Threshold Consulting: It's Your Life, Own It!

Should You Work on Your Personal Brand or Your Personal Attraction?

Have you ever noticed how some ideas or activities can get caught up in the causality dilemma? Not sure what that is? Well, you probably know it as “the chicken or the egg?” Certainly, it’s not often that we need to ponder what came first. Yet, there are aspects of our careers and business lives that can benefit from considering causality. Personal branding is one of them.

As I would frame it, the causality dilemma for branding is this: Does “your brand” find its grounding in the carefully crafted word picture you present to the world, or in the social truth you live every day? 

The Brandwagon

As personal branding has become mainstream, there’s been a flood of advice on how to create, or build, yours. These days, it’s not just brand strategists who promote the importance of branding, but also career coaches, resume writers, social media strategists, and other experts. Lots of people are jumping on the “brandwagon.”

As you might expect, the spectrum of advice ranges from on-target and useful to misguided or superficial.  Even detractors have offered advice; namely, personal branding is loathsome, so don’t do it. Yet, the consensus is that you need to have a personal brand, leading more and more people to buy in.

And why not? Building a brand is generally perceived as the hallmark of success in business. It is believed to offer a differentiation that supports competitive advantage. But does it really?

Me Too

Actually, creating a personal brand, like everyone else, risks looking like everyone else. And just like everyone else, you increase the likelihood of  “accentuating non-essential distinctions…cloaking sameness as differentiation.”

It is a development, according to Harvard Business School professor Youngme Moon, that has been the trend in consumer products. In her remarkable book, Different, she says:

“In category after category, companies have gotten so locked into a particular cadence of competition that they appear to have lost sight of their mandate – which is to create meaningful grooves of separation from one another. Consequently, the harder they compete, the less differentiated they become.”

So, increasingly, we live in a world where we don’t see meaningful differences between offerings like cars, cereals, or cell phones.  Equivalent features foster sameness, not distinction.  In many ways, we also face this herd mentality with personal branding. 

The Right Question

Of course, this raises the question of what characteristics promote our differentiation? But maybe that’s not the right question. As Professor Moon suggests, we need to stop thinking of differentiation as a tactic. Instead, she observes:

“Differentiation is a way of thinking. It’s a mindset. It’s a commitment. A commitment to engage with people – not in a manner to which they are merely unaccustomed, but in a manner that they will value, respect, and yes, perhaps even celebrate.”

As I interpret this, true differentiation emerges from interaction. It’s a conversation. So, it’s less about static attributes and more about responsiveness. The right question, then, becomes what are you doing to attract, interact, and ultimately connect?

Different works only to the extent that it fosters attraction and supports connection. No attraction, no connection.  [Tweet This]

Living Truthfully

If we re-imagine personal brand as personal attraction, we get to play to a different standard. We get to go beyond the tools and templates of image creation. We get to sidestep any contrived cleverness that can be perceived as fake. We get beyond the need to establish aproxy.  We get to show up as who we are, quirks and all. Said another way: We’re more attractive when we show up as a person, not a brand.

In short, living truthfully drives the brand. It’s fosters attraction, interaction, and connection. It comes first.

Any questions?

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Cross posted from Success Reimagined.
 

Time for Your Career Wake-Up Call?

Like other people, you probably have fond recollections of starting out in life. From the moment you were free to strike out on your own, life held wonderful promise of new adventures to come. The sky was the limit, and the great advice people offered, as they wished you well, fueled your visions of success. Chances are, one of the most fundamental pieces of advice you received was to “know thyself.” 

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Yet, it’s probably the one task you most quickly cast aside. 

Fitting In

The fact is, like most of us, you probably got so caught up in your career adventure that you were eager to fit in to the profession, industry, and organization you decided to join. I know I did. Making that effort was, frankly, not entirely our own choice. After all, our careers most often get started in places that put a premium on conformity.

This is true, even now, despite what the corporate mission statement might say. And even if the organization suggests that fresh thinking is a good thing, there always seems to be someone from the “old guard” ready to provide a reality check. So you adapt, and in the process, put aside any idea of what you want in favor of what you need to do to survive.

If you’re lucky, and your career advances, you get to keep your job and you become even better at doing what’s expected. It can be difficult at times. Generally, however, you’re astute enough to figure out what others want from you – and agile enough to provide it. And as you’re more successful, you develop a picture of yourself that meets job requirements – even if it’s several beats short of who you truly are.

