#myBrand
Personal branding is the conscious and intentional effort to create and influence public perception of an individual by positioning them as an authority in their industry, elevating their credibility, and differentiating themselves from the competition, to ultimately advance their career, increase their circle of influence, and have a larger impact. (source)
You may be someone, but you’re actually no one unless you’re BRANDED…
FUN FACT: The term “branding” derives from the Old Norse word brandr or "to burn," and refers to the practice of branding livestock, which dates back more than 4,000 years to the Indus Valley.
(I knew I was a farmer at heart.)
That’s right. Like cows being branded by their owners, you need a clear personal identification to stand out (or fit in?) in today’s world. Since we’re now in a culture run by social media, clearly defining and communicating your personal brand has become a strategic focus for staying “true” to yourself while also standing out in a sea of sameness. Who are you? What do you stand for? What are your talents? Why should I listen to you or at least feel motivated to obsessively follow your tweets, stories, TikToks…?
In other words, what’s YOUR BRAND?
And, yet, of course, like everything else in this oversaturated and overstimulated content world, something that should be naturally evident has become a formula to manipulate and contrive. Only share what fits a predefined and manufactured personal brand, only use branded filters on your photos and videos, and only share content related to this subject matter. Define your box, and stay inside! Even being “unbranded” has become a brand identity. The raw and unfiltered identity is, in fact, an identity. Somehow we’ve formulated the equivalent of templates for successful personal brands. One size fits all is not the right approach here.
Here’s the thing, personal brands do exist and always have as long as humans have been around. We’re all created unique. No two people are the same. I call that a brand. Our experiences, talents and gifts all add up to a story that can never be someone else’s.
However, this “brand” is evolving, changing, reacting and growing according to our personal human experience. We weren’t meant to stay in a branded box. I shutter at the thought of sticking to an identity I created in my teens, 20’s or even 30’s (I’m still in my 30’s, but I’m kissing 40). Heck, I am wildly different than who I was just over two years ago. That’s the beauty of the journey of life.
“The human mind always makes progress, but it is progress in spirals.”
Madame de Staël
So, if we can’t build our personal brand off of any other person or any predefined box, and we can’t anchor ourselves to an identity that we have been in the past, what is at the core to build from? What is #myBrand?
This is where I connect to the personal resources and living a life of integrity, where our connections, actions, attention, and intentions are a reflection of our personal core values.
There have been moments (or years) where I felt like a rudderless ship. My attention, actions and connections didn’t reflect the deeper me. In other words, my outer life was not a painting of my inner life. When I live my life on a solid foundation of values that define who I am, I can morph and mold into whatever necessary and still represent something steady and solid. Waves can hit and storms can come, and I can pivot more times than a tech company, but the foundational truth (or first principle) of who I am can still shine through. Personally, I have spent a lot of my journey seeking, knocking and asking for more clarity of my core values. If you’re like me, you may have been raised with a wonderful foundation for a value system, but I believe that value systems can be passed down either be emulated or to be owned. In order to own your personal core values, they have to be put to the test. For the outer life to be anchored, the inner life has to be more real than the human experience.
There is a lot more to unpack here (and I hope to in future posts), but I want to use this post to stay focused on the idea around personal branding. I want to encourage everyone 1) to call BS on all the hoopla surrounding defining a personal brand in our consumeristic society, it’s just another way to try to fit us into demographics to sell to, and 2) to not try to build your brand on who you have been or limit yourself to your past or current human experience. Your talents, gifts and experiences can inform your contribution to the world. They can help you find your passions and potentially reveal your most successful opportunities, but even these should not be the core of your identity. Good things becoming ultimate things is the recipe for disaster. For me, my work and service to others have been idols in the past, and this only led to abuse, identity crisis, and burnout. (Thankfully, as all things in life, these experiences have also brought me to this point, so I am a witness to the fact that failures and trials can be our greatest blessings.)
Spend the time to search for the core values that inform your intentions, where you put your attention, the actions you take, and the connections you make. That is a journey worth taking, and before you know it, your outer life will be a reflection of the things you want others to see and experience when their lives touch yours.
That is a personal brand worth investing in.
Be well.
Alexis