Guest: Brynn Breuner, Mindspark Branding

Episode Introduction

Language is how we connect, how we sell, and how we make sense of who we are.

In this episode of The Hook, I talk with Brynn Breuner, founder of MindSpark Branding, a creative strategist who approaches branding from the inside out. Brynn helps entrepreneurs and professionals find the right words to express what they truly do, not just what fits neatly in a tagline.

We talk about the power of language, the courage to be “weird,” how Human Design helps us understand our wiring, and why our words are the bridge between intention and connection. This conversation will shift the way you think about how you speak, write, and share your work with the world.

Branding From The Inside Out

​Sarah: Hello everybody. Welcome to The Hook with Sarah Larson. I have a fantastic guest today that I’m really excited to introduce. This is Brynn Breuner with Mind Spark Branding, and she is gonna tell us a little bit about what she does, and then we’re going to get into our conversation. 

Brynn:

Hi Sarah. I’m so glad to be here with you. 

Sarah: I’ve been looking forward to our conversation. 

Brynn: Yeah, me too.  

Sarah: Tell us just a little bit about what you do with Mind Spark Branding. 

Brynn: So I do fit under that kind of branding umbrella, but it’s different than most people think about branding, which is often colors and typefaces and websites and logos.

I can do all that stuff, but what I’m really interested in is, I think of it as branding from the inside out and the palette that I play with is language, so I help people with their message, but on other levels I help people find the words that they need to actually connect with and resonate with their clients because I find that most of us speak from our perspective, kind of because we have to, right?

But we don’t really connect on a marketing level. Like marketing doesn’t really stick until, and you’ve probably heard of this, until we enter the conversation that’s in somebody else’s head. So I’m a weird language geek and I just love what I do. 

Sarah: I love what you do too. I really started getting to know you through one of your freebies, and the language is just really magical.

The language on your website, your email signatures, I could tell that you were a word smith. 

Brynn: Thank you. And that’s of course like, you know, the cobbler’s kids. Like doing my own is eye-rolly, right? You know, it’s funny, and you asked me earlier, but I work with a kind of unique slice of people, both entrepreneurs and folks in corporate.

They do work that’s hard to describe, that gets stuck up in their head thinking, “Oh my God, what do I say about this?” And we do a few things. We first sort of simplify it into its most banal form. Who was I talking to yesterday? “I’m an executive coach.” And you know, there’s more to it, right?

And then as I talk to her, it’s like, “Oh, you’re not really an executive coach,” She’s like, “I know.” It’s just like a convenient handle so people have a hope of understanding. 

And then the other people, it’s like, “Hey, what do you do?”

“Blahblahblahblahblah…” Kind of barfing words all over. People hope something sticks and it’s because you’re so excited about it. 

Sarah: Oh, that’s amazing. But so true. I also have that same thing. I introduce myself as a business coach, but there’s so much more to it than that. Diving into what that means specifically for my clients is a challenge for me. 

Brynn: Yeah, I feel for us humans, because language is, you know, without being able to hug somebody, or if that’s even appropriate, language is the best thing that we’ve got, right? Besides body language and energy.

Language is our best tool, and yet we give ourselves so much grief about it. Like, oh, we’re up in our head. And I was just looking at somebody who says, “I have this southern accent. I hate it. It gets in the way.” And it’s like, “Oh, but it’s you, right? It’s you.”

The Power Of Language And Self-Expression

Sarah: It is. Well, I would like to start with some background.

Tell me where you grew up, what was growing up like? 

Brynn: I grew up in the East Bay area, back when there were a lot of open hills covered with grass and foxtails and poison oak. And I was one of five kids and we spent all our time outside doing crazy things on go-karts and climbing trees and swinging rope swings.

