If you don’t have a succinct personal brand, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage in your professional and personal life.
What is a personal brand?
Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room, it’s your reputation. Personal branding means taking an active role in the direction of your life and it will highlight to others what you’ve got to offer. A personal brand put simply is: a neatly packaged set of values, character traits and capabilities that make you unique.
Why you need a personal brand
Personal branding is becoming increasingly important because of the intrinsic relationship between our personal and professional lives. Your reputation, both online and offline has become more impactful than your resume, and personal branding is advantageous for those who want to rise above the rest.
Personal branding not only relates to your professional life, it’s incredibly helpful for increasing focus with regards to personal development, decision-making and overall life satisfaction. The relationship between life success and personal branding, when understood, can truly launch you to new heights; in that when you have a compelling personal brand, people will be more likely to connect with you because they find you interesting, desirable and they understand clearly how you can help them. You’ll become a forerunner in the minds of corporate leaders and a magnetic prospect for like-minded friends and relationships.
How to build a personal brand
Building a unique brand around yourself as an individual is not unlike building a brand for a company. In fact, it’s nearly identical.
Your personal brand is less about your look, and more about finding your authentic voice. It’s about digging deep to uncover why you do what you do and the many attributes that make you unique. You can’t fake your personal brand, at least in the long-term. People these days have a pretty high bullshit meter, so in order to be successful you have to get authentic.
Part of personal branding is identifying your personal style—and that responds to a variety of factors, including your goals, your profession, your skills, your interests, your culture, your life experiences and the quirks of your personality. To pin down your personal brand, you must be clear on who you are and what you bring to the table; it’s the the strengths that others acknowledge in you and things that have always been true about you. You’ll need to resist the temptation to put on a style or adopt a style unlike your natural one, you need to intensify the one you already possess.
Personal brand in business & life
Personal branding fuses your business and personal life; because your business and your life are naturally intertwined!
Like most of us, you initially pursue a career so you can afford to live, but this brings up the critical question: What do you want your life to be like? What is the life that will lead to fulfillment? Although you may ignore these questions for a while, eventually you’ll find your work/life balance is out of whack, and those questions cannot be ignored.
It’s all too common for people wake up and find themselves knee-deep in a life without purpose or passion. When you develop a personal brand, it becomes the torch for finding your way in career, love and life. You’ll increase self-love, your purpose will become clear, and how you can be of service to others will be revealed to you.
Rise above the rest
When you choose to develop a succinct personal brand, you’ll not only be providing clarity to others, you’ll have clarity for yourself. You’ll have more energy and focus because you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, what you bring to the table and where you’re headed. You’ll rise above your career competition because you’re consistent in your delivery and you take steps to put yourself out there, get noticed and you have courage and conviction to keep going, learning and growing—you create a virtuous cycle.
Be yourself. Everyone else is taken
Being authentic means being able to be your true self, with honesty, openness and transparency. It’s about having the courage to define your own version of what it is to live a successful life and it’s key to experiencing happiness and meaning.
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Check out my personal brand over at zestylife.ca