Skip the Intro - You Already Have a Personal Brand

If you’ve ever existed – you have a personal brand. So, I’m going to skip the intro attempting to prove you need one – because you already have one whether you realize it or not.

Let’s instead start with leveling the playing field around what I mean by “personal brand”. To me, a personal brand is how others perceive you in all contexts - professional, personal, and social. It's your overall reputation and the associations people make with you.

To sum it up – your personal brand is how you’re viewed. And let’s clarify – it’s not necessarily how you view yourself.

But the bigger question to me revolves around the time, effort, and funds spent to tune and manage an individual’s personal brand. Everything you do further builds your personal brand – but are you putting effort into defining and fine tuning it?

I’ve been working on my personal brand for 30+ years. I didn’t call it that back then, but every single life experience over the course of my life has helped shape and mold my personal brand.

For example, when I was growing up, my personal brand would’ve been around sports like basketball, baseball, and hockey. If you knew me – those are the things you would’ve associated me with (in addition to being loud and annoying).

Fast forward a few years, I began to get very focused on entrepreneurship while working at a tool shop just north of 8 mile. I started to realize that I really liked to build things. I would daydream of owning a business – but I knew nothing about it outside of the “cool factor” of owning and operating a business along with a few accounting buzzwords.

I let time get away from me and I got really comfortable in my day-to-day life – but I wasn’t finding true happiness or joy in the daily grind. Not that my work didn’t have value – I just personally felt aimless.

I’ve spent the last few years really narrowing and focusing on purpose. And I’ve found that finding my purpose interestingly intersects with finding happiness in my work. Perhaps a topic for another day.

From that point – it was time to revive and update my personal brand. I think my personal brand at this point went from having one without knowing it - to take a proactive approach to framing it. You can read about this updated personal brand in my previous newsletter. Will this current branding always be “me”? Of course not. I continue to grow, continue to develop, and continue to have life-changing and life-defining experiences – but it’s who I am at this point.

What are some key things to consider when taking a purposeful look at your personal brand? From my personal journey in this topic, this list could almost be never-ending; however, I’ve included five that were top of mind.

5 Things to Consider When Shaping Your Brand:

1. It's an evolution. Where you are now - is not where you'll be. Where you've been - is not where you are. Similarly - your personal brand is going to change and evolve. Don't be afraid to pivot.
2. Were you honest? I think it’s human nature to view ourselves differently than we view others. Whether we view ourselves better or worse than others see us – or probably a combination of the two – we typically don’t have a clear and honest view of how we’re presenting ourselves unless we’re trained to do so. Seek to engage feedback from those you trust who can also be honest with you. For example, if I told myself that I’m good enough to play basketball in the NBA, I need someone to gently tell me to get off the court because I’m delusional. Branding myself as an NBA basketball player wouldn’t be honest.
3. Is it clear or is it aimless? This applies both internally to yourself and outward to everyone else. If you don’t know your own branding alignment – you could come across as somewhat aimless. My personal opinion - I think aimless personal branding has a tendency to lean towards appearing negative and typically takes on the form of ranting. Now, ranting could 100% be your brand. If so, you’re nailing it. But I think when someone has a personal branding framework and filter, messaging more closely aligns with the actual intent and person.
4. This isn’t based on arrogance or ego. I struggled with characterizing any of this as actual branding because it could come across poorly (ironically, I thought personal branding would impact my personal branding). The easiest way over this obstacle is to again realize you already have a personal brand. Going through an exercise just better helps you frame and refine who you already are. You should go through the exercise.
5. ?Take the time. Dig deep. One of the most important aspects of this is being patient and really digging deep to discover yourself – where you’ve been, where you are, and where you want to go. Engaging with a professional branding specialist can provide a lot of value here, but even if that’s not an option – take the time and energy to find something that feels like it’s you.

So, to summarize, conscious actions taken to nurture and develop one’s personal brand is incredibly important and lives in close proximity to purpose and happiness.

I ask - have you taken a conscious approach to tuning and refining your personal brand or have you generally ignored the concept?