Our family also took a lot of road trips, but they were sort of low-key road trips. We’d go up to Tahoe or we’d go out to the beach, and we’d have a lot of low-key adventures. I have many memories of being in the way-back of the station wagon. There was where my parents sat, and then the backseat, and then the little seat in the middle? That’s where my twin sisters sat–no seat belts–and then the way-back. The way-back faced the cars behind you. I remember just like on lots of trips, it’s funny, this language thing, making up games for myself. Like I remember trying to make up games like, what are all the different color names I could make up in the crayon box when they have blue, green and that.

Like I’d make up my own color names, and I just remember seeing fields go by and just making up names for colors. But I liked that for some reason. So, growing up was fun, mostly outside, and often internal. I was a huge reader. Language was sort of a centering force for me.Thoughts, thinking… 

I was probably more of an odd duck than anything. I wasn’t one of the cool kids. I gave myself so much grief about that for so many decades until I just realized we’re all different, right? Everybody. Yeah. And it’s funny because one of the speeches I talk about is like, “Are you weird or is that how you’re wired?”

I think it’s really interesting how people’s minds work. And if we could just kind of align the way that we think and what we are interested in, with the thing that we actually do. Like, wouldn’t that be a great assessment for kids going into college? Like, not just “What are you going to do when you grow up?” but like, “What kinds of things are you uniquely gifted with noticing?” 

“You’re a pattern number analysis person.” 

“Oh, you’re a connecting…”

 I just love thinking about that.. 

Weird Or Wired: Embracing Difference

Sarah: I loved the connection that you just said, the language twist that you did here with weird, are you weird or are you just wired that way? Yeah, that was tricky.

Brynn: I was definitely weird and I still am. I was a weird kid. I didn’t fit into the social norms that, you know, we’ve talked about that maybe that was the gay thing coming out. I think I loved how I was. I just was really aware that other people like it didn’t fit. Left my own devices, I was a happy girl. It was in contrast to what other people, how I was supposed to be, that things got a little bit scritchy. 

Sarah: I think that’s a challenge for many. We have this thing of how we’re supposed to be. When we aren’t fitting into that mold, it causes some friction.

Brynn: Don’t  you sort of think like, I’m of a certain age, that we spend so much time wishing we weren’t the way that we were being. That way instead of like going, “Oof, I’m that way.” Not necessarily. “Here’s what I do for a living,” or “Here’s how much money I’m making,” or “Here’s a relationship,” but like, ooh, like squeeze all the marrow out. I’m that way. 

Sarah: That’s really interesting, and this is sort of a tangent. I know you’re into Human Design as am I. 

Brynn: I know just barely enough to be dangerous on that, but it’s so interesting. 

Sarah: One of the things that I was trying to describe to somebody recently, and it was something that I felt like was a bad thing about me until I discovered Human Design, is that I don’t always finish things. I’m a Manifesting Generator, which means I skip around and I like a lot of different things and I like to investigate a lot of different things. 

Brynn: And the one thing I know about you guys, you Mani Gens, as somebody says, you skip steps. 

Sarah: Yes. We skip steps and we jump around. And so somebody was just telling me yesterday, “What if you just focus on one thing?” And that’s really not how I’m built, and I am so glad that I finally figured that out 

Brynn: So that’s what I get excited about. Human Design too, is like, oh, this is how I’m built. Like I’m designed perfectly for things that I’m good at. Don’t you just think that would give the world so much more grace? If we knew, oh, you are built perfectly for why you’re here. 

Sarah: Yes. That’s the key because we are all built perfectly for why we’re here. We just don’t know it. Most people aren’t aware of it, and so we’re all trying to fit into what somebody else has said is the way we’re supposed to be.

Brynn: You know, it’s funny, so you talk a lot about disruption, and lately I’ve been thinking of, sorry you didn’t ask this, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about autism. There’s a woman named, sorry, I’m gonna blank out on her name. She did a great podcast with Glennon Doyle.

She’s an Australian comic. She was on the autism spectrum, and I suddenly saw it not like this, but like a field-like space with kind of bumps and valleys, almost topography. And the way that her mind works is there, and all these other things come into play, and it’s like the neurodivergence conversation is super interesting to me.

