This is where you can learn about Shannon, au natural.
UNBRANDED
Some of you know me as a writer/performer/artist. Some of you know me as a brand & naming consultant.
Some of you know me as a businesswoman. Advisor. Coach. Some just call me Shan.
I am all of those things, and more, of course. I have been building brands and running an identity & naming business for over a decade.
I coach others to find and live their truest self; I am obsessed with the craft of identity creation and truth-seeking—
But I’m also friggin tired of everything having to be so…BRANDED.
So, this is the place I put raw thoughts, new work & experimental creations — as I create them — in words, images or sound,
without needing to know what they are or whether they’re “marketable.” Thus, here I remain: UNBRANDED.
Sometimes I’m afraid of being inspired. Because then I feel stuff. And feeling cracks me open. I start to remember stuff. Like: that I'm ALIVE. And someday I won't be. And I FEEL. And someday that will stop. And I get all motivated to make spectacularly beautiful things expressing my gratitude for existing. Or try and figure out how to better blast the world with how much love I feel for this grand experiment called Living. But then it's so much, almost too much, yes it is too much, like when I watch bjork orkestral live and it just makes me ache with so much inspiration I want to explode. And I cry and feel like how can I ever, ever embody fully all the passion I feel? Like, really, how can I do it? It's impossible. I'll go crazy or die. But I pick up my pen, and try, clumsily at first, then a little smoother, which develops into a vivid openness, I feel my body relax, and suddenly I am in the slipstream of creation. I open wide and let whatever come out, come out, and I am at peace. I'm alive. It doesn't matter that I'm not bjork or a superstar or a famous writer or any other thing other than I am. It doesn't matter if I can't find a satisfying way to share the awe and exquisite joy I feel. To just feel it is enough. If I happen to pass on any spark of inspiration to any other living thing in this wide gorgeous flow, so be it. And if not, damn damn damn does it feel good to flow.
Hello again. Continuing the story on the value of quitting and why I decided to explode my business. (If you missed it, you can view Part I here)
First, I should explain what I mean by “exploding” my business, and confess that in a certain way, it’s always been my plan to “end” it. What I had to learn was how to quit my attachment to how it would happen.
The original vision
I’ve always thought of my business as more than a business. Sure, the point was to make money. That’s the definition of a business. But I seek a creative and spiritual component to everything I do, and House of Who, Inc. was no different.
Here’s the original 3-part vision:
1. Build a business. 2. Make it successful. 3. Explode it.
Shannon DeJong is a CEO. She’s also an artist. These two things are not mutually exclusive - however, they are extremely difficult to pull off. At the helm of her quickly growing San Francisco naming and branding agency, but equally passionate about performance art and acting, Shannon has been feeling like a woman divided. Read more and listen to all 10 episodes here.
A multimedia experiment exploring the artistic side of high-level business executives. I go on dates with professionals and bring a Mary Poppins-style bag of art supplies. We schmooze, network, talk shop… while making art.
Shannon writes and speaks on topics of truth in branding, female leadership, creative entrepreneurship, and mental health. Shannon was the keynote speaker/artist at the 2010 New Mexico Consumer Wellness Conference sharing a condensed version of her one-woman show, BURST. She most recently presented a talk at radio streaming company, TuneIn, about obstacles women face in business and their careers.
This idea is to create a multi-day retreat as a portal into another dimension, another time, into another version of ourselves.
The intention is to dive deep, reconnect with your true self, values and priorities (remember those?) and then to bring back the jewels lost at the bottom of the ocean — in other words: your creative juice. And maybe a full-fledged personal brand.
Wow.
(I am trying to tell you a story about our identity by living the life of a human being.)
We are being the story of Us by being a Me
“Each human story is unique”
(& I don’t disagree so
if you listen, an ‘I’ will speak).
But from what I can gather, from what I can sleuth
When I pull for my story
(if words born of truth)
