“The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity.”

It creates in the mind of the prospect the perception that there is no product on the market quite like your product.

Even if all the cattle on the range look pretty much alike.

You have to reduce the essence of your brand to a single thought or attribute.

The new product, if it’s going to be successful, is going to require a new name. New ladder, new name. It’s as simple as that.

Only brand names register in the mind… What you should generally do is take a regular word and use it out of context to connote the primary attribute of your brand.

The reason is obvious. A well-known name got well-known because it stood for something. It occupies a position in the prospect’s mind. A really well-known name sits on the top rung of a sharply defined ladder.

An attribute that nobody else already owns in your category.

A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.

The real barrier (to building a brand) is the human mind.

If you want to build a brand, you must focus your branding efforts on owning a word in the prospect’s mind. A word that nobody else owns.

Good things happen when you narrow your focus.

It is better to have 50% of one market, instead of 10% of five markets.

Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect.

You need to allow enough time for this forgetting to take place

Your brand’s power lies in dominance.

Positioning is how you differentiate yourself in the mind of the prospect.

You still won’t be perfect, but success isn’t about perfection-it is about authenticity. You are a success if you are being your real, authentic self.

Busyness is the unrivaled archenemy of spiritual authenticity.

Stay true to yourself. People respond to authenticity.

It takes a lot of courage to be the same person on the outside that you are on the inside.

I try to make music with emotion and integrity. And authenticity.

Authenticity and sincerity were the most important unifying principles of all these apparently different essays.

Jorge Luis Borges was lamenting a variety of Orientalism that was used to measure the alleged authenticity of Argentine and Latin American writers in the midcentury.

Our primordial purpose is to respond to the impulsion from within to solve the mystery of our individual existence, to find and be the authentic Self that is, has been and ever shall be.