Simulated Reality

This can work for a very long time. Yet, it tends to create a kind of comfort zone that is akin to the blissful blue-pill induced ignorance that keeps you plugged into the career matrix. 

Still, there’s likely to be that pivotal moment when you face a career wake-up call! Whether it’s an increasing sense of unhappiness about your work or life, a clear signal about the impending death of your industry, or an actual layoff, it can be disorienting. Yet, following your instincts, you see that you need to take steps to find new work. So, you update your resume, polish up your LinkedIn profile, craft a “killer” elevator pitch to convey your value proposition, and work your network to squeeze out whatever job leads you can get. In fact, you may even consider creating a personal brand.

Waking Up

While this may seem like an obvious business-oriented approach, it is more often a knee-jerk reaction. And while there are some pragmatic elements to it, you’d do better to swallow the red-pill reality of self-knowledge. It is not necessarily an easy process, but the best one I can think of to put you on the path that is most meaningful and fulfilling for you. It involves both internal and external discovery processes. 

Approach internal discovery by investing time in introspective work to uncover the story of your life journey, including the challenges you’ve overcome, and the things you’ve done that were the most deeply satisfying. If you need starter questions, consider these:

• What parts of your life and work are you really good at?
• What are you most passionate about in your work and life?
• What are some of your best accomplishments, and what did you do to reach them?
• Do you have a vision for what’s possible in the world? What is it?
• Have you ever felt you were meant to accomplish something significant? What is it?
• If you could design the perfect work and life, what would it look like?
• What are the most fundamental values and beliefs you apply to all you do?
• Who are the people you most want to be around? Who else?
• If you didn’t need a paycheck or could retire tomorrow, what would you do with your time?
• What would you do if you were truly brave? What risks are you willing to take to have a better life?

Working with a coach can help you achieve deeper insights and find the connections among them. As well, you may want to find a book that will guide your introspection. (A promising one I’ve just discovered is Kerry Pastine’s Know Thyself.)

For the external process, invest some time in getting feedback on how others see you, including your best attributes, skills, strengths, and roles. What you learn from others will help you see how you make a difference for them…and for others in the future. There are different strategies for doing this, but one of the best ones I’ve found is the 360 Reach assessment, which is an automated feedback survey that protects the anonymity of the people who provide your feedback. (Full disclosure: It’s a tool I sell and use.)

Getting Real

Frankly, this process offers some self-validation; so, you’ll likely discover you that you know quite a bit about yourself already. Yet, you’ll surely discover some surprises that will give you a more complete picture. You’ll have insights that will help you make better choices about your career, and you’ll have a better shot at getting real, so you can make a better life for yourself.

So, consider this your career wake-up call and get started today!!

The Brandtastic Diaries

Recently, I had the honor of being a guest on The Brandtastic Diaries. This video interview series is intended to celebrate the ‘ICONIC’ Brands of Reach Strategists. The series is the brainchild of my Reach Colleague, Tanvi Bhatt, founder Panache Studio, India’s Premiere Personal Branding Studio.

A New and Amazing World

Frankly, this project was one of those experiences that made me realize what a truly amazing world we live in! On the most fundamental level, it was a reminder of the growing, global importance of personal brand as a component of career and business success. I think people mostly get that.

Yet, at another level, I think Tanvi’s series speaks to the importance of mastering newer skills that seem required for success. First of all, and more than ever, professionals need to become adept at engaging in collaborative conversations that create value not only for themselves by others as well.

Content Creation

Put another way, today, we must become adept at creating content that benefits others. There are lots of ways to do that, of course. Yet, I'm seeing producing interviews as becoming an increasingly important part of our skill set. 

And then there are the technical tools we need to learn, and ideally master. These include social media, video, and the technologies that support them. All of these were instrumental in bridging time and distance in order to successfully produce and deliver The Brandtastic Diaries.

With that as background, it is a pleasure to bring to you the first two episodes of The Brandtastic Diaries. In the first, Tanvi interviews, William Arruda, the founder of Reach Personal Branding. The second one is my interview.

Celebrating the ICONIC Brand of William Arruda.

Celebrating the ICONIC Brand of Walter Akana.

Crafting Your Personal Brand Story

I recently had the pleasure of meeting up with Smart Networking author Liz Lynch, when she was in Atlanta to lead a strategic discussion on social media for a group of senior executives. While here, we did the following short video interview about brand story.

