Ship's Log 11: Charting the Unknown with Brynn Breuner

“You’ve got brilliance in your bones. Let’s find the words that do it justice.” - Brynn Breuner

Episode Summary:
In this episode of Project Candor, Jeanne welcomes brand strategist and messaging expert Brynn Breuner for a fascinating conversation about identity, language, and the power of a clear message. With more than 30 years of experience in design, branding, and entrepreneurship, Brynn shares how she helps entrepreneurs uncover the “big idea” at the heart of their work—the truth everything else flows from.
Brynn explains her concept of the “poly mind,” describing the multi-dimensional thinkers who don’t fit neatly into a single category. Rather than forcing people into narrow labels, she sees each person as a bouquet of experiences, talents, and perspectives. By listening carefully for the threads within someone’s story, she helps translate their vision into language that feels authentic and alive.
The conversation explores why brilliant thinkers often struggle to articulate what they do, how powerful communication creates connection, and why a strong message is less about saying everything at once and more about offering meaningful “bites” that invite conversation. Through stories from her work coaching TEDx speakers, creative insights about awe and human connection, and a lively round of Two Truths and a Lie, Brynn reveals how the right words can ignite clarity, possibility, and transformation.

Guest’s Bio:
Brynn Breuner translates vision into words. With over 30 years in messaging and design—and serious chops as a TEDx speaker coach—she’s known for drawing clarity out of complexity and crafting messaging that rings true.
As founder of MindSpark Branding, Brynn acts like a messaging mirror, helping entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and change agents uncover the essence of their work and shape it into language that connects.
This isn’t more than finding the right words—it’s about creating resonance and alignment with emotional precision.
Brynn’s uncanny ability to sense the truth in language ensures your audience feels the experience your work truly delivers—and wants more of it.


Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brynnbreuner/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mindsparkbranding/
Website: https://www.mindsparkbranding.com/
Grab Your Gift — https://go.mindsparkbranding.com/pivot-map
Free gift for listeners:
Pivot Plan Session: https://go.mindsparkbranding.com/pivot-plan

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Transcript

Jeanne 0:02

Today's guest works at the intersection of creativity, clarity, and identity. And she has a gift for helping people discover the message they were meant to carry. Brynn Bruner translates vision into words. She's a brand strategist with more than 30 years of experience in design, messaging, and entrepreneurship, over five years as a TEDx speaker coach, and she's a champion of what she calls Polyminds, the multi-dimensional thinkers who don't fit neatly into one lane. Brynn helps entrepreneurs uncover the big idea at the heart of their work, the truth everything else flows from. Brynn, welcome to Project Candor. I'm so glad you joined us. Thank you, Jeanne.

Brynn 0:44

I'm so glad to be here. How are you feeling today? I'm feeling full of beans, to be honest. Life is good and I'm happy to be talking to you about it.

Jeanne 0:54

Okay. Well, what we're gonna do here is we're gonna get to know you a little bit before we play our Two Truths and a Lie game. But are you ready for any question I'm gonna throw your way?

Brynn 1:05

Bring it on.

Jeanne 1:06

Okay. All right. Well, let's start with the first one. You help people articulate the big idea at the heart of their work. When someone comes to you with a message that feels tangled or unclear, where do you start? What's the first thread you pull?

Brynn 1:21

That's such a great question. The first thread you pull. Actually, what I have to do first is I have to kind of gather all the threads. A client that I was just working with this morning does this incredible work with gestalt therapy and horses and figuring out the words to combine those and what she does is kind of a really typical problem for me. It's funny because she started by saying, Oh, I feel like I just blabbed a lot. And so the first step is actually to let my people blab a lot. And I'm listening for certain things. So when I find that thread that needs to be pulled, then I can tug on it. But it's like not just what do you do and how did you come to it, but I'm listening underneath their words for this unique kind of knack that they have that they might not even see themselves.

Jeanne 2:05

That's an excellent answer. You just expanded on it by saying you look at all the threads, that's amazing. I hadn't thought about it that way, that you were more than one thread, but that's your polymind.

