Unless you’ve only just become a LinkedIn contact of mine, I am sure it won’t have gone unnoticed that since my cardiac arrest last year, I have been spending quite a lot of time talking about the importance of slowing (the fuck) down.
A few people have remarked upon the fact that it seems to have become a full time job and asking whether I am still running Glow. The answer, of course, is abso-bloody-lutely! Anyone who has ever worked with us will know that talking about well-being is not actually a new thing; and the message of carving out space for thinking, and working towards making more meaningful choices is as relevant to Brands and Teams, as it is to individuals.
Firstly, as a speaker, mentor, coach, NLP Practitioner and Marketing Academy bootcamp regular, anyone who has spent more than 8 seconds with me will know that talking about personal development, well-being and growth is like breathing for me. Even during my days as a client – albeit marketing was my primary responsibility, everyone knew my passion was for my team’s, in fact the whole team’s, development. I was wholly appreciative of the fact that our marketing would fall flat on its face if the customer experience didn’t match the external promise and that meant that engaging, motivating and supporting all of our people became as much of an obsession for me as making great ads.
The fact that there were so few agencies lined up to support this enormous and exhaustive part of my role (vs the hordes of creative agencies vying for my attention!) that it’s in fact the reason why I set up Glow London. Delivering a powerful people experience is part of Glow’s DNA and any client who works with us will benefit from this passion for people.
Thus my second point, which is that our passion at Glow London is BrandCulture; we believe that your internal culture should be invested in and prioritised with as much energy and focus as your external brand, so the team feels connected, motivated and seen. And that means giving everyone the right support, the right tools and a genuine environment of well-being to be able to care for themselves and others. If you’ve actually read or heard about #Slowthefuckdown you’ll know it’s not actually about doing less, it’s about making more meaningful choices, giving space and time for thinking and prioritising mental and physical health. And undoubtedly, people who have more balance, are more considered and who don’t rely on adrenaline to get them through the day, are much more productive, creative and effective than those of us running around like busy fools.
Ultimately, both #STFD and BrandCulture are about improving performance and that is in our DNA. We are part of the PlanetK2 Group who are human performance experts and we make it our mission to help the business world think, prepare and perform like elite athletes and it doesn’t get more high performance than that.
So there you have it. BrandCulture, high performance and STFD are all just different sides of a very shiny beautiful (and 3 sided?) coin that we’re proud to spend every day immersed in.
And if you’ve read this and are thinking “we could do with some help with this stuff” then obviously get in touch!