Just because if we’re thinking of it as disruption, like that’s just how she was wired. It was disruptive if it collided with somebody else’s expectation. So I begin to think, wow, the expectations we hold of ourselves or of other people. That’s where we get into trouble. We think it’s normal to have expectations.

Sarah: But we need to meet people where they are and not where we expect them to be. Does that make sense? 

Brynn: Yeah. Snap. Snap here. Join me where I think you oughta be. Right. Right. You know, parents will realize that’s one of our biggest lessons. Oh, that was my plan, not his.

The Language Of Perspective

Sarah: I’m loving this conversation already. What happened after high school? What was your trajectory from there? 

Brynn: Where I grew up, I think I didn’t belong in a lot of different ways, and like I said, like I thought that was something wrong with me. So after high school,I went to Denmark and lived there for a year. I was a foreign exchange student, and it’s because I hung out with some of the other exchange students who came to our town in the East Bay of California near the San Francisco Bay. I remember having friends from France and Thailand and a Swedish person. And I met somebody, another American who had been to Denmark. And I was like, sign me up.

So I went to Denmark for a year. There’s a language tie in. It was a hard year and that was over 45 years ago. It’s sunk roots into every aspect of my life that year. 

Sarah: Really? Yeah. In what way? 

Brynn: To be connected to this family. To be like, it’s informed all my cells in a way. Now I know that. What happens in one language? Like I learned Spanish, sort of as a high school kid, right? To know that language, how we say things and what, what the words are actually, is kind of a spatial reference to life. The words that we have access to inform how we think. 

They’ve done all these studies. I just read one that said some language, and he called them futured or unfutured language. I don’t really know what that means, but I can only guess an unfutured language, of which Danish is one and English is not. It was like there was no future tense. And so I’m not saying this very well, but it affected how people see time and space, like some languages see future there (pointing forward) like we do, and some see it there (pointing behind) because they can’t see it.

You know how people read left to right or Right to left. All of those things affect how we see the world. There are words in Danish that we don’t have in English, and a lot of people are kind of dialed into this word, Hygge [pronounced hyoo-guh], and it’s a feeling that they have. So that was my first immersion in otherness, and then the way that you can crawl inside otherness to find pieces of yourself. 

Sarah: I didn’t know that about different languages. Not having a future tense and how that would affect…

Brynn: Yeah, that’s an undeveloped thought in my mind. But one that I have often thought of, and people that are listening to this, if you have another language or you are of another language, I’d love to hear what you think. But Danish is a smaller language than English. So, for example, and there’s probably gonna be Danes listening to this that are gonna tell me that I’m full of it.

I remember the word for fast. In English we have all these different varieties. Fast, speedy, rapid, quickly. Danish, and I learned 18-year-old Danish, has one word, Horty. And so I wanted greater expression. I wanted a bigger palette of words, and I would get frustrated. And also that we have phrases that we say, “See you later.” “Oh, hi honey.” Like the things we say when we greet, and “Sleep well.” Danish has very clear patterns, and I always felt hemmed in. It’s funny, I wanted to scrabble out the top of this language and use a lot more words. 

Sarah: Wow. You’d have to create new words for them, I think. 

Brynn: So when we’re talking to each other like a service provider and customer or client, I’m so aware of language as our greatest asset and kind of the weak link too. Cuz if we don’t hear people, we can’t meet them where they are, right? 

Sarah: Yes. And I had an example of this just the other day. I was talking with a friend, a close friend, somebody that I feel knows me pretty well and should completely understand everything I’m saying, right?

But we were looking at a flat surface. She was looking from one angle. I was looking from another, and I was referring to top and bottom, and I meant the top and bottom of the layers. Something was on top of something else. 

