Well, here I am again. Piddling around with an already pretty much perfectly tuned bike.
I’m just double-checking my daughter’s work before her race this weekend. Not because I don’t trust her to take care of her bikes—more because I just really like working on bikes.
There’s something calming about the repetition.
It’s familiar. It’s predictable.
You know, for a guy who talks about originality all the time, I sure love routine.
And it got me thinking about how easy it is for brands to fall into the same patterns.
Everyone says they want to do something different, to stand out—but it’s comfier to just keep doing what’s worked okay enough in the past.
To keep doing what everyone else is doing.
Because routine isn’t just habit, it’s human.
We’re wired to mirror, to copy, to look for safety in sameness. It’s how babies learn to talk, and how kids learn to belong, and how adults learn to fit in.
So I guess it’s no surprise that the same instinct shows up when we humans build brands.
We imitate who we think we’re supposed to be—trying to fit in with the people we want to buy from us—instead of carving our own path and letting them follow.
Every brand wants to stand out…until it actually requires standing out.
So, all too often, they just blend in and call it strategy.
But the real strategy—the one that actually works—is standing out on purpose, especially when fitting in would be easier.Fitting in builds comfort. Standing out builds brands.
Fitting in builds comfort. Standing out builds brands.
All right, I should get going. We’ll see you out there.