brand you

“Post-It Note” Your Brand

On 01.15.10, In Branding, Personal Brand, Professional Development, Purpose, brand you, By DUST!N

We’ve talked about the difficulty in discerning your unique, personal brand.

Here’s an exercise that can help you see a snapshot of your life and/or career, and ultimately help you define the ‘Brand Called You’ (ala Tom Peters).

Post-It Note Timeline

First, you’ll need three colors of Post-It Notes. In this example, we’ll be using

Yellow

Red

and Blue

And you’ll also need a sheet of poster board. 11 x 17 inches is a good size, but you can make it smaller or larger depending on how much information you want on the board.

Step 1: Brain Dump

The first step is to write significant events from your life (or career) onto the yellow post-it notes. Don’t worry about following a pattern or order. We’ll deal with that next.

Step 2: Order

Now you should have a group of significant events to work with. Place your post-it notes on the poster board. Take time to add events, filter out irrelevant events, and/or put items into chronological order. You may start to see patterns emerge or related events in a grouping or repeated cycles throughout many years.

If you see ‘chapters’ emerging in your life, you may group those together into the same column or stop a column when a chapter ends.

Step 3: Seeing Red

Take anything that has negative connotations and transcribe it to a red post-it note.

Replace the yellow note on your board. Now you may notice periods which were difficult in your life. You may also notice how these negative events affected the events that followed (even beneficially at times).

Step 4: Lessons Learned

Now, look at each chapter of your life/career. Try and discern what overriding lesson you learned in that time. Write a summary or title of that lesson on a blue post-it note.

Then place the blue post-it notes below each chapter in your timeline.

Step 5: Share It

The final step is to share your story with others. If you’re married, you might try it on your spouse first. Otherwise, share it with a close friend or relative. They’ll be pretty honest with you about what they found interesting or what you left out (or should leave out next time).

The more you share your story with others, the more comfortable you will be sharing your life experiences and lessons with people.

In the end though, you should be able to see what events have shaped your life… helping you see your personal brand. One that is unique and incredible. Just like you.

Thanks to Dave Jewitt at Your One Degree for sending me this process.

Boldly be yourself!

The Race and The Chase

On 12.18.09, In Personal Brand, Professional Development, Purpose, Success, brand you, human spirit, By DUST!N

Do you remember chasing anything as a kid?

… chasing friends while playing tag.
… chasing your pet dog as he was running away with the chew toy.
… chasing your dad around the house, eventually falling in a heap on the couch and ending in a tickle fight.

At some point, many of us grow out of chasing and sign up for the (rat)race instead. We…

… race to a job before others can beat us to it.
… race against our peers to get the better car, bigger house and “perfect family.”
… race against time to try and find significance before it passes us by.

Simply running a race lacks passion. What can you do to rediscover yours? Maybe you just forgot what you were chasing. Maybe you need to know your red rubber ball. “Discover your passion and chase it for a lifetime.” As Kevin Carroll says.

Before you can do that though, ask yourself the question. “Am I just running? Or am I chasing something?”

That’s a good (even if it’s scary) place to start.

Living Among Critics

On 10.10.08, In Personal Brand, Persuasion, Professional Development, Society, brand you, human spirit, By DUST!N

Last night, I attended a meeting held by my daughter’s teacher. She was explaining the structure of the class and led us through some sample exercises she uses with the students.

Occasionally, she called upon us parents for volunteers to read or give answers.

I was stunned by the silence and awkward glances downward.

The teacher shared her observation that her students were much more eager to participate than their parents.

It gave me pause to wonder – why were we so hesitant to speak up, give answers… hesitant to take even the smallest risk? Much has been said of our fear of failure, but failure was not the deciding factor here. It’s not like our success would be dictated by how well we read “See Jane run.”

How come parents paused when our children would have eagerly spoken up?

I think somewhere between 3rd grade and our 3rd year of college, we have been beaten, chiseled, hardened and restrained by perpetual criticism. We’re a cynical society. We make snide remarks all the time about someone’s speech impediment, religious affiliation, choice of wardrobe or choice of friends. The constant wear has made us paranoid… even as adults.

It’s obvious in politics. Candidates like McCain, Palin, Obama and Biden know the very words they speak will be used in an attempt to hang them later. But should they let the critics dictate their speeches, let alone their policies?

How about you? Are you paranoid because of living among critics? And how much power do you give them over your life?

Moleskine Sketch #1 – Conformity

On 09.28.07, In Creativity, Moleskine Sketch, Purpose, brand you, By DUST!N

Branding in the Third Person

On 08.17.07, In Branding, Personal Brand, brand you, By DUST!N

Personal branding can be tricky. It’s difficult to see yourself objectively. It can be hard to judge yourself fairly without overestimating or underestimating your talent or ability. You’ve probably seen self-proclaimed ‘gurus’ who seem laughable, while more impressive people fail to give themselves any credit.

Formulating who you are is hard because it’s like the investigator trying to investigate himself. Biases and personal agendas cloud good judgment.

Try this when discerning your personal brand: Think in the third person.

View yourself from the outside, not the inside. See what others observe when they look at you. As you recall life events that affected the course of your life, replay them like scenes in a movie and yourself as a character. You may see something totally new you never noticed before.

I have an encounter I replay in my head occasionally. I’m embarrassed every time I think about the immature things I said to other people that day. By viewing the situation in third person, I see how that was an atypical day for me and I’ve grown since then. By recalling the scene in first person, I relive the feelings and perceptions I had that day – making me believe I still act that way.

This New York Times article describes how people see themselves differently when they view past events in the third person. Researchers see this as an important step in self discovery.

Seeing oneself as acting in a movie or a play is not merely fantasy or indulgence; it is fundamental to how people work out who it is they are, and may become.

â€œThe idea that whoever appeared onstage would play not me but a character was central to imagining how to make the narrative: I would need to see myself from outside,â€ the writer Joan Didion has said of â€œThe Year of Magical Thinking,â€ her autobiographical play about mourning the death of her husband and her daughter. â€œI would need to locate the dissonance between the person I thought I was and the person other people saw.â€

This might be considered superficial or shallow. It’s not. Your internal perspective will still influence your external view of yourself. Seeing yourself in the third person will give you a more complete picture of who you are… and help you create a more complete personal brand.

“Post-It Note” Your Brand

The Race and The Chase

Living Among Critics

Moleskine Sketch #1 – Conformity

Branding in the Third Person

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