She was going from edge to edge. She was looking at the top and bottom of the page from her angle and couldn’t understand why I was saying what I was saying. It made no sense to her until I finally went, we’re not talking about the same thing, even though we’re using the same words. 

Brynn: So you had to have that awareness. So in that language article that I just read, it was from the BBC. They were also talking about space and time, the future, and the past. They were talking about how some languages they, the directional has an object to it. He talked about German. I don’t speak German, like “We’re gonna go across this field” and in English we’d say, “So we go diagonally over there.”

And the German speaker was a little bit lost because in that language structure, the object was like, for example, towards that church. And without that they were adrift a little bit. So I feel like, as humans, we try so hard, right? But I feel like we run aground when we’re trying to communicate with each other and drift a little bit, just like you noticed.

And I feel like noticing is our privilege. And when we serve other people to notice what they need to notice. Oh, this is not lining up with what I think, instead of saying, “Think like me,” say, “Wait a minute, what?”

Sarah: Yes. Think like me. And maybe I wouldn’t have been as, I mean, I was very impatient cause I’m like, “I’ve said this like three times.” I don’t know how to say it differently, but this is a dear friend of mine. So of course I’m trying to figure out why she doesn’t, 

Brynn: You gave a little bit more leeway there. 

Sarah: I gave a little more leeway. And finally it clicked. Oh, that’s what she’s seeing. And what she’s hearing is different than what I’m seeing and what I’m saying.

Brynn: It’s funny, Sarah, I think that one of the examples that, I’m dating myself again, that we are most familiar with is Pictionary. There are people that play Pictionary and they draw something and then as people are guessing, they’re stabbing it, instead of, “Okay, they’re not getting what I’m doing, maybe I’ll try a different thing.” 

So it’s like our thinking too. It’s like, okay, you’re not getting it. Applying brute force, that’s not gonna help you understand. It’s gonna amp up the frustration for you. So it’s like, okay..

Sarah: What’s another way? Brynn: Step back and kind of recalibrate how I wanna try.

That’s a Job?

Sarah: That’s interesting. Okay, well, what happened after Denmark? 

Brynn: Oh, we had a line of thought.

Sarah: We did, we had a whole different trajectory, which I loved. 

Brynn: So after I came back from Europe, I went to school in southern California. I went to Santa Barbara for a year, and then moved back up to Berkeley.

And went to Berkeley for four years. That was an extraordinary experience for me. For all sorts of reasons. I was a rower. I joined the crew team, and that was another thing that has informed every cell in my body because I’m still, and always will be, a team person. Rowing is a unique sport in that you are the sum of the total, not a series of stars doing their thing. 

I remember in high school and college I was always doodling like I was a doodler. What I was often doodling was letters. Like I remember doodling Maharaja, which is a logo for a water ski. I don’t know if they make those anymore. And I met a family friend and went and saw her, and she was a graphic designer, and I thought, what? So I’m making t-shirts for the crew team. I’m like, T-shirts, big deal. Like all these messages and early hashtags. I was like, oh, this is a thing. Like this is a career. Like what I do for fun. That’s a job. 

So I went back to art school, and I don’t think I ever finished, I think I ran outta money, but the things that I always loved and paid attention to, like I really loved that for a long time. So I was a graphic artist for 30 years working for different companies or working as an independent, helping schools.

I did a lot of schools, I did a lot of nonprofits. And then along the way. Like 10 years ago, I went to a conference in New York. So fast forward lots of time, right? Lots of things. And in this conference was a woman talking about branding and I thought. I went and sat in the front of her little breakout and there’s the people that like most people, go in the back.

I’m not that kind of person. I’m like in the front going, “Anybody have a question?” It’s like, “Well, how many do we get?” She was talking about this, and I realized in her conversation this is what I’d been doing for years without ever having an idea about it. So just like at the beginning, I was making all these t-shirts and designing things without realizing that was a thing.