Brynn 2:18

Well, you know, it's like looking at the flowers behind me, like people's threads are really we're all bouquets. And I have to sort of perceive or take in the entire bouquet of a person before I can, and a lot of times when I'm listening to them, I've got my eyes closed because I really want to hear what they have to say. I want to really hear, and then I'm like, okay, now hold on a second. So your words are perfect. What thread do you pull? And then it becomes a conversation. And then a lot of times when I'm asking, is that it? Was that it? I'm listening for kind of accuracy in their words. I'll give you an example. This morning, the client that I was working with, she was talking about like, I need to work on my visibility. So I think I need to just say something to you, Jeanne. I've realized in the last year or so that language actually comes into me as true or not true. Like, no, that's not it. Almost like when you go to the IDoc and you get your eyes checked, and he's like, one or two, better or worse. I'm looking for the truth of a person's actual language. So she was saying blah blah blah blah visibility. And for me, there was nothing there. Like visibility sounded like but as like as I tapped into kind of who she was, like, oh, you just want to get on stages and be your truest self. I'm paraphrasing a little bit. She goes, Yeah, I just like the truth of her wants to stand out and be seen. And then it's like, and we can call that visibility, I guess. So I'm interested in the truth of language, and it comes in almost like what do they say in music? In tune, like your voice is on key. One of those things. And so I'm looking for words that are that are on key. And it's an energetic thing, I think, not a not a sound thing. Let me go a little bit further into that. So when people come to me for help with the words, they think like, just tell me what to say. And we all of us who do a service-related job have a version of just tell me what to say or do, or like, just do it, right? Just mow my lawn, make the front of my house look good. And there's nothing wrong with that. I call that that kind of the magic bullet solution, just give it to me. You know, like, wouldn't I love to have a chef come to my house and just cook for me? Yes, I could learn more about nutrition and cooking and get better at that, um, and learn how to like flip the skillets like they do on TV. So all of us want just do it for me, that kind of a thing. And so in the word kind of field that I'm in, sure, they just like tell me what to say because it's so hard for them. And the truth is that we get to what to say in several different levels. And one of those is pulling the threads that you were talking about. But there's a much more important one. Can I talk about that?

Jeanne 5:04

Well, yes, but I wanted to say something before you go too far. I like the way you describe people as being bouquets. I really love that concept. And I just wanted to say that I had never thought of myself like that, but you know, if I could be like Peach Roses bouquet, I would love that. Why? I like roses, I like the smell of them, I like the look of them, and I like the color, coral or peach or whatever. So I would just like to be that. Unfortunately, the thought of them as well is that they wilt really fast.

Brynn 5:45

Just hold on a second. So when I think of a peach like a sherbet-colored rose, and I smell it, I can almost smell that and have that feeling in the back of my throat. Like when you smell that in, it's so fresh. You know, and the little part of the rose where it kind of bends before it flares out, it's so pert and perfect and full of kind of vitality. So I feel like there's lots of reasons to want to be a bouquet of peach roses. Um, and just like it's a life source. And I could see you reflected in that. That's a good pick.

Jeanne 6:18

Oh, thank you. Thank you. But that would that just resonated with me when you said everyone's a bouquet. So you had to listen for all the, well, there's petals, there's stems, there you have to listen through all of that. That's that's nice. I like that. All right, so you keep going.

Brynn 6:34

Yeah, let me just talk about this bouquet thing, because I think it's important, especially for people who don't really fit into any kind of a normal box. There's a pressure to say what you do. Like I'm a, you know, and we don't get to say I'm an optometrist, I'm a I'm a florist. We don't get to do something that's that simple. So we have to find something, and a lot of times that finding, like, well, how do I describe what I do? Yeah, it feels like you're condensing or you're kind of squishing yourself, or you're maybe pruning off pieces of you, like, oh, I have to like cut off my right arm in order to fit into this little thing. So when I'm thinking about bouquets, I'm looking at different aspects of people sometimes that they don't even see themselves, well, always that they don't even see themselves. They've either dismissed it or it's like, oh, it's not really a big deal. Like, why should we talk about that? But the truth is in how all of those pieces come together. So it's not just polymines that are multifacet people, like we all are. We're all, I don't really say we're all a bouquet, but we are. And those different stems that are in that are sourced from different pieces of our lives. And all of those have aliveness. And in that aliveness is the truth of a person. And when I can find that, then I can find the language that matches that. Excellent.

Jeanne 7:52

I don't know how you would do that though, because well, that's because you're an expert at this, not me. But I can see where you're going with the bouquet and how everybody has so many different aspects to themselves and so many threads within them. Maybe I should be a mixed flower bouquet. With a few peach roses in there. But I don't know how I would listen for all of that. That's amazing. So you often talk about this polymind concept, people who think and create across multiple lanes. How did this concept emerge for you?

Brynn 8:25

Well, that's a good question. It came from the work that I give my people, like any kind of branding or marketing. There's that question, like, who do you serve? Who do you serve? And it's like, and I say that with an eye roll, like, who do you serve, right? Like, what's your big why? Because they're they're almost form questions. You're like, if you could only just figure out that one thing. And so we tend to boil it down like women over 50. And that's not ever kind of a deep enough answer. Um, and the answer to that, who do you serve, is often in the psychographic realm. Like, what are they, who are they? Like, who who is, what do they do with their life? What do they love? What do they hate? What are they I ask, what are they fascinated by? Mostly because I'm kind of curious, I would like to know. But who do you serve is really kind of, we talk about pain points. I like to talk about pride points. Like, what do they feel really glad about in their life? What are they just psyched that they've been able to do? Sometimes that's something like a certification or a degree, but mostly it's not. It's kind of hiding in there between maybe the bigger flowers and the bouquet. So who do you serve? And I've come to think lately that oftentimes who we serve, our clients, are when, they're when people, they're threshold moments. Like an easy one to think about is like we get our taxes done at tax time. So when do people find you? Right now, people are finding me when something in their business is changing. So they wouldn't say, I need a rebrand. Like that's how maybe a branding person would think, but my clients aren't thinking that. They're thinking, like, this shirt feels too small. I've I've outgrown it or just kind of scritchy in my, oh boy, I've got that website embarrassed. Like, oh my God, people are gonna go look at my website. It's so old, it doesn't reflect who I am anymore. So they've outgrown them something. Or they're like, I want to, you know, this old offer I used to sell just doesn't have any energy for me anymore. I don't want to do it. Or I really want to work with this new market, this new kind of ideal client. Or I want to work for the same kind of client, but at a higher level. So when, in the business sense, is really potent.

