who's afraid of a little personal branding?

Personal branding has become quite the buzz phrase these days. Information is coming at us in every direction saying why personal branding is "CRITICAL TO YOUR SUCCESS, TO YOUR VERY SURVIVAL EVEN!" Which has unintentionally made it a little scary. I've been trying to figure out what it means to me, and how people can really use it in "normal" life.

Part of this, for me, goes back to the idea of creating a lifestyle that supports and nurtures both my creative and wage-earning side (right now, much more creative than wage earning, but we'll get there) and my personal fulfillment side, or what it means to actually live in this life I have. These things are so inextricably intertwined for me as an independent, one-woman-show entrepreneur that they're hardly worth trying to sort out as different elements. Or are they?

Well for sure, I have a personal brand. Tracy Morgan. It's my personal values, strengths, personality, attributes and mission/vision that guide my decision making and my prioritization. These are the core of who I am, who I'd like to become. These days, I'm proud to say, they're more authentic and real than they've ever been. And they inform the brand that I've created for my business, Segnavia Creative. But because the business is its own entity with its own goals and measurements of success (however linked to me as an individual entrepreneur), it also has its own values, strengths, and so on. Several of these are the same as my personal brand. Several are different. Most are nuanced and refined versions of who I am, using the lens of what services the business provides.

When it comes to personal branding as an everyday thing, going through this exercise myself has highlighted to me why it's important for everyone to do. Big things like career changes, job hunting, etc need to begin with the end in mind. It's a little like planning a vacation - you think about where you want to go, what "kind" of vacation it would be (lying low and relaxing, intentionally soaking up the local color, or visiting every duomo in Italy?) and then start mapping out how to get yourself there. What form of transportation, what you need to pack, who you want to take with you. Resources you need. Questions you want to ask.

My version of personal branding puts you in a place to think about all of these things as they relate to your own individual journey. Thinking about how you want your life to look and how you want to spend your days - in a year, in 5 years, in 10 years - you can start to fit in the work you'd be passionate about, the way in which you prefer to share your talents, the type of job you'd like to do within that work/industry/service area, etc. Lifestyle first. Truly authentic to who you are. What a concept, right?!

So in the example of looking for a job, you consider where you want to end up. Think about how you package yourself - are you a marketing consultant? Virtual assistant? Public relations pro? Think about the types of people and environment you want to work in - in an office, with a W2, without a boss? Think about the people you need around you to get there, aka your network or - as in my case - transition team. Think about the tools you'll need - resumes, bios, LinkedIn profiles. Think about how you present yourself - what your image, dress, attitude, web presence, references say about you. Then, from a place of strength, you can push yourself forward.

It's easy to lose the core and possibilities of personal branding in all of the buzz words, technobabble and salesmanship lingo. Don't be afraid! In the end, think of personal branding as both a process and a tool. Acknowledging and celebrating who we are has inherent value even in the most general sense. And specifically, developing your personal brand will help you sight, measure and course-correct all the way along your journey.

series: personal branding

When going through the process of establishing oneself as a consultant, much attention is paid to the concepts of "who are you" and "what do you offer the world." Now that may seem rather esoteric and floofy, but ironically it's the concept of finding my own personal brand that has really helped me cement my thinking about my life.

Through the years, everyone encounters moments of redefinition. Sometimes triggered by a life event, sometimes instigated by the natural rhythms of growing and maturing as a person. But I think many of us have sort of put our heads down and moved through life without a lot of this kind of introspection. It feels more natural to tie our identities to a learned goal - a job, a degree, what our parents wanted for us - instead of integrating our identities and our aspirations. For example, we may strive for corporate successes such as promotion and recognition - but we don't always take a good hard look at how that aligns with our personal passions and values. I keenly remember days in my former corporate life when I sat back and thought to myself, "What on earth am I doing? Do I really care if another [insert product here] makes it to the store? Will this actually impact someone's life and make a real difference?" The irony here, of course, is that I am the consummate consumer and I love the idea of bringing products and services to market! And at the time, I didn't give myself the room to sit back and think about what I'd prefer to do, and how I'd prefer to do it. I just chased the next paygrade and put 110% of myself into jobs that probably didn't register 20% passion.

And the not-so-surprising thing? A LOT of people are talking about this kind of stuff today. The economy has a hangover. The markets are tired. The heartbeat of American consumerism is thready. While we're all looking intently at our pocketbooks and retirement accounts, we're also looking deep within ourselves. Maybe that mortgage or credit card balance isn't really aligned with how we want to live our lives. Perhaps the investment we've made into the career isn't showing the long-term payoff that we thought it might. As companies are faced with "evolve or die" in their business practices, offerings, ways to reach customers, etc., so too are we thinking about our own evolution. We need to figure out how to live right again. Live rich.

I'm starting a couple of series in this blog, the first one about personal branding. What on earth is it? What does it mean? How do we work it into our lives? My expertise comes from a lot of study and reading on the subject (which is far from new), and my own personal journey. I am witnessing a lot of my friends working with this subject matter. So the point is to share what I've learned and how it's become part of my more-authentic life these days. Stay tuned for more.