 

If you would like to learn more, make sure to listen to my interview with her on her Smart Networking Shift Expert Interview Series (requires registration).

Five Keys To Developing Your Personal Brand Story

Perhaps the most important lesson of my life is this: there is a big difference between being alive and truly living ... I started my career working my way up the corporate rungs … Yet, I was missing work and life balance. So, I transferred to Boulder…. [and] joined the Colorado Mountain Club where I discovered my bliss! The moment I touched the rock I knew I would spend my life climbing

. I scaled 22,494 foot Ama Dablam, and then Everest as member of the Climb for Peace team in 2006. 

… Life has also taught me everyone has their Everest, and can use the support of others to overcome challenges. So, … I founded Beyond Everest, to deliver inspiring programs to motivate individuals and teams to reach peak performance … [and] feel more fully alive! ~Tonya (Riggs) Clement

There is no shortage of advice on how to create your personal brand statement, including templates to follow. Yet, there is probably little real differentiation in approach. Worse, most advice does little to help you uncover and share what truly connects you and your audience. For that, I believe you need to know and share your story. If you’re not certain what a story is, and how to uncover and convey it in a captivating way, read on.  Here are five keys to get you started on developing your story. 

1. Make a meaningful emotional connection by knowing for whom you’re telling your story.

Whatever your business, you’re likely focused on specific niche audience for whom you need to be relevant. So, consider who makes up your brand community and what connects you to them. Take into account their interests, aspirations, and cultural connections, and even the oddities you share that are the basis for emotional bonds. Today, real opportunity, according to Seth Godin, in We Are All Weird, “…is to support the weird, to sell to the weird and, if you wish, to become weird.” Your story needs to show that you “get it.”

2. Don’t rely on communications tools that are not designed to convey story. 

Bios and resumes, traditionally used to substantiated your value, are rarely compelling, or memorable. Aside from the barrier posed by reverse chronology, they generally convey only accomplishments, often using business jargon. Because they can seem abstract and even boring, they almost guarantee a sense of sameness that keeps you from standing out.  In developing your story, think “one upon a time.” Start with formative experiences that made you who you are, and qualify you to serve your community. Make sure, in documenting your career/life journey, to include the missteps and transitions that formed you.

3. Tell a real story that draws in your audience, while making you authentic – and human.

Because something is about you doesn’t mean it’s your story. As Lisa Cron points out, “ A story is how what happens affects someone who is trying to achieve what turns out to be a difficult goal, and how he or she changes as a result.” In your story, you are that someone, and where you are today is the result of having dealt with or overcome conflicts, doubts, turning points, and even flaws. So, your story needs to include examples of how you persevered in the face of uncertainty, adversity, or risk – and ideally examples that your audience will identify with. These make you human and authentic, and enhance your chances of establishing an emotional connection.

4. Make sure your story conveys a clear theme that shows what you stand for.

While events move your story forward, the true backbone of your story – what anchors the value that you bring to others – is your theme. Theme, according to Lisa Cron, is “…defines what is possible and what isn’t in the world the story unfolds in.”  So, dig beneath your experiences to uncover the values and beliefs that drive your vision for what is possible  – and what you bring to your work. Your theme is your why, and it’s what fuels the difference you make for the people you serve.

5. Make your story something your audience owns.

Stories are not one-way self-promotion. So, keep “your” story focused on what’s essential to your audience. After all, cognitive research shows the reason people pay attention to stories is to learn vicariously through the experience of the people in them. If your audience learns from you, a real person, you become more memorable, and your audience becomes more interested in actually meeting, getting to know, and working with you!

Your story is the ultimate differentiator – because it’s yours! Take the time to uncover and share it.

Connecting with People Who Will Hire …YOU!

“Story is the language of experience, whether it’s ours, someone else’s, or that of fictional characters. Other people’s stories are as important as the stories we tell ourselves. Because if all we ever had to go on was our own experience, we wouldn’t make it..." 

~ Lisa Cron

Truth be told, not everyone learns all they need in Kindergarten. In fact, people learn over the entire course of their lives, and one of the primary vehicles for learning is stories. Indeed, in fairness to Robert Fulghum, it is precisely the stories he tells which teach the principles he covers in All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten. There is a reason for this. As Lisa Cron documents, in Wired for Story, there is solid brain science behind storytelling. Specifically,

“Neuroscientists believe the reason our already overloaded brain devotes so much precious time and space to allowing us to get lost in a story is that without stories, we’d be toast. Stories allow us to simulate intense experiences without actually having to live through them.   “[In fact,]… our expectations [of a story] have everything to do with the story’s ability to provide information on how we might safely navigate this earthly plane.”