And as I kind of progressed through my career, I was caring more and more about what people were saying, what they meant, what was important to ’em, what were they actually trying to communicate and cared less and less about typefaces and paper and all that kind of stuff. So, I made a pivot and I thought it was gonna be a little. It was a complete reboot.

So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years. And as time goes by, all the things that we’ve been talking about, they get distilled into all the same thing. And I feel like what it is, is a quality of caring for the people that we’re connecting with. And if that’s in business or like I do that TED Talk thing on the side. If it’s the quality of caring and attuning to the people that we’re trying to create a bridge with. That’s what I care about. 

The Art Of Communication

Sarah: I love that. You’ve mentioned the TED Talk thing, and that was one of the things that brought me to meet you. Do you want to talk about that at all?

Brynn: Yeah. I love talking about Ted. Well, here I am. My favorite thing is working with people that do weird, cool and exciting stuff. And that’s Ted. I don’t know how old you were when you discovered Ted, but for me it was like, what? People are talking about ideas. That was like a magic carpet for me. Let’s go. 

So when I moved to Reno, I became involved with the local TED group here, and first I was on the speaker team just kind of checking it out. I’m kind of bossy, so like when it was time for feedback, and this is what I do, like “What are you saying? What are you not saying?”

What are you saying that’s extra? And maybe this piece needs to move in front of that piece so I have a chance of coming along with you. So I’ve done that for over five years, and it’s extraordinary work. Ted is all volunteer based, and I’ve served a number of different roles. 

I was the backstage crew chief for a couple different events where you have to wear one of those big things on your head and tell people where to go. I like that. But what I really like is working on the speaker selection team, where we’re helping people hone their communication. And so what I’m doing now is, and all those years people would say, I wanna do a TED Talk.

It’s a big deal. It used to be that having a New York Times bestseller was your lock on for credibility, but now it’s a TED talk. But here’s the deal. Not every talk, not every speech is a TED talk, not by a long shot. So out of the gate, a lot of people get eliminated, and I’ll tell you the number one thing that gets eliminated is “my story.”

Here’s my story, and this thing happened and this thing I had to overcome, and then this happened, and then here I am. Like that’s a great talk, but it’s not a TED talk. A TED Talk has to be inspired by, or supported by, or germinating from a big idea, an idea worth spreading. 

What I’m doing now is I’ve got a group course that’ll be kicking off at the end of January to help people formulate that big idea to make sure that it’s strong enough, like they wanna go to TED, they can. But really it’s to clarify and make more precise and concise your communications on any level with your business or your organization, or if you wanna do a speech, all of that stuff, you have to be able to strip out.

It’s funny, Sarah, I was thinking this morning, maybe I should make a course for people who tend to go on and on too much. Probably like I’m doing right now. Or would they have a question like, do you wanna meet next week? And all the things they’ve gotta do that go all… And then finally like, well, I mean, do you wanna meet?

Well, yeah, but they have to say all the things first. Like there are people that are saying a whole lot. So my mind is creating a thing called Pause to help them hold on. Discern, strip down, wait, make sure other people can join you. It’s just a funny dance we do with communication and I’m just besotted with it.

Sarah: I love that. I mean, I can’t think of anything more exciting than somebody who is passionate about their work. 

Brynn: I’m passionate about what they’re thinking of and passionate about what they’re gonna bring to the world. Like I know this. The real TED ideas, it’s funny, they will not let you go. So people said, have you done a Ted Talk, Brynn?

Nope. Why? Because I don’t have an idea that’s stuck like a burr in your sock that will not let you go. But I work with a lot of people, and they are magnificent. They’re also imperfect, and many of them are not public speakers. I’m really keen on helping people advance their own thinking no matter where they go with it. 

What happens when you’re really clear on what you’re thinking and what you’re bringing to the world, you can breathe, you can slow down. You can say less and mean more, which lets you be more present for somebody else.

Fulcrum Moments And Finding Purpose

Sarah: I would like to revisit, some of this disruption, this concept of disruption that we’ve talked about and touched on a little bit. And obviously your trip to Denmark was something of a disruption, at least mentally. What else would you say has been a disruption in your life? 

