Deb and I didn’t spend New Year’s day watching college football.
I know, I know… We’re bad. But we just don’t care.
What we did was catch a matinee of Saving Mr. Banks.
That’s the new behind-the-scenes Disney movie about the creation of their much-loved Mary Poppins film 50 years ago.
It stars Tom Hanks as Walt Disney and Emma Thompson as P.L. Travers, the author of the Poppins books. And I confess, I got weepy during it.
The movie’s charming.
It beautifully plucked every childhood chord in my old body. (Hell, I still remember first seeing Mary Poppins at age 9 and wishing Julie Andrews could be my sexy nanny.)
But as we’ve come to expect from the Silver Screen, there’s as much fiction in Saving Mr. Banks as there is truth.
The truth is that “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” did NOT convince Travers that the movie adaptation of her books should be a musical.
Walt never made a last-minute trip to London to see Travers.
There was no “Ralph” the limo driver.
Travers sobbed during the movie premiere from anger and frustration, not because she loved what she saw on screen.
Hey, that’s the way of Hollywood. Last year, they fictionalized Abraham Lincoln not once but twice. And this year, they’ve made the Disney-Travers story better by making it less genuine.
OK, I can live with that.
But what I have real trouble with are people who insist that being genuine has no place in their businesses.
They’d rather hide behind “snazzy” company logos, “clever” domain and screen names, and crappy avatars and profile pictures than present what REALLY distinguishes them from their competition — their uniqueness.
Most folks’ personal brands suck.
They don’t have to, though.
Start 2014 out right.
Promote your own REAL truth.
Be you.