Jeanne 10:41

Well, that leads into my next question because you're talking about your clients, and I want to know why do so many brilliant thinkers struggle to articulate who they are.

Brynn 10:52

Um, somebody said to me something this morning, and I have a bone to pick with this phrase, don't overthink it. It's like, how many times do people get told something like, don't overthink it? When I was in college, I was a rower and we had this little British coach who was a pain in the neck, and he would say, Relax. And it just like, if you could just like relax, people like being yelled at to relax, and it's like, buddy, if I could like slip down to the 7-Eleven and get a six-pack of relax, I would. So don't overthink it. That's something that we hear and we tell ourselves. Don't overthink it. Don't like, what does that even mean? I think it means stop being you, stop thinking. Instead of like, if I want to crawl inside the overthinking mind, if I could, I would just like put my hands on their shoulders and say, it's okay. You know, I've got you. You've got you. So overthinking means I don't know what to come forward with first. I've got all these different ideas. I don't know which one is valid, I don't know which one's gonna have traction. I don't know what people are gonna buy. I don't really know what people are gonna need. And so overthinking is asking a lot of questions that you don't have the answers for.

Jeanne 12:01

Yeah, that's true, but that's some catchphrase that people say because they don't know what else to say. And they don't realize it imprints on people pretty heavily when you say things that um are just arbitrary.

Brynn 12:15

I actually think you're right. I think it's a catchphrase we use, but I think of them as license plate phrases. Like I think authenticity is for me a license. Like, let's be authentic. And I feel like it's lost its actual meaning. So that's why I crawled into that phrase, overthink it. And I get, well, what does that actually mean? And then here's the other thing, Jeanne, it's like what that means for me is different than what it means for you. So and I'm not bash on anybody who said that. It's just that uh catch-alls don't really find the truth inside of them. And that's what I'm interested in.

Jeanne 12:51

So you've worked across design, messaging, and entrepreneurship for more than 30 years. So, what's one lesson about communication that keeps showing up no matter what industry?

Brynn 13:02

Great question. I think the umbrella for me for all of the things and everything I've ever done is communication. And, you know, people say there's statistics like only 7% of our communication is verbal, the rest of it's body language and kind of mood and the vibe that we give off. So words are limited, words are hard. And especially when you're moving between worlds, not just like English and Spanish, for example, or energy work and engineering. Those would be two fun people to have in a room and try to, you know, are cardiologists and beekeepers. So we all have our own worlds and our own culture and our own language. So when we're trying to communicate with each other, you've probably heard like you have to talk to them like they're a third grader. And I'm not sure that that's actually it. I think we have to talk to each other like we care about being heard, like we care about the other person. Maybe we could go back and say, use the flower thing. Like when I give somebody some flowers, I want them to feel something as they receive it. You know, not like, oh great, wonk, here they go into the water. When I give somebody words, I want them to be received in a certain way. And so I'm paying attention to how that person, what kind of a receiver are they? If your musician is talking to a concrete designer, we can't have just music words and concrete words. I want the musician to be listening to that concrete person and sing a song that he or she can hear, and vice versa. I remember once hearing this, or maybe I made it up, I can't remember, but words are like if you walk inside a cathedral, like one of the cathedrals in Europe, and you look up and it's like it's just so stunning. And if we could make a cathedral with words so people walk into our brand and look up and go, oh, that's what you have for me, that's what I would like to give people.

Jeanne 15:00

That's pretty profound. I never thought of it like that. And just having gone to Sweden last year for Christmas and seen a cathedral that I went in and did exactly what you just said.

Brynn 15:12

Which cathedral was it?

Jeanne 15:13

Well, which cathedral I would not know if it's called a cathedral. It's it's an old church, and you know, the all of the um Swedish churches are all well kept. And but you walk in and the acoustics are great. You have choir singing in the back. So did you walk in and go, Yes, I did. I walked in and couldn't believe it. And then all around the wall, I kept staring at everything. They had shields and just you know, I can't say Viking stuff, but it did look like it was shields in there. It was just unbelievable. Even the walls, plaster or wood. Oh, they were concrete, just thick. I mean, this thing had been there since um 17 or 1800, sometime in that frame. Because the town my husband is from has a castle built by the Danish when they occupied Sweden. So that's how old it is in that area. Pretty old. I get what you're saying, though. That's profound. If you can make your business be that way, and people would just look at it like I'm in awe of you.

