The Brand Side
Brands rebrand all the time. They change their logos, rewrite their mission statements, pivot their entire identity, and they do it with a press release and a confident "we've evolved."
No apology tour. No lengthy explanation of what went wrong with the old version. Just: Here's who we are now.
Think about how many times you've watched a company shift its positioning — new name, new colors, new voice, from Dunkin, to Burger King and barely blinked. Because brands are supposed to evolve. It's expected. It signals health, responsiveness to its customers’ needs, and growth. When a brand stays exactly the same for too long, we start to wonder if anyone's paying attention (except for Cracker Barrel. Remember that? We noticed!)
Nobody sends a brand a DM asking, "But who were you before? Which version was the real one?"
The Human Side
People, on the other hand, agonize.
We rewrite our bio four times and still aren't sure it sounds right. We introduce ourselves at a networking event and hear the old version of our title come out of our mouth before we can stop it — the one that fit three pivots ago. Or even worse, we fumble in our explanation, making us seem less credible for being vague. We update our LinkedIn headline and then quietly change it back because it felt like too much, too soon.
We feel like we owe people an explanation. Like we need to account for the earlier version of ourselves before we're allowed to present the current one.
Like evolution requires a disclaimer.
Somewhere along the way, we decided that brands get to change their minds, but people need to justify it.
And the guilt is real. Not dramatic, not paralyzing, just this low hum of: Is this allowed? Will people think I'm inconsistent? What will the people who knew the old version think?
The Insight
Here's what I keep coming back to: language is a lagging indicator of identity.
You change first. The words come later, sometimes much later. By the time you're searching for a new way to describe yourself, you've already been the new version for a while. The discomfort you feel around the words isn't a sign that something's wrong. It's a sign that you moved before you had the vocabulary for it.
That gap between who you are and the words you're still using isn't a flaw in the process. It's just part of how humans update. Messier than a brand refresh. Less coordinated. No rollout strategy. But no less real.
The guilt, though? That part isn't necessary. That's not part of the process. That's just noise.
Where I've Been Sitting With This
I've been in this gap myself. For a while, I was using words to describe my work that felt accurate but didn't quite fit anymore, like wearing the right size from two years ago. Not wrong exactly, just slightly off.
Part of what pushed me to build the Voice Translation Session — a working session I offer to help people find the language for who they're becoming — was exactly this.
The realization that the struggle to update your words isn't a writing problem. It's a translation problem. You know who you are, what your business does for your clients or customers. You just need help finding the words that match it.
Brands hire entire agencies for this. They call it a rebrand and budget for it accordingly.
You're allowed to take it seriously, too.
You don’t need to earn the right to use new words for yourself. You just need to start using them to define who you and and your business have become, today.
Till Next Wednesday,
Aliya