Brynn: You know, it’s funny cuz there’s a thought that I like to play with and I think of it as a fulcrum moment. You know, a fulcrum, like you stick a board under a rock and you can pry it out. Like pivot. We hear a lot about pivots. I think of a disruption as a fulcrum moment. What kind of blew up in your life that created a whole new path forward? Death and divorce and job loss and all those things.

And I think of some of those, disruptive moments as like two of ’em specifically I’ve always thought of that saved me. One was turning out to be a gay kid. It prevented me from going down a cookie cutter path where I didn’t think for myself. Being out of the mainstream forced me to really examine my own belief systems and not take anything for granted. Disconnected autopilot for me. 

And the second one that I feel really saved me was being a single mom. That was not the plan. You meet somebody, you fall in love, you have a baby. That was not the plan. That was not the toolkit that I had access to, right? 

Both of those made me be really intentional. I just think that anytime we go off autopilot and when we read about brain science and the plastic brain, the new things are the things that cause us to grow.

Those are two big ones. Denmark was a big one. Denmark was a hard one. A lonely one. I was lost in somebody else’s language for a long time. Wanna know what you don’t get? If you’re learning a new language, you don’t get jokes. You don’t get humor cuz you’re trying so hard to even understand what people are saying.

And what happens is you first are able to communicate with one person. They brought the American kid around to a lot of teas. There’s a lot of tea or coffee with Danish pastry cakes. The American kid plumped up pretty fast cause I didn’t know what they were saying. I came from a family of five kids. Eat the cake or else somebody else does.

Then when you could understand one person it’s such a relief. But then, when you’re in a room of competing voices, like a dinner party, that’s hard.

But I really remember, and I was about six months in when I cracked a joke and the people around me were like, oh my God, she’s funny. So that’s an identity thing. Like who are you? And if you don’t have the facility to have that repartee, they can’t see that of you. That makes so much sense. Isn’t that weird? I haven’t thought about that for a long time.

The Language Of Business Is Love

Sarah: I am a one language woman. I have dabbled in others, but not learned one well.

Brynn: It was a mirror for sure. 

Sarah: That’s really fascinating. I haven’t thought about it. 

Brynn: It’s funny. I’m just, I think I’m just really feeling all the ways that we can make ourselves wrong and separate instead of “It’s just human.” 

Sarah: And I appreciate that. We’re just human. 

Brynn: We’re human. We’re doing all our best. 

Sarah: We’re all just trying to do our best and get through every day. 

Brynn: And care about the people we care about and do it. Do it like dorks. Do it badly. Try again. I had a conversation this morning with somebody about that whole idea of repair bids. Have you heard of John Gottman and his Love lab? He talks about how when things go awry, successful marriages make a repair bid or any relationship you turn towards somebody. Instead of turning away. 

So I just think that we’re wired for that, or wired to reconnect and to blow it and reconnect and blow it and reconnect. And I think when you were talking about your friend, the top and the bottom. Those moments where we’re recalibrating and going, it’s not working. 

What about this, like the kindness of trying again and trying differently? 

Sarah: Yeah. It’s really important, and I know that being somebody whose mind works really fast and getting frustrated when somebody doesn’t understand me, or doesn’t catch on as quickly as me. It’s very frustrating for me to be in a classroom with many people and their minds aren’t working as fast, and I’m going, “Why are you asking? She’s already answered that question. I’m ready to learn the next thing.” 

Brynn: One of my sisters listens to things at 1.25 cuz like speed it up here.

Sarah: Right? Yeah, I do too.