Benefiting from a good story is, on some level, like hiring a coach or consultant. Someone who has the kind of information we need to survive and improve so we can live successfully. And while we might not stop to think about it, we are more predisposed to hire consultants whose stories resonate with us.

Increasingly, it’s the same for the people who you want to hire you!

Today, in our social media driven world, people seek to connect, partner, and do business with people who “get it” and therefore “get them.” And the way they determine this is via the stories others convey.  This makes personal brand storytelling more important than ever. And to tell your brand story in a way that is authentic and will resonate with your audiences requires self-knowledge. As creative writing instructor Robert McKee points out, “Self Knowledge is key – life plus deep reflection on our reactions to life. [Italics his].”

Now, more than ever, your story is your brand. So, it’s critical to go deeper than a conveying a one-sentence personal brand statement arrived at from the examination of the 360 feedback and introspective exercises. While these are certainly important, it is critical to examine the life events that shaped your brand DNA.  While it’s important to convey the vision, purpose, values, passions, beliefs, and skill sets that you bring to creating value, you also need to share the specifics of your accomplishments, and your  failures, come backs, and other key life turning points.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, it’s a mistake to hide your stumbles in life. In fact, your mistakes and what you draw from them are your story. As Lisa Cron defines it,

“A story is how what happens affects someone who is trying to achieve what turns out to be a difficult goal, and how he or she changes as a result.“

In other words, taken as a whole, your failures as well as your achievements offer your audience the language of experience that connects to their expectations and draws them to you to learn more.  And the more your story resonates, the more likely it is to establish an emotional connection with your idea audience and fuel their desire to work with … you! 

Re-imagining Personal Brand

“Differentiation is a way of thinking. It’s a mindset. It’s a commitment. A commitment to engage with people – not in a manner to which they are merely unaccustomed, but in a manner that they will value, respect, and yes, perhaps even celebrate.”

~ Youngme Moon

Harvard Business School professor, Youngme Moon, in her remarkable book Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd, discusses the ways in which many brands have adopted a herd mentality as they compete in the marketplace. In accounting for a “proliferation of sameness,” she says:

"In category after category, companies have gotten so locked into a particular cadence of competition that they appear to have lost sight of their mandate – which is to create meaningful grooves of separation from one another. Consequently, the harder they compete, the less differentiated they become.”

So, increasingly, we live in a world where we don’t see meaningful differences between offerings like cars, cereals, or cell phone plans.  Equivalent features foster sameness, not distinction.

In many ways, we face a similar heard mentality with personal branding.

As the idea of personal branding has become mainstream, career coaches and resume writers are now offering branding advice. Yet, based on some of the examples I’ve seen, this advice tends to lead to “personal brands” described in terms of some bland mix of job title, transferable skills, personal attributes, accomplishments – and perhaps even clever tag lines. In fairness, I suspect their advice is geared to presenting oneself, in the employment market place, in a risk-averse way. Yet, this superficial brand creation leads ultimately to “accentuating non-essential distinctions…cloaking sameness as differentiation.”

So, how do we arrive at true differentiation?

Broadly, I think we can find part of the answer in what Professor Moon calls Idea Brands, that is, brands that challenge limits and assumptions. One example is the Breakaway Brand which disrupts our consumption classification patterns with new frames of reference; as did Cirque du Soleil in it’s careful positioning as “being everything a CIRCUS is not.”

Overall, idea brands are "…not perfect brands. … They are polarizing brands. They are lopsided brands. …[yet]…they make perfect sense to us." Still, in their unique imperfections, I think that idea brands give us some hints for re-imaging personal branding.  

So, how does this apply to personal brand in general, and to you in particular?

Starting with the three characteristics of idea brands that Professor Moon points to, here are some thoughts on re-imagining personal brand:

Offer something that is hard to come by.  It may seem simplistic, but no one is “youer” than you. You have no substitute. So, whatever your profession, by bringing your unique style and perspectives, you deliver value in a way no one else can – even people with similar skill sets.

Reflect commitment to a big idea. In thinking about your personal brand, remember that some of the most successful people have a vision for the world and a sense of life purpose. So, consider your vision and purpose. While you may not achieve global change, your vision and purpose will guide your daily actions to make a difference in things you can control. 

