Personal branding is a hot topic these days. Perhaps it all began with the article "The Brand Called You," by Tom Peters, published in Fast Company Magazine back in August 1997. And there have been numerous other articles on this topic, before and after this one. Peters wrote:
Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.
I agree with Peters. We ignore our brand at our own peril, whether we are in business, a non-profit, or working as a teacher or therapist. Our brand is how we are perceived by others. How we are perceived determines whether others believe that what we do meets their needs or wants, whether we can help them develop or find solutions, or whether others trust and respect us. In business -- in a way we are all in business -- it is important to pay attention to your brand.
We all have a brand, whether wanted or not, consciously constructed or not. Even Buddha has a brand, as well as the Dalai Lama, President Obama, and even those claiming to not have a brand -- no brand is also a brand. When used with integrity, a brand can be a way to express who we are and what we stand for as a person, or whatever our particular product, service, or offering may be. A brand can express our values and what we stand for.
Like anything, a brand can be misused. The word itself conjures images of fraud, sham artists, and charlatans. In some sense, perhaps we are all frauds. There is always a gap between our values, intentions, actions, and how we are perceived. We cannot control how others perceive us. Our brand with one person or one set of people can be completely different with another. Many people in the west think of the Dalai Lama as a representation of wisdom and humility. The Chinese government has a different perception.
What is President Obama's brand? It depends on whom you ask, when you ask, and how you ask. Perhaps the issue isn't the brand but how people relate to the brand, or both? We humans are complicated.
You Don't Exist -- Now What?
It is likely that what we take for granted as a "self" does not exist. And since your brand is intertwined with other people's perception, there is no one perception that defines you. It may be difficult to fathom that you don't exist in the way you think you do, but this is good news! How freeing. Your effort to create a solid, clearly identifiable self and a solid unchanging brand may be a worthy effort, but is essentially impossible. Even if you do establish a clear brand, you will change, others will change -- your brand will change.
So what do you do?
At the same time, understand that we live on multiple tracks. On one track, we need to pay attention to our brand. At the same time it is important to develop your life outside of the realm of brands -- Practice the art of "being nobody." This is a terrific practice. What it means is to let go of trying to be anyone special, of trying to control, of trying to hold onto anything solid, especially yourself. Let yourself just be yourself, brand-less, a happy, compassionate nobody. A paradox: The more you can let yourself be nobody, the more resilient and skillful you may be in developing your brand.
Follow Marc Lesser on Twitter: www.twitter.com/doingless
Malcolm Levene: An Authentic Personal Brand
Personal branding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thinking about what others think about something might be important when one's goal is to move cola or hamburgers or cigarettes, but for individuals there is a danger of becoming enthralled to the idea of consensus. The sheep model is good for corporations or for individuals who prize business success above all else, but it also sounds like a recipe for losing one's way.
I think people have a hard time doing this. Just look at how many us are into Facebook, Twitter, etc. Everyone wants to feel special and control how they're perceived. Facebook is a tool that allows them to do that.
In order to reach our authentic selves - the true self - we have to expand our consciousness to reach beyond the false constructs of ego. The Great Work, as it's been called, is the most difficult work we can do. With every thought and every action rooted in and driven by a false sense of self it can literally take lifetimes to accomplish.
Have we made progress when we realize that everything is in Unity? That in a larger sense there is only really one of us here - with no false sense of separation between us? That the All really is a Oneness?
Both these "I"s wish everyone, everywhere, the greatest success on that journey.
'....... Form Does not Differ From the Void,
And the Void Does Not Differ From Form.
Form is Void and Void is Form;
The Same is True For Feelings,
Perceptions, Volitions and Consciousness."
"Sariputra, the Characteristics of the
Voidness of All Dharmas
Are Non-Arising, Non-Ceasing, Non-Defiled,
Non-Pure, Non-Increasing, Non-Decreasing."
"Therefore, in the Void There Are No Forms,
No Feelings, Perceptions, Volitions or Consciousness."
"No Eye, Ear, Nose, Tongue, Body or Mind;
No Form, Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch or Mind Object;
No Realm of the Eye,
Until We Come to No realm of Consciousness."
"No ignorance and Also No Ending of Ignorance,
Until We Come to No Old Age and Death and
No Ending of Old Age and Death."
Andy Warhol seems to me to have been the quintessential case of that.