Brynn: You know what’s disrupting for me, especially over this pandemic and if I’ve done any guest lecturing, is what Zoom has taught our students to do, which is take the camera off. Lack of affect scares me in a way where I am reading the situation. I’m reading somebody, and I need your face to read, right? I need to see what’s happening. And it may be because I’m just feeling my eyebrows going up and down. It’s like that’s how I find language. So if I can’t see your face… 

I was binging on old episodes of Designated Survivor and really noticing that almost none of the actors did their face. They were worried. Hmm. They were excited. Oh. And it’s like, where’s your face? Right. I can’t tell what you’re thinking.

Sarah: They say that that’s a sign of a really good actor is somebody who you can see what’s going on in their face.

Brynn: I think it’s cuz we need it. The way that our minds are wired. That’s why we can talk to people who don’t speak our language, if we care about them. I think we’ve talked about this, for me business is an opportunity to care about somebody. I feel like the language of business is actually love, and it’s a quality of tuning in to somebody and caring about what they care about.

Like when you say, oh, “We are really on the same wavelength.” I think that’s true, but I feel like it’s the effort to get on the same wavelength. So you’re frustrated when people don’t get it fast enough. I’m frustrated when I can’t see what they think. I think we could, we all get frustrated by certain different things, and those are mini disruptions.

But I feel like those mini disruptions become many opportunities to recalibrate and care. 

Sarah: I love that. Calibration is definitely something that everybody needs 

Brynn: I have an 87 year old mom who… technology’s hard and kinda like that Pictionary thing. We tried the same thing harder, and then we’re like, why aren’t you doing what I want you to do. I’ve learned a long time ago that in order to learn a new program or an application, I had to figure out what it wanted me to think of. Like I had to figure out “What in your sequence of decisions or actions do you need me to think about?”

You say, I’ve picked up tech pretty easily, I bet you’ve learned that. What do you need me to be thinking? Instead of, you’re gonna think like me, you’re gonna do it my way and get really frustrated? “I see. It wants me to do this first.” So 

Sarah: I don’t think that is necessarily true that I have learned that, or if I have, it’s not been conscious.

Brynn: Yeah, I bet you’re good at it. You don’t know it. 

Sarah: There are a few things that I’m learning that I, and this is going back to human design, anybody with a line two has that innate ability. They know how to do something, but can’t explain to somebody else how they know that.

Brynn: Really? That’s what a line two is. 

Sarah: Well, it’s the hermit

Brynn: Oh, the profile. I think I’m a two/four. 

Sarah: It means that you have a way of doing things or you know how to do something that other people think is hard but you can’t explain how you know how to do it or tell someone how to do it.

Brynn: Don’t you think that might be a little bit of all of us? 

Sarah: Absolutely. I think almost everyone I know has a line two in their profile. 

Brynn: I know somebody who makes this certain kind of soup, and it’s like, this is so good. And she’s like, “Oh, come on. It’s stupid easy.” And it’s like, not for me. 

Sarah: And respecting what comes easy to somebody else or what comes easy to you, isn’t always easy to somebody else. And just recognizing that… 

Brynn: I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty impatient person. You could ask my son and he’d probably agree, but I realize that, maybe I’m not so impatient after all.

I think maybe the thing that makes the click is that caring thing. It’s like, okay, hold on. “What are they thinking?” Great. Okay. “Where’d we get stuck here?” Part of my human design is that, I’m not a very good problem solver when I’m in the emotional wave. It’s so interesting. I could geek out on human design for hours. 

Sarah: I know. It fascinates me so much and you know, I’m learning little by little, to try not to skip ahead of everybody else, the way I’m meant to.

Curiosity As A Creative Superpower

Brynn: Okay. So I have, I have a question for you.

Sarah: Oh, okay. Fantastic. 

Brynn: I have favorite questions in my mind constantly. There’s a couple of ’em, like they live there. I love it when I have a brand new thought, and my mind notices like, “Oh, you’ve never thought about that before.” It feels like a little party in my head.

Do you have favorite questions? You want me to give you mine that I noodle on? 

Sarah: Yeah, tell me yours. 

