towards the task are the most critical factors in your success.
Building a purposeful brand
While the invention of television, social media, and other digital channels have made fame and profile a bigger focus, none of this is new. Most people who have held or exerted influence over the centuries have paid attention to their personal profile.
Heroic figures such as Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and the Dalai Lama have used their personal media profiles to draw attention to glaring, human rights issues.
There was nothing accidental about Mother Teresa’s photographs with popular royal Princess Diana. Due to her high personal profile, she was consistently recognised as one of the most admired individuals in the world, which is, of course, incredibly powerful when you are hoping to change the world. The Dalai Lama’s constant media coverage and cluster of celebrity followers, such as movie star Richard Gere, and his appearances on popular TV reality shows such as cooking show MasterChef are no doubt aimed at keeping his personal brand alive, so he can remain influential throughout the world.
Perhaps reluctantly, Nelson Mandela was regarded as a media icon. During his imprisonment, his views were a focal point of most of South Africa's political stories, particularly overseas. How that story ended is one of the most inspiring personal brand stories in modern history.
If Jesus Christ or other revolutionaries had started their quest in modern times, they would no doubt have their own website and a healthy Facebook following.
If you look beneath the surface of many who are famous, you will find deeper motivations than fame itself; the back-stories of most celebrities are full of great examples of overcoming adversity and great odds to find success. For many, the deepest motivation stems from a desire to somehow take a message to the world about their own struggles.
Exercise
Ask yourself, are you willing to be visible? Commit emotionally to having a personal profile. Write down some of the things that may come up for you as you increase your visibility.
Understand your objectives. A profile for a profile’s sake is an empty outcome. Get to the bottom of what’s driving your desire to be visible. For example, you may want a promotion or a bridge to a new career, you may want to attract more income, or you may want more acknowledgements for your work in a particular field? Write down your three main objectives.
Think about a high-profile individual you admire.What is it about them that most attracts you? Do a little digging. Find out more about what led them to their current success. Did they publish a book? Do they have a strong media profile? What kinds of comments do they attach themselves to in the media? Do they come across as a confident person? Did they struggle to become a confident public speaker? How does their profile contribute to their success?
Set goals. Put realistic timeframes around your goals to keep your motivation high. I would suggest that, in the first instance, you keep your goals achievable within a twelve-month period. For example, you may want to give an industry talk at a particular institution. You may want to build a relationship with a particular journalist who follows your field of endeavour, or you may want to publish and distribute a white paper in a particular area.
Identify and set aside the resources to follow a twelve-month profile-building plan. What do you need to support you? More time to focus on writing? Permission from your superiors or your family? Some media training? More speaking opportunities? Industry body involvement? (This section will be easier to complete after reading following chapters).
There’s no question that having a strong personal brand offers you the opportunity to exert extraordinary influence. How you choose to use that influence is a question only you can answer. I hope you will use it to bring about meaningful, positive change within your area of passion.
Learning how to identify and tap into that passion is essential to developing confidence and an important to growing a powerful personal brand. And that’s covered in the next chapter.
Your weirdness is your brand
Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you. Oprah Winfrey
One of the most compelling identities I have worked with is Coss Marte, a New York City entrepreneur who spent his youth in and out of the prison system. Today, he runs ConBody a successful global enterprise that teaches how to get fit and create a “prison body.” His business success, built from a sheer determination to survive, is just a sidebar to the real story of his brand.
Coss grew up in poverty, and eventually became a leading drug king pin, sacrificing his freedom, integrity, and his health in his quest for money. By the time he entered his final prison term, he was morbidly obese. Doctors gave him a dire prognosis. However, he spent the next year building a healthy body and mind, and that transformation helped him to make the ultimate shift from someone who lived a lawless life to becoming a profound social contributor. Today, Coss employs former prisoners and is deeply focused on working within the social justice system to help prisoners to reform via entrepreneurship. His business and passion come from a deep place and his work is unique.
You can't help but be inspired by the beauty of this quest and the sheer courage it takes for him to stand strong in his vulnerability, allowing others to do the same. Coss is a great example of the power and inspiration that came from having the courage to be seen for who he truly is.
Your personal brand won’t ring true or attract people unless it is built on authenticity. So, it’s important to get under the skin of who (or what) drives you in business and in life. Why did you start? What’s your backstory? Why do you care about what you do?
My work with many hundreds of successful business founders has shown me that entrepreneurs are primarily solving their own problem when they build a successful business. Their personal back story and beliefs are a fundamental part of their success, the business promise, and brand story. This can also be said about many successful career endeavours: there is something in the background of the individual professional that drives them on to great achievement. Finding that X-factor can be extremely valuable, as it is a huge clue about wherein our authenticity and our attracting power lies as an individual.
Is the message you are taking out into the world authentically aligned to what you believe? It takes time to have a message resonate with an audience. Do you care enough about that message to stick with it for a period of time?
There’s an old adage in the marketing world that the moment a customer starts to recognise our brand, or in the case of a company our logo, that’s the moment we often grow tired of that brand ourselves and plan to change it. It takes time and patience to build a brand of any description. Nevertheless, take care to stick with your brand-building efforts, themes, and messages long enough to give your target audience time to recognise your efforts and respond.
A personal brand is never static, and it can never represent the whole version of who you are because you are many things. The version of ourselves that we choose to reveal is often a reflection of the audience that we are in front of.
However, identifying a key topic or theme to focus your brand-building efforts around for a period of time is a good starting point and is important for creating currency.
