The Power of Your Personal Brand
I recently heard something on a YouTube video that struck me. You came to this earth because there is something that this earth needed that God hid inside of you. Everything in creation was created with a gift. You are a package sent to earth to deliver a gift to your generation. Whatever you are created to become, you possess now.
You have the power to unlock that gift. It starts with understanding yourself. Then unleashing your authenticity to help the world. This authentic and aligned self is known as a personal brand.
Just as companies and celebrities have brands, each one of us do too. That brand is powerful. A personal brand is the unique identity of an individual, a collected set of their strengths, values, and their reputation, how they put themselves out into the world. As author Seth Godin summarized, a brand is “the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”
Now replace ‘brand’ with you. You are a set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for your boss’, teammate’s, friend’s, or employer’s decision to choose you over someone else.
How are you going to help yourself find a lifelong partner, meet the right friends, endeavor on an exciting career path, create something new? It comes down to intentionally cultivating and leveraging your personal brand.
Personal brand has a formula (adapted from Karen Kang’s book, Branding Pays):
Strengths + Values + Reputation = PERSONAL BRAND
Let’s take a deeper look into how to build each of these into your brand.
Strengths
We all have a unique set of innate strengths and learned skills. Many of us receive misinformation to focus on overcoming our weaknesses, but in reality we should be honing in on our natural abilities and aptitudes .
Here are a few recommendations to discovering yours:
1.Take some personality assessments. If you’re an unbeliever, then at least give these a try. The results are not the Bible of your makeup, but rather give you a glimpse into who you are, how you naturally respond to situations, and what you are inclined to do.
StrengthsFinders - Provides an understanding of our natural tendencies
VIA Character Strengths Survey - Reveals your greatest strengths (free)
16 Personalities (Myers Briggs) - Highlights personality traits and how individuals recharge and perceive the world (free)
Enneagram - Shows which of the 9 personality types suit you best (basic assessment is free)
Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies - Depicts how individuals are internally or externally motivated (free)
Four Temperaments - Describes how individual personalities have an underlying dominant temperament (free)
Love (or Work) Languages - Everyone has a “language” by which they feel and express love and/or appreciation at work (free)
M-CORE - Dives into an individual’s core motivations
Hogwarts House - For fun! What house do you fit into? (free) (Meanwhile, I’ve only seen one movie and never read the books…)
After taking a few assessments, you will begin to see a pattern emerge. If considered in conjunction with the other suggestions below, your results will start to paint a picture of your strengths and personality. This is helpful when looking for new roles and responsibilities, or what type of environments you thrive in.
2. Ask close friends, family, or even your boss about what they think you are good at. While it may be intimidating at first to ask other people about yourself, it’s incredibly insightful. Their opinion is more objective and can offer specific recommendations on what to focus on improving.
3. Take a deep look at what you enjoy doing and why. When I decided to move to DC, I took time for self reflection and discovered I wanted to find a job that combined my interests in travel, people, and public speaking. This revelation helped me narrow my search for roles that included these interests. Turns out, I found that job and it lit up my soul.
Values
Similar to strengths, it’s important to uncover what you value in work and in life. Values help you stay the course of your life and maintain a sense of direction. Jobs and friends will come and go, but if you have solid values, they will remain and will be a lens through which you see the world and how you choose to respond to it. If you don’t know exactly what your values are, reference this sheet (page 4).
For example, you value flexibility in your schedule. You may have a natural inclination to go with the flow in your friend group or in a team environment. But you also can’t stand rigid work environments. Perhaps this would mean you need to find a company that allows you to work remotely or have flexible working hours so that you can adapt your life to a schedule more suitable for your needs. This choice based on your values will bring more fulfillment to your role.
Go back and take those personality assessments. Knowing what you’re good at and enjoy doing will help unearth what you value.
Reputation (External + Internal)
How many times have you heard that a good reputation is important? A lot. But have you ever paused to consider what a reputation entails? How you change it unknowingly?
A person’s reputation is a combination of how others perceive them (external) and how they perceive themselves (internal). To have a strong understanding of your reputation (good or bad), these two must be aligned.
Let’s say a person believes they have a strong work ethic (internal perception), but they don’t seem to put much time into projects and are rarely punctual. A supervisor may receive this information and decide that the person is apathetic or lazy (external perception). Consequently, this person’s reputation is not aligned and their brand is weakened because of it.
If you’re looking to align your brand better, consider asking your friends and family about your reputation. Does it align with how you perceive yourself?
Conclusion
There are many qualities that go into a personal brand, and we’ve only scratched the surface. The way you dress is critical, for example, but more on that later.
If nothing else remember this: YOU have the power to shape your brand and share your gift with the world. What you do with this information will have a lasting impact on your relationships, jobs, happiness, and ultimate impact on the world. Find your gift, and unleash it!