If you’re an entrepreneur, at some point you have no doubt had people tell you that your idea was crazy, you wouldn’t make it, or you should do something else. Plenty of über-successful people have heard this kind of thing. Think if Steve Jobs had listened to naysayers who called the Mac a toy. iPod and iPhone were also “supposed” to fail. Good thing someone believed in them.

Sometimes in brand strategy meetings, I encounter people who don’t believe in what they are doing, or they are severely lacking in confidence because they have listened far too long to people who do not believe in them. That’s one of the cool things I love about strategy: it can expose problems, illuminate new perspectives, and provide people with a unique opportunity for self-reflection and massive inspiration.

One of the most important lessons I learned early on in my career was that if you seek advice, seek it from those who truly believe in you. People who believe in you reinforce your belief in yourself (rather than instill any sense of doubt or negativity). You need little more than belief to carry you through the tough decisions and rough times that it takes to succeed.

I might have been a ditch digger

Before I went to school for graphic design and advertising, I had my detractors. My older brother told me I could never make a living as a graphic designer. It was too hard he said. Another relative told me, “Art isn’t a career.” People told me I shouldn’t move away from home. I took it all in with a grain of salt.

Instead, I followed my heart, and I listened to the people who believed in me: my dad, mom, and my trusted teacher. They totaled three people whose voices stood out above all the rest, all the people who would rather I succumb to fear than follow my dreams.

I recall seeing a handwriting analyst on a drunken lark late one night with some friends. She told me I would never make it as a graphic designer and that I should focus on manual labor! Good thing I tossed that advice right into the ditch.

After graphic design school, I was fortunate enough to find my way to good professional mentors. They consistently told me that my portfolio was atypical for an art school graduate; that my thought processes were different, and my solutions stood out from what they usually were subjected to in meetings with aspiring art directors. My adviser repeatedly pounded into my young impressionable brain the idea of opening my own studio.

After gaining some professional experience in senior level design and advertising positions, that’s exactly what I did. My previous positions as graphic designer, two stints as an art director, and another as marketing director gave me the well-rounded background and confidence I needed to really excel.

Do you believe in what you are doing?

I met a physician a few years back who wanted to hire me to design an identity for him. During the intake interview, I got the feeling that this doc was severely burned out. I asked him if he enjoyed his work. After a very long pause, he replied, “No, you know I really don’t enjoy it anymore. Patients don’t value what I do enough. I would rather be doing something else, and I just want to make a lot of money at this point in my life. I would like to do something else.”

Imagine if those thoughts were driving your daily motivation while you stayed in a job you don’t enjoy. It’s no crime to get burned out. But if you no longer believe in what you’re doing, it’s healthy to rediscover your belief or shift your focus.

Love what you do, do what you love

If you love what you do, on the other hand, it’s easy to keep believing in yourself. Your interactions with your your personal brand or your corporate brand, as well as your clients and peers, reinforce your beliefs, providing inspiration and motivation on a daily basis.

Doing what you love makes work seem like play. Listen to the wisdom of people who believe in you, even when their advice may be tough to hear, and believe in yourself!

Imagine you are a baby. You are sheltered in their mother’s womb for nine months. Everything you need is provided in a warm environment. When born, you transition from everything you need being completely taken care of to 100% needy in the span of just a few minutes. If that’s not a shock to the system I don’t know what is.

What happens next? You are cleaned off, checked over, wrapped in a blanket, held and coveted. Everyone around you is joyful and smiling. You are fed, held, and instantly loved.

Then you learn how to learn. You are taught, and you grow into a full-fledged, working, breathing, consuming adult.

We spend the entirety of our adult lives working to get that same feeling, that same attention, utter bliss, love. There are a plethora of ways to define and attain those feelings; products and services designed to fulfill our desires and needs. If you brand your business, products and services just right, you can be among the tons of entrepreneurs and companies ready to provide them.

If you fail to brand or do so without integrity, you will get beat out by those who do it right. They’re the businesses who understand that telling their story in a true and meaningful way will create an almost magical bridge between their business and clients – people who are looking to connect, to capture that feeling of being held and coddled, taken care of, loved.

It’s not hard to brand right, but it’s much easier to brand poorly – just like it’s easier to reject than to accept. The cool thing about babies is that they can accept nearly anything. While I’m not suggesting that you talk to your clients like they’re babies, I’m saying that keeping it simple – keeping your brand true and real – is a much more sound brand strategy.

People appreciate honesty and integrity. Wrap them in the blanket of your true story, your real brand. Take care of them, and they will welcome you into their lives on a regular basis.