Brynn 16:11

So that's what I wanted to say. When you walk into a building like that, it's awe. And I remember reading there's a guy that wrote a book called Awe. Awe is not a feeling that necessarily has words. So people come to me for help with the words, and it's like I get that. But the trick to getting the words right isn't figuring it out here, it's getting inside. And that feeling of awe, it belongs in like vast spaces and transformations and sudden epiphanies, and they don't have words. It's just a feeling, right? So if I can match a feeling to the right language, then we can give our clients that feeling too of whatever it is. I just think awe is really cool because it's a speechless, like, wow, I was speechless. And I think that's a super common human feeling, but it's also one that's a universal one and one that's connecting to us. So if you walk into a cathedral, look over the rim of the Grand Canyon or Half Dome, and you're with somebody to share that all with, that's even better. So you had asked about communication. And I think communication is ultimately connecting, almost like connecting an invisible wire between us. And I think what gets uh passed along that wire is so important. In fact, it's funny, I I was geeking out on one point investigating lightning. And I remember it said supercharged air creates a conductive path. And I thought, that's even cool, like like a bowling lane, you know? And lightning, and it's like an invisible wire, and lightning jumps across that wire. And now when we're seeing all the Christmas lights coming up, it's like lightning jumps across an invisible wire. And I think that is actually what's going on between human beings. We're making little leaps and connections in all of the ways that we know how to do it. Sometimes it's music, and sometimes it's art, and sometimes it's language, and sometimes it's silence.

Jeanne 18:18

You're making me think about a lot of things, and uh, I can't even articulate it now. So here we go. But when I do see things like that, church, like you talked about looking up and seeing all. I think some people say my mind's blown, but I don't think my mind's blown. I think my mind is going way too fast for me to understand or catch what it's saying because I go into another place when I see something that maybe it's like there's a little hatch on the top of our heads and it opens up and it's like we burst out of our own beings and we're up in the sky.

Brynn 18:52

So maybe that what's mind blown is is we're actually just transported.

Jeanne 18:57

Right. Yeah, transported, I would say. Because I I couldn't even describe if you sat me down and said, describe what you saw. I couldn't do it. I kids describe the physical surroundings, but like you said, the feeling I could not really, it would take me a while because it was just beautiful, it was it was warm, it was just it was amazing.

Brynn 19:19

Can I tell you a story? Yeah. Someone I follow on Facebook named Anna Lapwood. She looks like she's 30 years old, little blonde, glasses, and she drives the gr uh plays, the biggest organs in the world, like St. Albert's Cathedral. And so on her Facebook feed, there's all these like, you know, it's that cat cathedral magnificence, and she is up there playing that organ, and she has videos showing how her feet move and all this. So she was at a practice, she was at a rehearsal. And the organ in this particular cathedral is way up high, and she heard some tourist visiting singing. And I think he was singing Amazing Grace, and he watching her video and she goes, and she hears him, and she drops in and she starts playing that huge organ with him. Like he's a tenor singing talk that I don't know. He's singing because he feels that awe, right? He's moved to hear, and you know, when kids go, Echo, echo, echo. Like we all do that. Like, oh, there's an echo, echo, because we want to hear that resounding return, I guess. The return of sound. So he's singing and she hears him. She starts playing along and he stops. He's like, Oh, what's going on here? Can you imagine being that guy? And then he starts singing again, and she hears where he is, and she picks right up in the song, and now he's singing even stronger. Can you imagine that moment? And she afterwards she left and tried to find him, but he was gone. So it was just this moment where electricity, huge voltage, shoots across the wire and connects two people. And the people that were watching, can you imagine being in that cathedral in that moment when some magic happened? And it's because somebody cared.

Jeanne 21:07

Wow, that is quite astounding. Do you want to say her name again? Because I want to remember it. I want to go look her up.

Brynn 21:14

Anna Lapwood, L-A-P-W-O-O-D. Lapwood. And she looks like a kid in a candy shop every time. Like, can you believe I get to do this? And talk about a life filled with joy, you know? Right.

Jeanne 21:29

Well, let's keep going. They've got so much interesting information for us and the listeners. So you've spent over five years coaching TEDx speakers. What's one transformation you witnessed that stayed with you? A moment where someone stepped into their voice in a way they didn't expect.

Brynn 21:53

And um, she's got a reputation of being kind of ballsy, no nonsense, direct. Direct powerhouse. She supports a lot of men in custody hearings. She wants to make sure their kids get access to their dads. So her tent talk was about divorce and men's rights and things like that. And you can find that if you Google Maryland, York. And I I remember the day that we were in different kind of a cathedral, like a theater up at the university where the speakers were practicing, and she stood with her body closed, her hands down. She's wearing this emerald green dress. She's a powerhouse. And I don't remember, it was years ago now, but I don't remember what I actually said, but it's like, be more you, not just use. There's data that shows the more gestures that people use in their TED Talk, the more views it gets. And it's not just like random gestures. And in fact, one of the things we used to tell people is like they take a step here and then a step there and then a step here. It's like, don't be a metronome, but be human. And she just expanded. And I I don't know, Jeanne. I ask people strange questions. It's like, what do you feel like when you're saying that? What do you feel like to call up the feeling from your body, from your what you believe, what you think to be true, that matters so much. That animates your speaking so much more. And she just it's like she she let a rip and she became really all of herself. And it was extraordinary. And that TED Talk has millions of views, as I think. It's been a while since I looked it up. But to watch people step into their own extraordinariness is a real gift. And the the heart of that work is these are to be the one who do TED Talks. Like I think of it as like a TED-level idea. Ideas worth sharing, as we say in the TED community. They come in with like imagine a manuscript with reams and reams of pages. Well, if you're going to boil that down to eight or 12 or 13 minutes, you got to leave out a lot of stuff. And the leaving out is hard. It's hard for people because those things are leaving out are important to them. They're important to their process or to their own chronology, to their own learning. So to be able to discern what matters and can stay, and what matters, and thank you very much. But you don't need to stay in this narrative, is the work.

