I hate to beat a dead horse, but I feel as though I must speak my piece. Don’t worry. I don’t plan on telling you the top 5 personal branding myths. I don’t plan on telling you why you should start a blog to build your brand. Neither do I plan on telling you to go read the article Fast Company wrote called, A Brand Called You. (Ok, I lied about that last part)
Recently I’ve read quite a few blogs written by folks who struggle with the idea of personal branding. Actually, that’s an understatement. These posts were written by people who think it’s a load of BS. Most of them were interesting reads that made a decent case for disliking the concept of personal branding. This post, however, made me cringe:
A person doesn’t need a brand. A person is a person whether or notAt this point I was halfway done, and I had already read enough to spend my day debating her poorly defended points in the comment section. Somehow, it still got worse:
there is paperwork filed with the government. A child doesn’t create a
personality, she has one.
That’s why “personal branding” smacks of insincerity, in the gentle way
that Volvo smacks crash-test dummies during vehicle safety tests.
Fortune‘s story later quoted organizational psychologist Lucia Erwin: “If
someone wants to use their personal brand to move up in their company, then they
need to ensure the values align.” Delete the “personal brand” jargon, and the
message is still clear: “If someone wants to move up in their company, then they
need to ensure the values align.”
This is where I realized that Ms. Holland was clearly missing the point. I couldn’t imagine how she could not see that your personal brand has everything to do with your values and that ensuring “the values align” meant ensuring that the opportunity is aligned with what you want for yourself. So I closed my browser without leaving a comment and dismissed her as just another person who likes to form opinions without really trying to understand what something is about.
I’m not spokesperson for personal branding. But I am a millennial who has watched her peers really define what it is they love and want for themselves and used that to open doors to opportunities that they might not have previously considered. It was actually only a year ago when I started reading about personal branding and thinking about what it meant for me.
Managing your brand in my mind is simply leveraging your reputation to accomplish your goals. Like the saying at the beginning of this post conveys, whether you know it or not you already have a brand. You already work hard, deliver results, communicate your passions and interests, and build relationships. Basically, everyday you do you. The only difference is that while you are doing the things you do best you are also in tune with how that affects others’ perceptions of you.
Personal branding is about understanding yourself – your passions, your likes, your dislikes, your strengths, your development areas, your goals etc. – and taking control of how you want those things to affect the journey that you are on in life.
If you are passionate about politics, I’m willing to bet that everyone around you knows of this passion whether you are aware of it or not. Your interest in the world of politics is likely reflected in the articles you read, events you attend, and the people you know. It’s also likely that even if you don’t work in a field related to politics, your coworkers know about your passion. Personal branding is about being aware of the connections people make with your name simply based on your interests, talents, network as well as your overall reputation and making that work for you.
After all, how do you know that one of your coworkers won’t send an awesome opportunity your way once he realizes it aligns with your skills and interests? Maybe then personal branding wouldn’t be so much crap.
4 comments:
Great article Nikita. I absolutely agree with you. Everyone is their own brand wheather they like it or not. And it's in everyone's own hands what they decide to make out of it...
It is interesting that you wrote this topic today of all days because I am covering Identity Awareness in my Language Arts/Reading class.
As I type, my students are creating their “brand”, describing their personality, as well as aspirations and goals.
With that stated, I do agree that "a child doesn’t create a personality, she has one." I watch as my students attempt to select the appropriate adjectives and construct fitting sentences that describe who they are and how they hope to be remembered. While brands can be insightful, they are also limited. I believe in creating and maintaining your persona, but brands seem so finite... too permanent. Coming into one’s own socially, academically, and professionally is a process. How do you brand something that is ever changing? I will read the articles that you mentioned above, but it is challenge for me to wrap my mind around the “brand.” What I can offer you today may be different a year from now.
As always, great job Nikita - Keep it coming!
Nikita and Ms Humphries,
I like what both of you have to say. Ms Humphries, your point about personal evolution has actually helped me understand what is vital about building a brand; definition. Google started as what simply seemed to be a quirky search engine. So why then have they released an internet browser, a phone operating system and a suite of office programs? It would seem that these are disconnected but Google never really changed from being about cloud computing and improving productivity. The Google brand evolved but never changed. What I get from Nikita and Ms. Humphries is that a person must go through the process of defining what they want their brand to be so their brand can evolve and yet remain focused.
I have been unfocused about personal branding but this post has given me a different view so I want to thank you.
The, you touched on a point that I definitely wanted to make for Shakenya: brands are fully capable of evolving. Look at any successful brand, and you'll see that it has survived over a long period of time by evolving. Google is a perfect example. And yes, we are human. It is definitely possible for us to become known for one thing and decide that we would like to try something completely new. However, our interests and talents don't transform overnight. To me, successfully branding yourself requires being open and honest about who you are and what that means. That way you don't have to worry about whether or not what you have to offer today will be the same as what you have to offer next year. Branding definitely allows for that transformation.
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