How Do You Establish A Unique Identity? Personal Branding
How do you establish a unique identity in personal branding?
Self-awareness is the reason why thought leaders have quickly progressed in building their personal brand. An identity is the foundation for understanding your own strengths, values, and passions. There are ways in which self-awareness can propel your personal brand which is through both internal and external self-awareness.
Both are important for overall personal growth. The first enables you to align your true desires, values, a greater sense of fulfillment, and an effective leadership style to your professional career. The second requires you to seek feedback from others in an unbiased way. To actively listen with your heart and adjust your behaviors in an effort to better communicate as an effective leader and connect with others. Keep in mind that these two can be developed and sharpened over time, allowing for mental clarity and deeper meaning.
What I’ve learned throughout my experience in helping leaders through storytelling is that self-reflection is a natural connector to building trust across audiences. It’s not all entirely up to you to figure out how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you. But much rather you can arrive at a deeper conclusion and begin to harness your true self when you begin to lean on trusted colleagues, an advisory group, or personal brand strategists.
What does self-awareness have to do with establishing your unique identity in personal branding?
Personal branding reaches far greater heights than self-promotion or advertising; it deepens connections and creates value by helping others through your own unique contributions and perspectives. It enables you to build trust, both online and offline. As a marketing and communications manager in the past and venturing into the world of videography, I realized that how I tell stories and edit my videos stems from my lived experience. I call it intuition, a gut feeling, or simply my brain taking small steps. This is the very fabric that distinguishes me from everyone else, the competitive advantage if you will. In turn, no one in the world can have the same unique perspective that you have, simply because they did not start at the exact same moment as you did.
We all vary greatly in the levels of exposure and career opportunities, therefore no human experience has the same outcome. However some commonalities unite us, resonate with us, and leave a lasting impression.
Leading with authenticity involves being intentional about the following principles:
Adapting and Evolving
Receptive to Feedback
Leading by Example
Building Relationships
Consistent Messaging
Genuine and Vulnerable
Knowing Your Values
All of the above enables you to truly showcase who you are, what you believe, the unique way you see the world, and why you are passionate about sharing that with others.
Take for example Martha Nino, she began her journey of personal branding because she felt compelled to share her perspective as a Latina in Tech over the past 20 years in Silicon Valley. This requires her to be courageous, vulnerable, and self-reflective in front of large audiences. Since she has stepped on stage her life continuously transforms with opportunity after opportunity. The world is indeed abundant.
What’s the secret? What’s the formula? What mastermind is this?
It’s not about controlling how you perceive yourself or how others perceive you, but rather it’s about releasing yourself from the past. To heal yourself by helping others. Transforming those harsh life experiences into lessons of strength and resilience for a greater cause that helps others is imperative. If you approach life wholeheartedly and courageously, then life will approach you the same.
Guy Kawaski is the embodiment of this. A couple of weeks ago, Martha and I were at DigitalNEST, where Guy gave a presentation and the lessons he learned in writing his new book, Think Remarkable.
Below is a brief testimony from a Latina professional who had been following Martha on Linkedin for some time. The clip captures how she felt about meeting Martha for the first time in real life.
Martha’s message does not only resonate in Silicon Valley or California, but it transcends and draws folks from all over the world. Martha shares the following statement, “My name is Martha Nino, I’m here at Women4STEM and I’m about to go on stage and I’m freaking out in the best way possible.” By taking a pause and letting silence fill in the space between “I'm about to go on stage….” and “I’m freaking out,” the viewer recognizes that a curtain is being pulled back.
Instead of communicating a cool, calm, and collected image of self, Martha stretches beyond the conventional boundaries to establish a deep human connection by letting her audience know she’s nervous, unsure with excitement, and relatable as presenting in front of large audiences is not common experience for most individuals. Public speaking continues to be the number one fear for many, including myself.
https://youtu.be/9fO9D_eTBx8?si=F7y-WcIz1JKKT2XL&t=59
By establishing a unique identity it enables you to leverage your own unique stories and insights. Doing so resonates with others in a way that forms deep and long lasting relationships and trust. What we know since the advent of branding is that people connect with people.
A successful personal brand to me is the ability to develop, deepen, and show growth within yourself so that you arrive to a point where connections are building for you in the most organic and authentic way possible. This results in you having a willingness to self-reflect, adapt, and authentically communicate.
If the above resonates with you and you would like to invest in your personal brand development feel free to reach out to me. I am continuously looking for ways in which I can help others find alignment within themselves, career goals, and personal brand. It’s about setting a strong foundation and setting the intention to leave a lasting impact.