allowing ourselves to be flexible gives us a chance to grow with whatever changes that are coming our way. In being flexible that also means to express your feelings outside of just talking about it. Working out helps a LOT. Extremely therapeutic. Everyone has something they can do to relieve stress whether it be cooking, writing, sleeping, being romantic with someone else, whatever helps.

Change will happen regardless, it’s up to us to see where we go with it. What kind of bread will YOU be baking? Mine? A lovely braided challah; complicated to make, but delicious and WELL worth the wait. I’d like to leave you with some notable brand logos that have changed/evolved over time, why? Because they are pretty.