Have sensitivity to the concerns of real people. Strong brands evoke an emotional connection. People typically love their favorite brands! But this is a two-way street where most loved brands earn loyalty through their responsiveness to their fans. For you to achieve this, you need to maintain a level of engagement that allows meaningful responsiveness to the people you serve.

Embrace your weirdness. In his wonderful book, We Are All Weird, Seth Godin says real choice and richness comes, not from following the norms of a mass culture, but from connecting with those who love what we love. So, you enhance your chances of success by joining or creating tribes or brand communities where people who pursue common goals and interests “get it” -- and therefore “get you.”

Remember your brand is your story. No one else has your life experiences, so nothing differentiates you as much as your story. In sharing your story, it’s important to convey the life events that support your brand – including the failures and key life turning points that shape the vision, purpose, values, passions, beliefs, and skill sets that you bring to creating value.

Always be a person and not a brand. Perhaps one of the most valid and well-argued criticisms of personal branding makes the point that people are not brands. In pursuit of a personal brand, most often, it’s the contrived cleverness gets people into trouble – because it’s perceived as fake. So, just be yourself. Most of your little quirks make you likeable, and the ones that don’t can be managed.

Ultimately, re-imagining personal brand is captured in Bill Taylor’s summary of Professor Moon’s book:

“Think about it: If you do things the same way everyone else in your field does things, why would you expect to do any better? Being different is what makes all the difference.”

Substitute

But I'm a substitute for another guy
I look pretty tall but my heels are high
The simple things you see are all complicated
I look pretty young, but I'm just back-dated, yeah

~ The Who

Back in the day, when I first became a certified Personal Branding Strategist, I learned that personal branding was about having permission to be yourself. And personal brand was synonymous with your reputation.

Actually, it still is.

To be even more specific, there are still many people who use the term personal brand to refer to an authentic expression of who you uniquely are in terms of the attributes, vision, purpose, values, and passions that you bring to what you do. It is the you-ness you add to your professional competencies that makes you more valuable to your clients, and your broader professional community.

In many ways, then, your personal brand, is the experience you provide while you are doing what people hire you to do. So, the skills that you bring to your work may be the same skills that others in your profession use, but your approach is unique to you. For example, I have a friend who injects her fun, vibrant personality into meetings where she is delivering accounting and tax advice. She brings who she is to what she does. She didn’t cultivate a personal brand. She is just being herself, and her clients love her!

Today, however, there seems to be a lot of personal branding advice that tends to overlook the you-ness element and treat “your personal brand” as a distinct entity that you have to care for and manage. Kind of like a bonsai tree. So, we get articles and blog posts that provide advice on building, revamping, or reinventing your personal brand!!

While much of the advice these authors provide is actually useful, it has little to do with you. It is much more focused on tactics for gaining visibility and attracting clients. Yet, to engage in any exercise that is construed as “working on your brand,” but leaves out your you-ness, is akin to caring for some abstract entity. It’s like creating a proxy. A substitute.

Too bad.

Seeing the notion of personal brand become more mainstream is a good thing. It signals the end of mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Even more it supports the growing recognition that we all have the capacity to serve specific tribes. It helps us see that our true value comes not merely from the commoditized functions our skills are based in, but from the very weirdness that makes us appeal to our niche.

Of course, personal brand has also become subject to criticism. And frankly, based on the approach of many "personal branders," it’s criticism that is well deserved. If you have any doubt about this, you should read Olivier Blanchard’s very well-argued critique of personal branding. Blanchard notes, “People are people. They aren’t brands.” And ironically, one of the tips he offers is, “Just be yourself.” I think this is great advice! It's a great post, actually; and if you haven't read it, you should! 

As you might surmise, I reject the idea of personal "reinvention." This does not mean, of course, that I believe who we are and the reputations we develop don’t evolve. They do. Yet, they change because we have gained new insights into who we are, what we want to do, who we want to serve, and the difference we want to make for others – and impact that has on how we do what we do. This is very different from throwing out a new value proposition to see if it sticks.

So, insofar as our “brand” is concerned, the real task is the application of introspective insights to our work. And often, it is a process that is best done with a well-qualified coach who can help identify the themes that matter to you and to your audiences. Investing this kind of effort fosters a personal clarity that can help align what we know about ourselves with a communications strategy that will bring meaningful visibility and credibility.