Jeanne 24:32

That's great. You know, I mean, that topic seems like for men it would be super fantastic to hear, and somebody that's very, very knowledgeable. So if she was able to consolidate it and get that message out, that's great. So you're a good teacher.

Brynn 24:48

And she did. So the thing I love about Ted is Ted's not afraid of controversy. And people who are TEDx speakers are often they're not afraid to go out on a limb. That's bucks the convention. It's like, and that's exciting. When somebody brings us a new flavor of an idea and we can see it differently, I was just thinking about this the other day. I think that reframing is probably the ultimate superpower. So to let okay, fine, flying would be great too. But to be able to open up a new possibility in someone's mind because you were able to reframe that so skillfully. And they're like, Yeah, now I see. Now they're moving into a different kind of cathedral in their mind, and they're like, Oh, I get it. Oh, that's how some weird quantitative math works. Oh, wow, maybe I'm not bad at math. Maybe I just never really experienced the math cathedral before. And now it's lit up like a fuse inside me, and it's like, oh, so to ignite interest and possibility inside of other people, there's a thing I could do for the rest of my life. Are you still working as a coach for TEDx? No, no, it's been a few years. I do get people coming to me because they want to do a TED Talk. The thing about TED is TED's not for everybody, but TED is a long, hard, arduous process, and you have to make a lot of sacrifices with your time. Also, when people want to do a TED talk because there's this little whiff of want to be famous, like I want to do a TED Talk. I mean, it used to be like I want to have a New York Times bestseller because then I'll have, you know, made it. That doesn't appeal to me. But the ones who have this idea that's so potent and so big, it's like ripping out of their skin, and they've got to get it into the world. Now there's a TED Talk.

Jeanne 26:46

Wonderful. So entrepreneurs often try to communicate everything about themselves at once. I know that because I listen to a lot of people, they want to tell you everything at once about how they'll make everything better. So, what's one misconception people have about what makes a truly powerful message?

Brynn 27:08

Well, first of all, I have to own up to the fact like last night I gave my first masterclass, and it was, you know, it was like Niagara Falls of Blurt, exactly what I tell people not to do. So even those of us who know better, it's hard to figure out what to include and then what to let go of. So the discernment piece of messaging, and whenever I'm in a Zoom meeting and somebody shares and keeps sharing and goes on and on and on and on. So one of those license plate phrases, oh, she loves to hear herself think. But I think a lot of us, and I'm one of those, are verbal processors. So we know what we think when we're speaking it. But if you're sharing who you are with people, the trick is discernment. And it's actually a kindness, because nobody wants to be, you know, monologued all like blah, like this word vomit where you just kind of wait till the record comes to the end and finally it stops. So if somebody is trying to explain all of who they are and all of what they do all at once, people won't be able to hear it all. Like, we'll just tune it out. Because for self-preservation and because our brains are wired to do that, like, okay, that was enough. It's funny, Jeanne. I think of this elevator pitch kind of scenario. That's a very common one in messaging, what's your one-minute elevator pitch? I have a different vibe about it. I think that it's really interesting if it's have you ever been to a tapas restaurant when you're having those little small plates of yummy, delicious, like beef short ribs, and then a minute later they'll give you the plantains and the black beans. They're little plates with a few bites. And they might bring three to your table and then you eat them, and then you're talking to each other, and then time goes by, and oh, here comes another plate or two, like, oh, here comes that chicken mole one. So I think a good elevator pitch is like good tapas. You have a bite and you digest it, and then you wait for the other person to ask a question. So one way to stop saying everything is give them a little bit of an appetizer. One of the ways I like to do that in an elevator speech is to ask a question first. I'll give you, I'll use you as an example. Just try this out. Have you ever wanted to be on a podcast? And then with a question, I might say this about me. Have you ever struggled to find the right words to say? Or somebody who sells Christmas trees. Have you ever bought a Christmas tree and like it died within a day? So when I ask a context, a contextual question like that, then kind of planting a thought bubble in the mind of the other person where they're going, okay, now I know what we're talking about. So instead of like, here's about me and me, me, me, and blah, blah, blah, how about me? I'm like giving them something first. In other words, it's like, here's the menu. What would you like? Ah, thank you. Like, have you ever been in a triathlon or known someone who was in a triathlon? Then I'm gonna go, I've never been in a triathlon. No, me neither. But it lets the listener put a context in it. Because then if I said, have you ever wanted to be on a podcast? And then the listener would go, and I'm making this up, right? Yeah. Or God, away. But let's say it's yeah, then I'm ready. And now you've waited, and I and I might go, yeah. Then you could say, I have a podcast called Project Candor, and we do things a little differently. Stop. The other person, now I'm moving on to the other topas plate. Really, differently. How? And then you can tell how you do it differently. And that becomes a conversation instead of just a pitch, because a pitch can often be like getting like, you know, pelted with a billion snowballs all at once, and you're kind of ducking and wondering how you're going to get away. Right.

