Hey, Personal Branding, I have something to tell you:
I don’t care.
I just don’t care anymore. You have prevented me from having fun for the last time.
I bought my URL domain and secured a couple of social media profiles. Your job is done, I’m moving on now.
Because really, all that you’ve ever really taught us is stuff we already knew. Did we really need someone telling us how to be authentic or respectful?
Don’t tell me about those drunk girls that upload their pics on Facebook for everyone to see, or about those employees that publicly say that they hate their job. In reality, the problem is those people are just being themselves. The problem isn’t, “You’re awesome but because of that photo of you peeing on a dog while getting high, the company decided to go another way.” You were a mess to begin with. Do you really go showing that picture to everyone you meet?
This is not Personal Branding; this is common sense.
The two most harmful consequences of Personal Branding:
1) It makes you afraid. Not only afraid to speak up, be confrontational and even curse, like everyone does offline, but it also makes you afraid of taking life into your own hands. Personal Branding bases most of its points on not upsetting potential contacts, your interviewer, your boss, or anyone else who will decide if you “live or die financially,” depending on what they find out about you online. To hell with that: authenticity means upsetting people. Only by disagreeing and even fighting others will you do something worth talking about.
This does not mean being scandalous, this means being human.
2) It has made us so calculated, that I wonder how many people are able to live up to their online personas. Meeting online contacts in the real world has been very disappointing in many cases. What’s interesting is that the people who haven’t played the personal branding game, have been amazingly fun, interesting and wise.
Sadly, with all this forced authenticity, people are actually becoming fake. That’s why we love those people who speak their mind without worrying about the scandal. We envy them because they don’t over-think the repercussions.
To be honest, I’ve never been as fake as when personal branding was my top concern.
My advice: Do whatever you want. Your intuition will take you through the best path for you.
The funny thing about intuition is that it’s magnetic. When you trust your gut, you attract people that like what you do, what you say and the way you think. You attract the people that you need, the people that will help you. Yes, you also upset those that don’t– deal with it. There’s no shining without conflict.
Once I started not worrying about the repercussion of every word I said online, I truly connected at an emotional level with others.
Once I embraced my personality, I strengthened the connections that mattered and cut ties with those that didn’t.
"Did we really need someone telling us how to be authentic or respectful?"
Judging by the volume of blogs, webpages, and so on about personal branding, I'd have to guess that yes, you guys did really need someone telling us how to be authentic or respectful. As for us oldsters, it's about about personal reputation, and it's always has been.
I like this. I don't think I even knew what a personal brand was when I built one, but all of a sudden I have one. Some people seem to aspire to be nothing more than "a brand" though, and to me they come across as fake. Have a brand, but be a human. That's the balance I'm looking for, at least!
Personal brand is personal reputation repackaged. And before there were personal branding coaches, there were job coaches, networking coaches and so forth. Yes,some people just need to be coached.
Also, if you go to Barnes and Nobles and you'll 15 management or sales books all dealing with the same topic, and telling people the same thing.
I get your point about authenticity. It comes down to personal judgment about whether to post that picture from Spring break or pledge night.
But as JRandom42 stated, yes, some people really need someone to guide them.
Before the personal branding movement, the only living creature that used to care about branding was cows. I don't think that the cows like branding very much.
I think personal branding based on self awareness and authenticity is useful. It is important to find our authentic voice but it is also important to know how to communicate that in effective ways and let your potential audience know how you can solve their problem in unique ways. So, I guess it depends upon how you define personal branding. And I agree that much of the discussion on personal branding has been very superficial with no emphasis on the self and finding ourselves beyond what our parents, schools, and now personal branding gurus tell us.
You can read more about my perspective on personal branding and how to find your self on my Mindful Marketers Blog:
http://mindfulmarketers.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-is-missing-in-current-...
Thanks for starting this discussion.
Shalini Bahl
http://iam-bc.com/
A personal brand is your reputation. A brand is the opinion others hold of you in their hearts and minds. Some people are naturals when it comes to understanding what their particular brand is - they already know how they stand out and are great at solidifying that impression wherever they go. Unfortunately for the majority of individuals this is not so easy. Uncovering one's unique promise of value, that something special that only you can provide, does not come easily for most people.
What has been left out of this discussion is that having a strong personal brand means having strong beliefs and taking a strong stand. In fact, even if people disagree with you but you are true to yourself (and your brand) then people respect your opinions. In my experience there is no correlation between those who are fun, interesting and wise and those with/without a personal brand (reputation). The fact that the author felt fake when he was working on his brand leads me to believe that his brand was not representative of who he was and what he stood for. Carlos Miceli has a strong opinion but may not have all of the facts. I respect that opinion although I strongly disagree.
Mary Rosenbaum
www.yourcareerbydesign.com
Well spoken. I can't help worrying about the people who will be growing up with a continual social media presence in their lives. I worry that those who are continuously presented with a picture of themselves and the associated judgment of it may not feel free to make the choices that lead to a life well lived. Being able to tune out and just live is what gives me something to talk about when I do come back online.
And of course, if you try to appeal to everybody, you're really missing the point.
Has it struck anybody that when we discuss "personal branding" we're talking about exactly the same thing that our parents called "reputation" and our grandparents called "character"? Just sayin'.
I completely agree with this post. Personal branding is about the worst, most vague advice people give. It's like telling someone to "...just be yourself" on a first date. They might as well call it "Personal Blanding (TM)". Just like someone telling you to be yourself, if you listen to person blanding, your career will be stalled while the good-looking, womanizing, ass-kissers of the world will be waltzing their way straight to the top.
Carlos, I'm sure you'll be happy to know--or will you, based on this item's title--that when I read aforementioned title, the first thing that entered my mind was, "Sounds like a Carlos Micelli piece."
Right again, let's face it!
Cheers! Jay
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