Successfully aligning your passion with your Personal Brand

In 2007  Fast Company Magazine  published a pioneering article by marketing guru Tom Peters who asked, “What’s the future of you?” He is a business visionary who was right on target for the progressive career of today which screams for personal branding. Here’s an excerpt:

It’s over. No more vertical. No more ladder. That’s not the way careers work anymore. Linearity is out. A career is now a checkerboard. Or even a maze. It’s full of moves that go sideways, forward, slide on the diagonal, even go backward when that makes sense. (It often does.) A career is a portfolio of projects that teach you new skills, gain you new expertise, develop new capabilities, grow your colleague set, and constantly reinvent you as a brand.

In a time of economic uncertainty, personal branding has become a catch phrase which is bound to stick around for a long time. Due to technological advances, high unemployment, and the rewiring of careers, developing a personal brand is not just a trend. “In the digital age, our name is our only currency,” according to branding expert Dan Schawbel, author of the upcoming book, Me 2.0. Bottom line is that branding will give you a competitive edge and voice in an exponentially growing landscape of business noise. If you haven’t bought your domain name – do it now and stop reading.

Step One

The identification or reinvention of the “Brand Called You,” first requires the introspection of the “self” with regard to what drives your passion about your working and living experience,  in what I call our WorkLife Nation. It’s not just what makes you tick, but what you love about your work,  and what feeds your soul outside of the workplace or business. It’s the tangibles that motivate you toward success, helping others and/or  and making your mark.

The great Indian mystic poet Tagore wrote:

 ”We gain our freedom when we attain our truest nature.”

Tagore goes on to explain that by getting to the truth of who we are, the greatest amount of creativity emerges not from imitation – but from your own source of innovation that drives you. We are all unique,  and in a time of such radical upheaval in our careers, and transition in the way we do business due to technology, there is a great opportunity to go a little deeper embracing our personal human values in business. Many are thirsting to work with more meaning and purpose, as we reinvent our personal definition of success.

Step Two

Making your passion a tangible expression is a crucial step toward developing your brand for one significant reason: your passion, while it might be shared by many people is individualized because you are expressing it through your lens, your voice, your talking points.

Ask yourself three questions,

1. ‘What am I passionate about, what do I really love?’ 
2. ‘What are my greatest strengths?’ 
3. ‘How can I use my strengths to fuel my passion?’

Contemplate the answers to those questions and you’ll be surprised what is revealed to you. The answers are your hallmarks which make the foundation for your personal brand. Regardless of whether you work for a large company or run your own business, your “brand” is a presence and that presence is fueled by your personality, character traits, past experiences, wisdom, and real life work experience or skill base.

Step Three

Shakespeare wrote, “In dreams we begin our possibilities.” I would add to that, in self contemplative exercises we can begin to contact the root, nature and elixir that feeds our personal brand.

I’ve often heard those words of Shakespeare  spoken by one of my mentors, Rick Jarow, a professor of theology at Vassar College. Here’s a passage from his book, Creating the Work You Love: Courage, Commitment and Career, which best illustrates the emerging vision of your personal brand:

“Creative vision is as natural as breathing and it will emerge naturally and powerfully to the degree that one is aligned in body, mind and heart. If our imaging is not genuine, if we have to go against our grain to create a form, we are at cross-purposes with ourselves and are again setting ourselves up for sabotage.”

To entertain the visioning process you have to get quiet. The silence of the breath, light inspirational reading, and downtime of any sort will aid in calming the mind so you can tap your reservoir of creativity. As you build your personal brand by embracing your strengths and putting voice and visual components to it, notice the evolution that takes place. It’s an organic process. Journaling can help you identify the words that you association with your personal brand, and literally draw pictures and doodle a bit on what your passion or brand looks like.

Ultimately your personal brand will reflect to some degree your path or journey of right livelihood. Rebel Christian Theologian Matthew Fox wrote about this concept in his groundbreaking book, The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time. 

“The task needed in every profession, and indeed by every citizen today, is to return wisdom to our work.”

Your inherent wisdom, experience, and voice are the threads that make you unique. We’re living in extraordinary times, your profound nature as an individual on this planet at this time is a gift. When you own your personal brand, its a lighthouse beaming your message to colleagues and the universe saying:

“I have arrived, this is who I am, this is the value I bring to the table, this is how I can serve.”

Please join me at Hofstra University Saturday, March 7th for the Women in Transition Conference. I’ll be the keynote speaking on Personal Branding: Standing Out in a Challenging Job Market. You can also get more information at my website, JudyMartinSpeaks.com.