Jeanne 30:53

Well, as you're talking, I'm thinking of being from the project management realm in my career for many, many years, and even the technical side of things for a long time. It's almost like a modular approach. I don't know if you've ever programmed, but Yes, it is kind of a modular approach.

Brynn 31:09

It's like you're building Legos together.

Jeanne 31:12

Absolutely. Absolutely. Good concept. So, you know, you don't go in there with all your modules and throw them at the project. I mean, you're like looking at how do they fit together and then which one do we need to do first and which one comes next, or how can we switch them around. So I think when an entrepreneur is out there, they should compartmentalize or do a modular approach to, you know, incite people or to get people excited about what they're doing. Just like you were saying, you asked absolutely. That's why my mind was forming that because you were saying, you know, just drop a little and wait, and then drop another piece as the tappas are going by. Just don't get confused and go to a Brazilian steakhouse because they come by flying with all that meat and everything. I'd like always turning my thing over. No more, go away.

Brynn 32:01

Okay, that sounds fun. So you're making me think of a thing that happened with my kid when he was little. I remember like probably eight to ten. There were these cards called Magic the Gathering. Were they card that? Well, first of all, it was like a Pokemon card. Let's use that. People know that. Now, when two kids, like what I learned was they would build these card decks and they would battle with them. And the card decks were very deliberately laid out, kind of like a baseball lineup. Okay, my first batter, you know, she's got this, like, but my fourth one, like that fourth one is like they're gonna clear the benches kind of thing. So in the card deck, they were crafted to battle a card at a time. And so in a Pokemon game or Magic the Gathering game, and I'm making this up because I'll get it wrong, they don't like take that card, that deck, they don't do that. Remember that 52 pickup? Now go pick them up. That's just gonna slam somebody. So we're gonna very deliberately craft that first bite that we give somebody, and we want to wait for them to taste it and go, hmm, and then reflect on it and then give us something back, and then we're gonna riff on that thing. Like, yeah, wow, that bite tasted. Was there some asparagus in there? Yeah. Then I can go on. It's like that asparagus, I just got at the farmer's market yesterday. Really? And then now I'm having a back and forth instead of a whoa, whoa, you know, and Charlie Brown, whoa, whoa, whoa. Charlie did that. We don't want to be those people.

Jeanne 33:33

Right. Well, now I've got one more question, then we want to shift over to play in our game. But I really want to know a little bit more about you in particular. So when you're not helping others shape their stories, what sparks your creativity and what keeps your ideas alive?

Brynn 33:50

The truth is I love what I do so much. And it's it's kind of like I'm on this plane of paying attention to these things we've been talking about: cathedrals and awe and connection and sound and frequencies constantly. And I drop into it from another realm when I'm working with somebody. So, what do I do? It's funny. Like, look at your iPhone, look at the search history. Like, what did you Google? And if you looked at my iPhone search history, it's like all these bizarre rabbit hole questions. I find a question and it just sweeps me away, and then I want to know more about it. Okay, so I like thinking about language and sound a lot. I live near Lake Tahoe. It's about an hour away from the high desert of Reno, up into the mountains. And I love going up there to hike. And if I can get any excuse to get in that lake and swim, I will. It's too cold now, but I could still go in. Do the Arctic plunge. It's an Arctic plunge. But I've mastered the art of the perfect float. And my favorite time was this summer. I went in at about five in the morning, and I don't think I've ever swum in the lake when there was pitch dark and a vault of stars, and you could see the Milky Way above. And if I looked this way a little bit, I could see black trees. And if I looked that way, I could see black trees. But I was just like held in this lake and this, you know, dome of sky. So that's my fun.

Jeanne 35:17

So now you're making me think of the first time I met you and you told me to go listen to or get keeper of the stars. That sounds like part of that book. That was a good book. I took your recommendation, by the way.

Brynn 35:29

You know what? Just one second. Like, let's talk about that for just one second, okay? Because when we give somebody a book recommendation, we are giving them Anna Lapwood did in the cathedral, we're joining them in this love kind of a thing. And like, really? Yeah. Or you tell somebody about a movie you loved, yeah, or a restaurant, yeah. Like we're shooting lightning across that wire.

Jeanne 35:52

Oh, well, that's nice. Because I did take your book recommendation. I haven't done the second book recommendation, but because that was a project something, I've got it written down, but Oh, that was Project Hail Mary.

Brynn 36:04

That's another good one for anybody.

