The choice of a name was clear. I was in a café in Manitou Springs, Colorado and Angie Durbin, the good American friend who kept insisting with me to finally create my own business just told me:
“Chose a name, come on! A name that truly says something that is fundamentally important for you.
A name that defines your way of being, of working and living.”
At that moment it was clear: PENSAR GRANDE. It came in Portuguese, my mother tongue. Meaning
TO THINK BIG.
That was an expression that I had been using since I was a teenager. Some years ago, one of my best school friends came to one of my open conferences. In the end, she came to me and said:
“It’s amazing how you keep this idea of thinking big after all these years… I still remember the first
time I heard you saying that. We were 13 and I had a bad mark in the History test. I was feeling
really sad, sitting at my desk. You just turned around and gave me a small piece of paper with your
terrible hand-writing. It just said: “It’s just an History test. Your life is much bigger than that.
Think big.”
And now, almost 20 years after that, you’ve created a brand with that same expression!...”
This has, indeed been my personal search and the basis of all I share in my trainings and conferences.
For me “to think big” means regarding with perspective, in a wide way, with a full zoom out, observing things from above, relativizing them, seeing them in their whole range.
Many people ask me if Thinking Big is related to the ambition of growing bigger, of reaching higher, of being able to conquer the world and above. The answer is really clear: absolutely not.
I want for sure to pursue the best I am capable of. I want to work with clients from different places in the world, from different areas and projects. But what moves me in THINKING-BIG is not the will to grow as a company but the strong wish to contribute to the World I believe in; to build stronger consciousness and meaningful creativity at workplaces, at schools, in individuals. This is to think big, and this is THINKING-BIG, for me.
When the name was chosen, the logo had to be designed. It appeared from the hands of my talented friend, Eva Castro, a designer working in London. Until now, I feel absolutely thankful for her moment of inspiration, since I totally identify my work with that circle of red representing the big world. She also designed my visit cards in all the three languages I was working in (Portuguese, Spanish, English), as one of my best birthday presents ever.
Some months later, I had an amazing friend who knows me very well (and my passion to stickers) send me a PDF full of THINKING-BIG’s stickers she had created herself.
An amazing way to start as a brand, surrounded by a powerful concept, with a visual image that was totally according to my aesthetic world and surrounded by the care of friends.
THINKING-BIG was growing as a brand and I was evolving as a person too. We were growing together, through powerful personal and work experiences over the years.
One day, while reading a biography of Pina Bausch, a German choreographer whose works touch me profoundly, I learned that her creative process with dancers started with a main quest: to feel more. This was how everything started.
“Feeling more: what a powerful creative tool for work and for life”, I thought.
To me, feeling more meant being connected to who you are, exploring that, and allowing that information to transform you. It made so much sense to my own creative processes inside THINKING-BIG (and inside me too)…
So, some years ago, I challenged two good friends to help me adding that expression - feeling more - to my logo.
Thinking was ok, but I needed something else to be added. Only then I would feel complete as a person, as a brand. And “feeling more” was the connection to the deepest part, merging mind, body, and spirit.
It was thanks to Sérgio Ferrão (Mozambique) and Frida Enebro (Sweden), that I managed the ideal version of it. We were in 2015.
The idea stayed there until I felt it was the time to share it. And now, 2 years later, after tons of conversations with people from all over the word, hundreds of books read, many theories explored it makes more sense than ever and it finds its way of coming out.
Today, again with the help of two dear people to me - Cristina Braga, a Portuguese Designer and Creative and Jérémy Pernet, a French architect - I created THINKING-BIG’s new visit cards, integrating all the changes of this moment:
- French as the fourth language available for my talks.
- “Feeling more” added to the logo
- The one-to-one mentoring service added to the services available (news soon!).
With this text I would actually like to share four things:
1) My vision of the meaning of THINKING-BIG and “Feeling More”,
2) The conceptual basis of my work;
3) The continuous and not always straight forward path that has been built along the years;
4) And my deep appreciation to all of those involved in helping me in the building.
In this text I have personally thanked those who helped me with the visual part of this brand, but there are dozens of friends behind THINKING-BIG all the time. Friends accepting having a coffee or a Skype talk to share perspectives about business, branding, social media, SEO, translations,…
For all of those helping me build this project, a huge THANK YOU note.
Today, 5,5 years after the beginning, I celebrate THINKING-BIG and Feeling More and I share the satisfaction of it with all of those making part of the way!
Because “Other people matter!”*: THANK YOU!
May the creative path continue!
*Chris Peterson