Self-exploration is the first step to an authentic personal brand
Sergey Lemisov
Marketing and Brand Strategist | Brand Designer | Human Experience Designer | Art Director | Lettering Artist | Dad x 3
Hey, everyone! ??
I'm Sergey, a professional brand strategist responsible for brand strategy and distinctive brand assets development. I’m helping you launch and grow your personal brand in this series of articles. In the previous article, I discussed a holistic brand-building approach. I mentioned that the main strategic document of any brand (consumer, employer, and even personal) is a brand platform. Let me remind you what my personal brand platform looks like.
All these points help to make significant decisions on strategic and tactical levels: what clients I should work with, what partnerships I take part in, what kind of content I should post, etc. I have a clear vision and the happiness to be myself without burnout because I’m in harmony with myself and the world. I meet businesses and people whose values align with mine because I define my mission and values. But I had to do considerable self-exploration work to determine all these points. What do I mean by saying "self-exploration"?
Self-exploration is?a set of practices of exploring your thoughts, feelings, values, beliefs, identity, background, views, and emotions to understand yourself better. It doesn’t matter what methodology you use, it depends on what specifically works for you.
As I said in my previous article, I don’t see any sense in building a personal brand without understanding your core. Personal brand building is a long-term process, and if you don’t get pleasure from it, you will not be able to continue expanding it. So what questions are crucial to start developing or actualizing your personal brand? I think those:
The first two questions are connected directly to your personality. It is not about your job title or career achievements. While writing this article, I accidentally came across Evan Shapīro LinkedIn post, “There’s more to You than Them”. It is about the importance of being yourself, setting your authentic goals, and reaching them your way without adjusting to any employer or person. So, Evan dived in that topic in two paid posts. Here are the links for them: part 1 (video) and part 2 (text). I highly recommend diving in if you feel lost and don’t know what to do next.
As for me, it took over 4 months to discover my values and attitudes working with a clinical psychologist. Also, I took a bunch of tests and filled up Ikigai and other frameworks. And that process is infinite because life is changing, and we are changing too. Therefore, keeping a pulse on shifting your life context and evolving your brand assets if something changes in the core is essential.
Here are some tests which can be a good starting point in self-expression:
Again, please use the right tools to make you comfortable working with. Try to explore what works specifically for you.
For some people, the so-called scientific methods will be closer, for some, more esoteric techniques will be more reliable. It does not matter, and the only thing that matters in this life is what suits you and makes you happy.
As for me, challenges and continuous movement are essential. That is why I set it as a core of my brand positioning. This is not my job title or any other untenable conceptions. This is my core. That’s what I mean when I talk about brand positioning. And only after that do I specify what I do for a living.
The first part of my brand positioning has a deep meaning for me and broadcasts the emotional component of my personality and the purpose of every step I take — to challenge myself. If there are no challenges, it’s so dull for me to live such a life. It is my statement. What's yours?
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So, we went through the first two questions. The following two questions are connected more to career promotion and communicating rational benefits, and the answers will be more logical than the previous ones. But those don’t position you as a personality, they somewhat confirm your unique character assets. We, brand strategists, call that Reasons to Believe.
Those are all stuff that can rationalize your emotional experience to other people. These are the crumbs of your results: your case studies, reviews, certificates, etc. But even these rational RTBs have to pass through the filter of your personality characteristics. Look at the headlines of my cases. Does the description of the case study fit the character of my brand? If so, my brand is consistent.
If you base your personal brand only on rational benefits and only on job description requirements, you miss colossal self-expression opportunities, and the chance to surround yourself with people with similar values drops critically.
The critical question is: do you want to be convenient for as many people as possible, or do you want to be surrounded by those who appreciate you just for who you are?
There is no need to be a rebel. Just identify yourself and broadcast your assets properly if you do not want to be a part of that sad mental problems statistics. Trying to shape yourself to the requirements of others leads to a critical failure in the long term.
Start the self-exploration stage today to be happy and prosperous (the way you see it) tomorrow. A successful personal brand is just a side-effect of that process. I see so much bullshit on the Internet about a personal brand and what it gives: media coverage, fame, salary, success, etc. Extremely superficially!
A properly built personal brand provides happiness to be yourself and live by your values. That is how I see the deep personal brand purpose.
The next question is how to broadcast your messages to show your values and other brand platform parts to be understood. That is also why I'm here, and I will show how to create a message hierarchy and broadcast them properly in the following articles.
But before I suggest you look at other people from your niche who have already started that long but fascinating path. In the next article, we will look at benchmarks in our niches. We will find new insights and same-minded fellows! And, of course, we will shape our brand platform. Once again, here is the plan, fellows!
Feel free to send me any questions about the self-exploration process in DM or comments. If you have already made that step, you are warmly welcome to share any instruments that helped you find unique personality features in the comments! ?? I will also mention them in the final guide on my website.