The socialite walks into the ski shop and buys a $3000 ski jacket she’ll wear once. Why? Not because she’ll stay warmer in it more than a different jacket, but because that’s what someone like her does. It’s part of her story. In fact, it’s easier for her to buy the jacket than it is to change her story.

Once I recovered from the idea of paying $3000 for basically renting a jacket for a day, the idea of doing something “because that’s what someone like [you] does.” stuck with me. The phrase elucidates how we allow our lives to become parodies of ourselves. This is how we sleepwalk through vast segments of our life, only to awaken one day and not recognize the person we have become. A person living a life based on the expectations, desires and decisions of ‘someone like you.’

When you think of living according to what you know deep inside yourself, how does that make you feel? Does it excite you or simply raise your blood pressure with anxiety? Does it fill you with ideas or simply leave you feeling like you’re staring at an insultingly blank slate? Ask yourself why you feel this way. See if it connects with a deeper truth inside of you. It may be a truth you are unwilling to uncover from the shovels of dirt the world has piled on through the years.

If the idea scares you, perhaps it is because you have no clue what awaits under the lid of this box. I don’t blame you for being nervous, but be aware that you may be leaving yourself buried alive in that box as you let “someone like you” walk away, continuing to live your life for you.

In a small twist, I’d like to take this anecdote and actually put it to use.

Anecdotes are recommended to presenters (including pastors) to help break the ice, bring comic relief and engage the audience. The problem is when the anecdote doesn’t relate to the message. Even if you’re not a presenter, this is relevant to you.

What is the TRUTH about your company’s story, your family’s story, your story?

If you ask this of your colleagues, your employees and your customers, will you get mostly the same story or greatly varying answers?

Why would they vary? Because everyone has their own personal experience. We possess our own anecdotal evidence to support our perceptions about most everything. And this personal story IS our truth. Unfortunately, we may be telling a story that doesn’t connect with what people experience. Like the case of the pastor’s sermon, the anecdote and the message don’t relate.

The idea of telling a consistent story isn’t new. Not even close, but are you paying attention to the anecdotes you are creating? Every interaction with someone else is an opportunity to frame the story they tell. If others all start telling the same basic story, then you may reach a (tipping) point where people who haven’t interacted with you directly are helping tell your story. We could call this Critical Anecdotal Mass.

It isn’t about manipulation or distortion of the truth. It’s about being authentic, but intentional. They are stories about Apple’s hyper-controlled design standards, the brilliant generosity of Tom’s Shoes or the affordable build-it-yourself eurostyle of IKEA.

So, let’s put down the futon anecdote, step away slowly and start telling the stories that matter.

“I might lose it all.”

“You might say no.”

“Might” is mighty. It holds so much power over us. It makes many decisions for us. It enslaves us to the safe and known… as long as we allow it to.

By living in the “might” of the moment, we lose out on what truly is mighty. We abdicate our authority to potential futures of pain and suffering. The problem is this: these futures aren’t real. They only exist in our mind and that is the only place where “might” is mighty.

Next time you are faced with a decision and you begin to worry about what might happen, go out of your mind. Get out of the potential futures you are creating and remain in the moment. Strip “might” of its mightiness, and wield it yourself!

Embrace the moment for what it is and make a mighty decision, not a decision of “might.”

The world continues to move at ever-increasing speed. Twitter is not going to slow down for you to catch your breath.

Not only is work filling your day, but so are non-profits. Even consumer marketing seems to be vying for your time (“Visit our website.” “Fill out this survey.” “Engage in these conversations.”) instead of directly reaching for your billfold.

We’re all busy. It isn’t going to change anytime soon. If I could visualize this phenomenon, it would look like a monstrous fitness center with people on treadmills. So many treadmills you can’t see the end of it.

What can you do? If we’re all stuffing our lives this way, how do you do anything that gets noticed? How do you define success in a line-up of people all running in the same direction, yet going nowhere?

Margin.

On a sheet of standard notebook paper, there are a few inches of space reserved along the edges where the writer doesn’t write. I remember my elementary teacher guiding us, “Write your name in the margin.” If that space were not preserved for our names, it would have been much more difficult to discern which paper belonged to which student.

It is the same in our lives today. Sure there are going to be meetings to attend, traffic jams, paper jams, invoices to create, bills to pay, meetings to attend, paperwork to fill, inboxes to empty, dinner to make, dishes to clean and meetings to attend (let’s not get carried away). But there must be space reserved along the edges of life. This is where we can leave our unique signature.

What are you doing with your margins? Are you filling them up with other’s “stuff?” Are you letting others into your margins and giving them what should be your space? Or are you writing your name? Your way. Your signature.

Create the space to be uniquely you and claim your masterpiece.

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!

… 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.

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?

More on this from Seth.

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.

“The 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,” the writer Joan Didion has said of “The Year of Magical Thinking,” her autobiographical play about mourning the death of her husband and her daughter. “I would need to locate the dissonance between the person I thought I was and the person other people saw.”

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.