Jeanne 36:06

I tried to get my husband to get it, but um, he's got like a million in Q uh on his audible. Yeah, well, thank you. I like that. Well, Brian, it's been wonderful getting to know the mind behind the message. But now we're ready to open a different kind of door. Our guest has given us three story headlines, two true and one that's not quite true, or maybe a big fat lie. I'm gonna bring them up on screen, and so you folks that are watching can see them, and I'll read them out for people that are just listening. This episode is sponsored by Rebel 180, the home of brave pivots and fresh starts. Rebel 180 is all about helping you rediscover what's possible when you stop settling and start listening to that little tug inside that says, life can be different. Whether you're navigating a career shift, dreaming about a new direction, or standing at the crossroads wondering if it's time for your own 180-degree turn, Rebel 180 is a reminder you don't need permission to change your story. And now, as we open the door to our second sponsor, we're stepping into the world of tech. Simple socket print, the lightweight blazing fast label print solution designed for those who need reliability without the bloat. With version 1.5, you get instant printing in milliseconds, fully maintained print sequence, and automatic base640 decoding all without needing print driver installed. If you're running SQL Server 2016 or newer, Simple Socket Print 1.5 drops right in and gets to work. Keep your workflow simple, keep your label printing fast with Simple Socket Print. Thank you to our sponsors. Here we go. Number one story. Right. Letter, legal, or pant size. As a college freshman, Brynn broke a Xerox machine with her butt. It belonged to the athletic director. Don't tell me yet. I'm just reading them through. So there was the time when Brynn built a 40-foot cello with a local artist legend. And then I've got Bernie Man in brackets you had on your headline. And finally took the TEDx stage to tell about it. All right, the third story or headline you gave us, didn't know Yaks and Nepal played Frisbee. Neither did Bryn, but uh there she was, Everest Air, Arrest Day, a giant boulder, and one very unexpected discovery. So I'm not going to I don't I'm gonna guess, and what I'm gonna guess is that number one is a lie, but don't tell me yet. I want you to go through all the stories and let everybody get to know a little bit about you personally, and then we'll reveal at the end. So starting with number one. Okay.

Brynn 39:06

I was a freshman in college and a rower. And in a cruise shell, your feet are locked in in what we call footboards, and you're sitting on a sliding seat. And we kept having our legs go numb, our butts go numb, because the holes in the seat, which are shaped like this, and a hole in the middle, we thought maybe the holes are in the wrong place, like where men's butt bones are. So we sneaked into the athletic director's office and one by one whipped down our shorts. Yes, we had underwear on, jumped onto the Xerox machine, jumped down, the next person jumped up. I was the last person, jumped up and heard this crack. And then I heard someone say, Oh god, Bruner broke the Xerox.

Jeanne 39:53

Well, what were we gonna do with those? Like lay them over the holes to see if it was we're gonna send them to the boat builder and say, fix the holes. Oh, okay, okay.

Brynn 40:05

When you're 18 and you think you know the answer, right?

Jeanne 40:07

That was kind of an ingenious approach. Okay. Well, yeah, uh, I've seen people jump up there. Well, I've heard, no, I've seen people jump up there without their underwear, so you didn't have to put that disclaimer on it.

Brynn 40:22

Well, there's a little TMI, right?

Jeanne 40:26

Okay, number two.

Brynn 40:28

What about this uh 40-foot cello? So I had an idea, and it goes along maybe with this cathedral thing that we've been talking about. What if you built a cello that was so big, so big, you could maybe one of the little curvy side panels would come down and you could climb up inside it and close it back up, and then when somebody drew the bow across those strings, you would experience yourself as part of the instrument. And if you could do that, if you were surrounded by and suffused by music, if you were the instrument yourself, what would not be possible? So I live in Reno, Burning Man is just the next stop out on the playa, and there are people here that build huge sculptures and structures, and I knew exactly the right person to go to because of all the times that I've heard I want to do a TED Talk, I realized that's the one that I want to tell.

Jeanne 41:31

Nice. Can you tell us who this uh artist legend is? You wouldn't recognize her name, sorry. She's a Luther. Okay. So I think they use some of those kind of instruments when you go to gardens, like in Williamsburg, because that's an old country one. But I haven't I haven't ever you know played one. Um, all right. So what about the number three story in Nepal when you were you were with a group of friends or something? Give us that story.

Brynn 42:02

In 1989, I was invited by two friends, one of whom was my karate instructor, and her husband, who had been on the Everest expedition in 1963. He was the team doctor to go to Everest Base Camp. Another karate person, a friend of mine, Jessica, came with us. So we were four. And as we made our way, like you fly into Luca, which is the scariest airport in the world, and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk with days and days and days, we'd get a rest day. And we were up high enough that the people that we were surrounded were Tibetan villages. So we took a rest day and we did our laundry and which froze instantly and the line, and we took a walk, and there was these, you know, enormous grain, like there's Amadablom, there's Everest up ahead, still days and days away. Vast granite boulder with a flat top. So we climbed up there to see what we could see. And on the top was speckled with yak patties, dried yak shit that they would use as fuel. So my buddy Jess and I, we decided to play a little frisbee. And suddenly up over the edge of the rock, this house was this rock was like a house. And up over the top come these two Tibetan women, then they're like, they're stealing our fuel. And then they saw what we were doing, they just burst out laughing.

