Episode 11: The Purpose Driven Brand Strategist

Know how to get comfortable with career discomfort? You should. The pace of change in today’s world of work is accelerating. Anne Oudersluys, Founder and Chief Strategist at Core Impact, shares how she has become increasingly adept at forging a non-linear career path.

Anne is a purpose driven marketer. She has embraced a sustainable approach to marketing. She “found” brand building after dabbling in law and politics. Now, she helps mission driven brands succeed.

She lead sustainable brand building at Procter & Gamble. She studied Social Studies and International Relations at Harvard. Now, she is embracing life as a entrepreneur. Plus, she writes a thought provoking newsletter that explores a variety of marketing topics.

Anne shares some of the things she has learned over a 20-yr career honing her brand building skills. She encourages listeners to focus on the next step, to learn that discomfort isn’t bad, to see their awesome personal power, and more.

Here are a few themes from the episode. You'll have to listen to get more...

The Next Step Matters Most

Anne championed career prototyping: considering what your next step should be and testing it. This helps take pressure off of you. Rather than worrying what the end will be when you retire and how to get there, look at what interests you now and if it aligns with your strengths.

“I'm a big believer in prototyping with when it comes to career…That could be as simple as trying to sell something, starting a side hustle, or as basic as even just having interviews to understand, is there a market for what you're trying to do? We sometimes do too much thinking and not enough doing when it comes to figuring out what's the right next thing for us.”

Personal Power > Positional Power

Anne shared some of the best advice she received from a manager: recognize the expanse of your personal power. She saw first-hand how some people created unique roles at work that were completely based on their own exploration. Describing advice from her manager, she said…

“Your personal power always exceeds your positional power. He drew this little bullseye graphic where the positional power was in the middle. Your personal powers outside of that. He said, “It's limited thinking when we just take what the position we are given is, and just assume that those are the boundaries on what we can deliver. If we understand the position, like the personal power that we have, is much broader than that. We seize that ourselves and go beyond that. We really create and expand our role.””

Get Comfortable With Discomfort

Anne encouraged us to be comfortable with discomfort. She’s right. We are imperfect beings. We make mistakes. Yet, mistakes lead to success. They do more than help us learn. They open us up to new paths we hadn’t considered. We never have it all figured it out. It’s hubris to think we do.

“You have to just fall on your face and be a little bit embarrassed and realize you could have done it differently…Being uncomfortable, that's one of the things I try to subscribe to is be comfortable being uncomfortable. The moment we get too comfortable in what we're doing and we have mastered and we're really good at it. One, it can become boring and two, we stop growing.”

Need Help With Purpose-Driven Growth? Connect with Anne!

Curious to learn more about Anne’s work helping purpose driven companies create a clear roadmap for sustainable, mission-driven growth? Check out her company Core Impact! At Core Impact, she helps companies define what they stand for, attract more customers, and grow their impact.

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