Truth: I was a 40-Year-Old Intern
The Art of Communicating and Me
In February, I reconnected with a cousin who told me about her unplanned Superbowl trip. The cheapest were eight rows from the field. (“Well, they were the cheapest day-of.”) She didn’t attend the whole game, she’s not THAT huge of a football fan, but she caught the back-half of the half-time show.
As we walked from my apartment to the dive bar I chose due to free snacks, I expressed how such a trip is kind of inconceivable to me. Confused, she asked, “Don’t you want to experience life?”
I told her about the last few years: “covering the planet with shitty resumes,” to various projects, to deciding I’d teach, write, and run groups while selectively applying to things that looked interesting.
She said, “My company needs help marketing! We’re looking for an intern!”
I said, “I don’t do marketing, but I teach branding. I love thinking about identity, collectivity, and experience. I can build a style guide, if it would help your social media team.”
Intern? Consultant? Turns out truthfulness isn't about being right—it's about understanding.
Fancying myself a brand consultant, I did an audit and sample voice guide (explaining I prefer short interviews with a “vertical slice” of employees—samples from all around the org chart—to get a voice that feels lived-in).
I had a meeting with the client satisfaction rep to discuss the audit and guide. I sent him a scope of work (SOW). The director of operations requested an “A to Z strategy.” We met to discuss what that meant to both of us.
I left that meeting as Gandalf the White bestowing brand strategy unto the smallfolk. I was pledging to transform a company from one that says its most unique quality is “people,” to one where every touchpoint sang their values with one clear voice. I would help them organically define and practice trust, so they could widely circulate it among the people they serve, within and beyond.
I sent an updated SOW with an extended timeline and a pricing structure tied to more milestone deliverables.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what is this? We need to align on outcomes.” In their minds, I was a broken C-3PO, the worst marketing intern in history. We had been having hours of conversations in different languages.
This essay on honesty and truthfulness continues our coverage of the ten Perfections, Buddhist principles practice in daily life. The last essay was on patience—for me, a blend of equanimity and compassion. This one will go through Thich Nhat Hanh’s four criterion for communicating “truth.”
Light Hive offers essays on applied mindfulness for complex identities, the polycrisis, and the power of play. Subscribe for contemporary takes on Buddhist wisdom, filtered through the lens of a recovering academic and queer, transracial adoptee.
Truthfulness
What’s funny about language is you can never be 100% certain what it is.
In The Art of Communicating, Thich Nhat Hahn outlined four criteria for speaking the truth.
We have to speak the language of the world.
We may speak differently to different people, in a way that reflects how they think and their ability to receive the teaching.
We give the right teaching according to person, time, and place, just as a doctor prescribes the right medicine.
We teach in a way that reflects the absolute truth.
Speak the Language of the World
The world and all the words within are relative and impermanent.
We are nodes within systems within systems. So this first criterion is about allowing difference with generosity, humility, and grace.
In her book A Tale for the Time-Being, Ruth Ozeki writes:
When up looks up, up is down.
When down looks down, down is up.
Not-one, not-two. Not same. Not different.
Now do you see?
Impermanence. Not-self. Relativity is the language of the world. This is why “words are hard” and people study the craft of written communication.
In my view, "branding" means communicating identity, values, mission, vision, in every interaction possible, inside and out.
In theirs, "branding" means color palettes and logos.
Not same. Not different. Now do you see?
This fundamental relativity is why it’s helpful to
Speak According to the Understanding of the Person Listening
To be understood, it helps to translate.
In branding and marketing, personas represent fictional characters folks can use to imagine their target audiences and refine their delivery. Personas can be useful shorthand for team collaboration. “What would Sasha think about this?”
Importantly, using a persona doesn’t change the substance of “truth,” just how it’s conveyed. Thich Nhat Hanh offers this story:
One day someone asked the Buddha, “When that person passes away, which heaven do you think he will go to?” The Buddha answered that he might be born into this or that heavenly realm.
Later another person asked the Buddha, “When that person dies, where will he go?” The Buddha answered, “He will not go anywhere.”
Someone standing nearby asked the Buddha why he had given the two people two different answers. The Buddha replied that it depends on the person who asks. He said, “I have to speak according to the mind of the person who listens and the ability of that person to receive what I share.”
(Yes, I somehow merged a story about the Buddha and marketing in the same segment. Quick: someone tell Seth Godin I’m coming for his territory.)
Truthfulness isn’t all about the speaker; it’s about offering what the listener is ready to receive. This means slowing down to attune, so you can
Prescribe the Right Medicine for the Disease
To speak skillfully, it helps to listen skillfully. What is actually needed?