Jeanne 43:27

Well, you know, in country places they do have that cow patty sling or whatever, you know, toss or whatever. Big old cow paddy sling.

Brynn 43:37

Well, that's because it's too high for trees. We were above the tree line. So there was no other fuel except for yak dung. Oh.

Jeanne 43:45

I didn't know they crowd up that high. I guess uh but you were in Tibet, that's my where my favorite dog breed comes from.

Brynn 43:54

It's Nepal. Tibet was just just on the other side of Tibet's just on the other side of of Everest. I was in Nepal. Oh, you were in Nepal.

Jeanne 44:01

But my favorite dog breed comes from Tibet. They're the Lhasa Apsos. I don't know if you saw any of them. They're called mountain dogs. Was it cold?

Brynn 44:09

Oh yeah. I mean, we did our laundry and hung it on the line and the wind would blow. So all of our socks and underwear were like horizontal. Okay.

Jeanne 44:17

Yeah, so it was cold. So did you wear gloves? I wouldn't be touching these things. Oh, I don't remember. Oh, you don't remember. You didn't care at the time. It was just all at having fun. All right. So let's see. All those three stories. I already guessed that I thought number one was wrong. So you tell us what was the lie?

Brynn 44:37

The lie was the TED talk. I have never done a TED talk. Oh, okay. No. The Xerox. I definitely broke that Xerox with my butt. Um uh kids, right? So I never did do a TED talk, but I always thought that if I did, I'd want to do it on the 40-foot cello. And I knew there's builders around here that could do that. But my son, who played the upright bass at the time, said, Mom, so they have a thing, so there's a cello, and the next size up is the bass, right? And they've got something called the octobass. And I went and looked it up, and it's an octabass. And I think the full instrument, including the neck, is 11 feet high. What I didn't realize is when something that big, the strings, the guy has levers to, you know, when you're playing a stringed instrument and you hold your fingers to play the chords, it was 11 feet high, so he couldn't reach it. So there's a I think there's only a few. Like look it up, octabase. But here's what happens when the bow is drawn across something that big, here's what it sounds like. It sounds awful. It sounds like like an alligator in death throes. So if I was gonna make a cello 40 feet high, that would change the tone of those strings even more. So what I decided that I wanted was to keep that idea in my head. And it's been about six years that I've been mulling that over. I don't know that I ever need to build that cello, but the idea of being an instrument is still so fundamentally true to the work that I do and what I see in other human beings that if we could be like the full instrument that we are, I just feel like there's just nothing we couldn't do. So that was my lie.

Jeanne 46:30

Okay. Well, I thought it sounded really plausible, and I like the story of the 40-foot cello, but thank you. So I know people, it's been a great talk with you, and I know people are gonna want to get in touch with you. So I'm gonna put on the screen how that they can contact you. And I also want to say you have a brilliant quote out there that I thought folks should listen to or hear. You've got brilliance in your bones. Let's find the words that do it justice. Where did you come up with that?

Brynn 47:05

Just pulling one of those threads, Jeanne, all together. You you pull them, and what's revealed is the absolute brilliance that each person has. And a lot of times we just don't see it. So if I could be your mirror and help you see what's true, and that's what I love to do.

Jeanne 47:22

Great. I know you have contact information here, and then you have that grab the gift offer, which is where you kind of talk through that with people that want to reach out to you. Is that correct?

Brynn 47:34

Sure. So, what I'd love for you all to download is we talked earlier about when is your ideal client, like when is something happening. And I've identified six of the most common times that a business is changing. When you have a new offer, when you have a new client, when you have a new delivery system, like you're going from brick and mortar to online, for example. Or this year for me, I've stopped helping people become thought leaders and I've started training as a speaker. So that's a different delivery system. There's a shift in positioning the space that you occupy in your client's mind. There's a shift in thought leadership. And finally, the final pivot that I talk about is a pivot that's into more visibility. But there's another pivot that underlies all of them, and I see it over and over and over again, and this is probably my favorite part, it's a shift in identity. We become bigger, we become a more expansive version of ourself. And so, with those evolutionary shifts in our business, they all have to be wrapped up in new language that takes our clients along with them. So the pivot playbook at that link that says pivot map, that's what I used to call it. Please grab that and just see if one of those pivots sort of resonates with you. And then if you want to, you're welcome to book a pivot plan session with me and we'll talk about it. Awesome.

Jeanne 48:58

Thank you. Thank you again for being on the show. And hopefully you'll come back sometime so we can dig in more.

Brynn 49:04

Oh, it's been a total pleasure. Thank you, Jeanne, so much. Thank you. Bye for now. Take care.

Jeanne 49:11

Thanks for joining me on Project Candor, where the doors are open, the stories are unexpected, and the treasure is always real. If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew. Otherwise, I might just make you swab the deck. I'm Jeanne Anderson, your Admiral of the Unexpected. See you on the next Voyage.