Defining who we want to be.

Edward Boches is one of those guys who can make complex ideas simple.

I saved a quote from one of his blogs…

“I strongly believe that consumption is less about reflecting who we are — even though that’s clearly a fundamental dimension of it — as much as it’s about who we wish to be.”

He actually lifted that quote from a book, The Archaeology of Consumer Culture by Paul Mullins, and while the idea — that the cars we buy and the tequila we drink says something about who we are — isn’t new, his insight that we often project who we want to become before we’re actually there, before we are that person, explains why Pinterest is such a huge hit.

It allows us to project who we want to be, using an idealized collection of images of things we haven’t had to buy, and places we haven’t actually visited.

How can you use this insight to help you understand each individual in your tribe?

And what can you do to continue to be a part of that idealized life, to make each listener feel you are helping her become who she hopes to be?

Let that percolate a while and see what pops up…