Throughout my short-lived stint as a brand strategist (?)/marketing intern (??) for a wealth management firm, I was hella prescribing for the wrong disease.
With absolute gusto, I presented live event strategies to collect client feedback, show how “people” are their most unique quality, serve psychographic needs (loneliness, economic anxiety) for their target base, and bypass FINRA/SEC compliance regulation (strict financial marketing rules) by driving social sharing.
I validated my initial qualitative audit through A/B tests (comparing two versions to see which works better) and added on examples of how competitors were responding to market volatility and investor fears: educational webinars, informational posts, compassionate language.
The director of operations and client satisfaction rep politely nodded at the owner’s cousin’s ideas, confused, quietly concerned.
As time passed, my attempts to reach my cousin became more frequent and texting more direct: “I’m happy to discuss deliverables, pricing, or get feedback on my performance, my approach.” —> “Can we please discuss this?” —> “Your team isn’t ready to implement the ‘A to Z’ changes they’re requesting. Also: when will I get paid?”
“I don’t understand any of this! Talk to [client satisfaction rep]!”
Our schedules and socioeconomic statuses simply didn't align. My cousin went to Coachella, attended a birthday party, had a golfing weekend, spent spring break in Fort Lauderdale and, when working, she was in back-to-back meetings.
I share this story because communication is hard. Am I frustrated? Eh, I could definitely use the money and I would have loved to do a grand transformation with them—show off and develop my skills, be helpful, get paid. But with is the key word.
Things I’ve told my students but have now experientially re-learned:
Always sign the paperwork first.
Ask questions. Listen. You are the new person.
Know your time, energy, experience is valuable.
And this was all about branding (marketing?) for an investment firm. Oof.
If words are this hard here, how can we possibly
Reflect the Absolute Truth
“The cloud isn’t ‘born’ and it doesn’t ‘die’; it simply changes form. We may think of these absolute truths as abstract, but they are visible all around us” —TNH
What happened in the weeks I was heroically, ineffectively, saving an investment firm from the identity crisis I diagnosed? A failure to listen to each other. A failure to see ourselves in each other.
And the world still spun. Bigger, graver happenings, like
Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Andry Romero, alongside truly countless others, were illegally deported.
The empty container ships making their way across the Pacific ocean are starting to show material effects of the tariff/class war.
NOAA reported that atmospheric co2 levels skyrocketed in 2024.
Listening. It feels passive in a world used to shouting, but it is such a generous, active, and difficult offering.
I think this is why Thich Nhat Hanh ends the section on communicating “absolute truth” with a discussion on listening. He references Quan The Am (Vietnamese for Kwan Yin/Quan Yin), the transgender deity of compassion:
Quan The Am listens to all the sounds, all the suffering of the world. When you listen like that, compassion is born in you, and you can have peace. Please listen with great compassion. Even when you’re sad because of bad news, your compassion will soothe your agitation and make you more peaceful.
Until next time, friends, do your best to speak truthfully, to listen with compassion, and do not do the work until you get the paperwork signed.
If you liked this, consider checking out:
Takeaway Practice
Inquire. Listen.
All of this could have been avoided if we had asked each other more clarifying questions from the start.
Try this with me, then: the next time you feel a sense of urgency, a need to prove oneself, a need to be “right,” pause to consider what is true in the moment.
A question to clarify; a moment of silence. You are worth your own time.
Creative Coalition: May 4th, 3-6 PT
Join Creative Coalition to practice with patience, play, and mindful writing.
What’s true about a game? We’re creating together and listening to each other.
Using Carrion Comfort/ Wes Frank's This Old House, we'll tell the story of a house as its inhabitants change over time.
This event will be hosted as a writing group. After we meditate, we’ll share the same prompts and craft our own neighborhood, cycling between writing and reading aloud.
Base Rate: $20
Light Hive Readers may use code: Hive50 (50% off)
Paid subscribers get this one for free! I’ll give you a link to the free sign-up in the chat later today.
No one is turned away for lack of funds. If the registration fee is cost-prohibitive, please email for the link.
Bio
Logan Juliano, PhD (they/them) is a queer, transracial adoptee who blends rigor and lived experience to create brave spaces where mindfulness meets playful exploration. Through Light Hive and as co-editor of Notes from the Inflection Point, they write to share reflections and practices amid ecological and social uncertainty. Logan holds a PhD in Performance Studies and is neither a mental health provider, nor an authorized teacher in any Buddhist lineage. They are, however, a brand strategist happy to completely re-do your entire enterprise…as long as we can agree on terms.