outlasts a rebrand. Every. Darn. Time.

Brought to you by The Art Of Positioning Podcast

Sitting down to journal this morning led to thinking about something uncomfortable: that my mind moves slow.

Like there isn’t a shit ton of ideas pelting me, no fast pivots, just... slow poking, probing, pulling on strings.

And it feels like a giant weakness.

But is that actually one? Or did I just absorb that fast is the only acceptable speed, from an industry that rewards being seen moving?

Let’s step it back for a moment…Fast means you're always looking at what's next, never at what's in front of you.

And if we’re racing, gasping to catch our breath, how can we look around?

How can they pay attention to the nuances from the inside and outside that might be hurting us right in front us?

To that point, this was speculation, so I went looking for proof, or something to shut me up - beyond the usual over done stuff you see here like Coca Cola and Louis Vuitton.

And well, I found two.👇

-

Most businesses are built around one kind of brain.

Usually yours as the founder, and then wonder why their top performers burn out, go silent, or check out while still technically doing their job.

In this episode, we get into what happens when neurodivergent minds hit systems that were never built with them in mind, and what it takes to build a business that works for the humans inside it.

I’m joined by Alexis Frank MBA, creator of Governance by Design, and Mark Sones (JD, MBA, MIA), autistic ADHD leader turned neurodiversity consultant, to break down how hiring, leadership and processes change when you stop pretending everyone thinks the same.

"Built Around One Brain: Team Burn Out" is out now on this The Art of Positioning Podcast episode - listen here.

-

The bells that keep repositioning, never rebranding

In a small town in central Italy called Agnone, there's a foundry that's been casting bronze bells since at least 1339.

Their bells have marked the end of wars, the deaths of Popes, the births of nations, and ordinary Sunday mornings in a town that's watched empires rise and fall around it.

One rang for Italy's centennial as a nation.

Another was commissioned for a Papal Jubilee.

During WWII, occupying forces melted bells across the region for weapons. Marinelli rebuilt.

Now lasting is cool, but what I discovered is how they lasted because they did adjust over time instead of staying rigid. Things like:

Who commissioned the bell and what the moment meant.

Which century, which war, which faith, which occasion.

That's pivoting.

That movement to whoever needed them and whatever moment they were marking.

What never moved was the one thing (position) underneath all of it:

They are the sound that marks the moment that matters.

Not "bells for weddings," not "bells for funerals," nah, they weren’t about rebranding every time culture shifted or bell demand dipped.

Just a position held specifically that seven centuries of completely different moments could all sit under it without the core ever cracking.

The company that outlived every empire it worked for

Kongō Gumi started in 578 AD, building Buddhist temples in Japan.

It became the oldest continuously operating company in the world, 1,400+ years, through dynasties, wars, earthquakes, and entire eras of Japanese history collapsing and rebuilding around it.

Part of how it lasted was the succession customs that let sons-in-law take on the family name and continue leadership without a biological heir, meaning the craft mattered more than the bloodline.

It expanded from temples into general construction as demand shifted.

It didn't cling to one narrow definition of what it built.

It held onto why it built (structures meant to house something sacred, meant to be trusted with a community's faith for generations) and let what it built adapt with the century: wood to concrete, hand tools to CAD, temples-only to general contracting when demand shifted.

In 2006, after 1,428 years, it was absorbed as a subsidiary during a downturn in the construction industry.

Look, I'm not going to sand that down into a fake happy ending. It didn't survive forever.

But it outlasted every company that's tried to move fast, disrupt, pivot, and "stay relevant" by chasing trends instead of holding a position.

Even its ending wasn't a positioning failure. It was a market one.

🏏 Why this matters to you, right the heck now, this quarter

While you're not building bells or temples, you're making the same decision they made.

Every time you touch your messaging, your offer, or your "who we serve."

The question isn't whether to reposition.

You should be doing that consistently, as your market shifts, as your best clients change, as the moment changes.

The question is whether you know your actual core position well enough that repositioning doesn't turn into a rebrand.

Because usually it’s a panicked rebrand.

Perhaps that looks like a fresh logo, new voice, new "who we are," new website with ‘brand identity’, because someone read that brands need to stay fresh, or a launch flopped, or a competitor did something shiny.

Yeah… all that's doing is erasing the thing you'd already started to be known for and starting the trust clock back at zero.

What a rebrand costs you, that a reposition never does

• Every rebrand resets the clock on being known for something. You're not compounding what people already associate with you, you're starting over.

• Your team stops trusting the current direction is the real one, because it's the fourth "real one" this year. That costs you speed, the exact thing you were chasing by moving fast.

• You spend money solving the same identity question repeatedly instead of once, properly, and defending it while the world moves around it.

• The people who'd started to get you have to relearn you from scratch, and some of them just won't bother. Trust once lost is a hard rebuild.

It shows up as slower growth, ineffective spend attracting customers, a team that's stopped fully believing you, and a business nobody can describe in one matching sentence after years of existing.

Where this lands

You're likely making decisions every week that ask the same question Marinelli and Kongō Gumi kept answering for centuries: does this change what we are, or just who needs to hear it right now?

The plateau that won't move.

The messaging you keep tweaking.

The team unsure which direction is "real" this quarter.

It's that question, answered wrong, on repeat, without anyone noticing it was being asked.

And maybe looking back my journal entry, that's what slow actually is.

Not a lack of ideas. Not falling behind.

It's the only speed at which you can actually catch that question before you answer it wrong again.

So don't take this as a lesson, there’s enough of those out there as it is. Consider this instead:

What's the thing in your business that hasn't moved once, even while everything else around it has?

🦘 B