Frankly, as I see it, bringing anything less than who you are to what you do means you may as well have been born with a plastic spoon in your mouth.

Connecting Your Dots

It’s no surprise that with the tragic passing of Steve Jobs, there have been so many tributes to his genius and contributions to the world. And while most have been great, perhaps one of the most touching is the impromptu talk by Guy Kawasaki during a Facebook Success Summit 2011 teleconference, just minutes after Apple’s announcement of Jobs’ death. If you haven’t heard or read it, I recommend you do.

Yet, for me, perhaps the most touching tributes have been publications of Steve Job’s own words. And while the advanced, game-changing, and exquisitely designed technology he brought into the world is central to his legacy, his philosophy frames his passion as well as the value he created. His view of life is firmly rooted in his personal stories; and to see their power, you need only look at the three stories he told during his commencement address at Stanford University, June 12, 2005, which you can watch or read. During that speech, he said:

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. Most important have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. I have always wished that for myself. And now, I wish that for you."

While it was certainly not his intention to convey a “branding” message, those 83 words capture the essence of what personal brand is truly about – following your heart and intuition.

Unfortunately, too many people look at personal branding in strictly value terms. Yet, it is even more critical to determine the foundation for the value you bring. Getting locked into crafting a perfect value statement, without introspection, is to miss the point. In fact, it’s a big mistake. As I see it, putting who you are in service to others is the only way to ever provide the kind of value that matters to your community.

So, to truly follow your heart means taking a look at your life and figuring out how your values, passions, interests, activities, and even circumstances, contribute to the direction of your life – pointing you toward work you were meant to do. Indeed, in his commencement address, Steve Jobs makes a brilliant point about this when he references connecting the dots. He said:

“… you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

In a very real way, your personal brand is tied to your stories, and your stories encompass your “dots.” If you don’t know what they are, and more importantly, how they connect, then you have slim chance of standing out and making a difference. So, find your stories, see how they connect, and use them as a basis to move ahead. You may fail at times. In fact, expect it. Yet, realize that each of those failures is just another set of dots to connect as you move forward. 

Be Yourself, Only Better

Recently, I posted to Instagram a photo of myself at the gym. I was wearing a Mizuno T-shirt emblazoned with Japanese characters, and the phrase, “Be Yourself, Only Better." Later that day, a Japanese Instagram friend posted the simple comment, “Me too” – along with the same Japanese characters. Curious, I went to Google Translate and found that “limit challenge” is the literal translation. I was intrigued, and even more so, over subsequent days, as I got favorable reactions from other Japanese friends about the shirt – and the philosophy!

Of course, this prompted me to take a closer look. So, I went to Mizuno’s website and found a flash presentation that expresses how they see limit challenge. It said this:

“Every day
You make promises to yourself.
Be tough, only tougher.
Be strong, only stronger.
Be yourself. Only better.
And, above all, never waver.
Never quit.
Never settle.”

In digging deeper into their philosophy, I found a statement that really resonated for me: “Inside each of us is a better us trying to get out. Trying to make the most of what we've got. Trying to be more than we think we can be.” Not only does this reflect my philosophy of owning your life, but also captures the whole essence of living one’s brand. It’s about the daily promise to bring one’s authentic self to making the world better for others. And the better we do, the better we become.

Frankly, this stands in stark contrast to most of the “personal branding” advice out there, today. As the idea of personal brand has become more mainstream, there is no shortage of views on what you ought to do to have a strong brand. Unfortunately, too many career coaches, along with an array of other experts, point to the need to create a personal brand; and if you want to change jobs or careers you are advised to re-brand.

Sure, there may be a nod to authenticity, but it tends to get lost in the quest for the clever tag line or value statement. And what happens to any shred of authenticity you may have salvaged, if you think you need a new brand to move your career in another direction? If personal branding is truly about authenticity, then it seems to me, re-branding is an oxymoron.

So, what to do?

Part of the problem, I believe, rests in the artificial distinction between your career and your life. By maintaining this false dichotomy, it becomes nearly impossible to see that your ability to provide value for others has always been part of your “brand DNA.” To discover it, you need to unravel your life stories to find the themes that make you who you are – who you uniquely are.

Once you find yourself, and the unique value you bring to others, you’ll have a stronger, and truly differentiated brand. You’ll also, perhaps for the first time in your life, be in the best position to be yourself, only better.