Brynn: Okay, so mine are kind of, and this has been for the last two or three years, what are dead people up to? Like are there teams? Are there like Team Cloud and Team Green and like, could I be on both of those teams?

Like there’s a whole lot more dead people than there are alive people, so they’re up to something and I’m just really curious about that. I’m also curious about how does one bend time? And Physics. People wanna answer that question, and I think I’m less interested in the answer than I am in the question.

So sometimes people will like changing the nature of time by a productivity hack or something like that, and I think that’s like bending time. So I’m really curious about that idea of bending time. Anyway, these questions just live inside me all the time. Do you have any? 

Sarah: I don’t think I do. I mean, I have topics that I like to talk about, but nothing as interesting as those questions.

Brynn: Well let me ask you a different way then. The tendency is to think like, wow, I’m doing something wrong. Like, I’m not very interesting. Well, then I’ll ask you this. Are there certain things that you feel curious about? 

Sarah: Oh gosh. So many things. Like everything.

Brynn: Yeah. Well, you’re a podcast host, so you must be curious about one of the things. I think the best thing in the world is a question, right? There’s a book called A More Beautiful Question, which I haven’t loved, but I just love that there’s a book out there called that. 

Sarah: A More Beautiful Question. I love that.

Brynn: And so I think if you figure out like, how much fun it’s to go to a beach and look for shells. I feel like this could be a beach walk. It’s like, to think about things that I’m curious about, like what are you curious about, people who are listening to this? What lights you up and you don’t have to talk about it with anybody.

I don’t really talk about the dead people thing with too many people cuz it’s weird. 

Sarah: But no, I love the question though. I’m gonna be thinking about it. 

Brynn: It’s kinda like a smooth stone in your pocket where you’re like, hm. Oh. 

Sarah: Brynn, I have really enjoyed talking to you again. I loved our last conversation as well, and I’ve been looking forward to this. Thank you so much for being here today. 

Brynn: My pleasure. 

Sarah: Would you like to tell people where they can find you online? 

Brynn: Find my stuff at mindsparkbranding.com. If you’ve always had a TED Talk on your bucket list, I’ve got a couple of really sweet little freebies for you.

There’s two. So find them both and if you wanna make an idea stronger, check out that you’ll find that all on Mindsparkbranding.com. If you feel compelled to book a time and talk to me about what you wanna do next in your world, I’m, I’m really curious about what you’re curious about.

So thank you for spending some time with me. 

Sarah: Thank you. I appreciate this so much and I look forward to our next conversation. 

Brynn: All right. Thanks, Sarah. Thanks everybody.​

Key Takeaways

• Language is a mirror. The words we choose reveal how we see ourselves, our clients, and the world around us.
• Embrace your wiring. What once felt “weird” may actually be your greatest creative advantage.
• Connection begins with curiosity. True communication requires slowing down, listening, and caring enough to meet people where they are.
• Fulcrum moments are gifts. Disruption, difference, and discomfort often lead to the most authentic expressions of purpose.

About Brynn

Brynn Breuner is the founder of MindSpark Branding, where she helps leaders, entrepreneurs, and organizations express their work through language that connects. A longtime designer turned messaging strategist, Brynn believes branding begins on the inside.

She also works as a TEDx speaker coach, guiding changemakers to distill their “idea worth spreading” into talks that move audiences and inspire change. Known for her wit, warmth, and wordsmithing magic, Brynn brings depth and playfulness to every conversation she leads.

Connect with Brynn: mindsparkbranding.com

Energetic Reflection

This conversation with Brynn carries the frequency of awareness — the kind that reminds us words are living things. They hold energy. They create movement.

When we speak from alignment rather than performance, language becomes a healing tool for ourselves and the people we serve. Brynn’s story invites us to slow down, listen deeply, and honor the way we’re wired to express truth.

If this episode stirred something in you, I invite you to stay connected through my Reiki-infused newsletter, where I share reflections on creativity, energy, and the art of communication.