Your personal brand is your unique promise of value. It’s what those around you expect from you—what you’re known for. Just as Volvo is known for safety and Apple is known for “thinking different,” your personal brand ensures that you’re recognized and appreciated for the relevant and compelling value you provide. We have all heard the expression “your reputation precedes you.” Having a reputation is powerful. It becomes your calling card, trumpeting your unique promise of value long before you talk with your boss about your next role at the company; meet with a job interviewer at a new firm; or network with potential customers, investors, and partners for a new enterprise you’re considering launching.
To build a solid reputation that will catapult you toward your goals, you must understand and be able to articulate what makes you exceptional and compelling. Each of us is unique. We have our own individual combination of talents, skills, and interests that enable us to fulfill our ultimate purpose in life. This chapter helps you uncover your unique promise of value. This extraction process takes time, effort, and some patience. It requires you to think hard about who you are and what makes you unique. Even for those who are very self-aware and introspective, this step can require a significant investment. The primary objective of the Extract phase is to define your:
The process for defining these things resembles that used by organizations. When corporations set out to cultivate their brands, they conduct internal and external research and then analyze their findings to articulate their brand from the perspective of their customers and employees. You will be doing your own self-exploration and analysis to understand your brand—drawing on your own insights as well as seeking input from those who know you. Your own assessment gives you only part of the picture of your brand. Obtaining candid input from others helps you fill in the rest of the picture. This chapter focuses on your internal assessment of your unique promise of value, while Chapter 5 turns to your external sources of information.
As you work through this chapter, you’ll find references to exercises that you can explore in our companion workbook, which you can download by visiting www.careerdistinction.com/workbook. Because these exercises encourage you to dig deeply into some personal themes, some of them might seem a little “touchy-feely.” We urge you to keep an open mind and to complete the exercises over a period of time (or repeat them a few times) to get comfortable with the material. This is not a linear process. If you feel stuck while completing one exercise, move on to another.
The exercises in our companion workbook represent just a small sample of the many additional activities available in our branding toolboxes. Those presented in the workbook have proved the most useful to our executive clients. If you have recently taken some quantitative career assessments through a career coach or know of other exercises or activities that work for you, by all means, incorporate these as well.
Before you can clearly describe your personal brand, you need to look at the bigger picture: your vision and purpose. Your vision is external. It’s what you see as possible for the world. Your purpose is internal. It’s the role you might play in helping the world to realize that vision.
Many people find understanding and documenting their vision and purpose the most challenging part of the Extract phase. That isn’t surprising: Few of us walk around routinely thinking about our vision for the world and our role in supporting that vision. We’re typically much more wrapped up in mundane, day-to-day matters. We spend our time fighting the fires of the day, working to complete as many of our “to-do” tasks as possible, and preparing for tomorro’s meetings. So don’t be discouraged if this part takes some time.
We go where our vision is.
—Joseph Murphy, author of The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
Before working on these exercises for yourself, consider the following example of an executive who has achieved tremendous success by knowing his vision and living his purpose.
To articulate your vision and purpose, visit www.careerdistinction.com/workbook now.
It’s great to understand your vision and purpose. But you can’t fulfill your purpose without also clarifying your goals. Your goals help direct the actions you need to carry out in order to fulfill your purpose. This direction is vital: As the great Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up some place else.”
Goals thus enable you to chart a course to your destination—fulfilling your purpose and vision. For example, if your vision is a pollution-free world and your purpose is to get others to understand their personal impact on the environment, your goals might include:
In addition to providing direction, goals encourage you to focus. By keeping your goals top-of-mind, you allocate your time and energy to the courses of action that support achievement of your purpose and vision—rather than squandering these precious resources on less relevant activities.
In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.
—Robert Heinlein, author of science fiction
Last, goals help you stretch yourself. They make you reach a little bit further than you might otherwise strive. Sadly, most people spend more time planning their vacations each year than thinking about what they want to do with their lives. The trick to clarifying your goals is to set them high. A goal needs to be something that you have to stretch to attain. For example, last year, William delivered 38 speaking events. If he were to say, “I’m going to do 40 speaking events this year,” that wouldn’t be a stretch for him. But if he said, “I’m going to do 60 speaking events,” then he’s extending much further. He may only get to 52; but he’s going to land many more than if he had set his goal at 40.
Of course, some people have always known their major goal. At four years old, they knew they wanted to grow up and be a plastic surgeon, a firefighter, or a teacher. And since that time, they’ve steadfastly pursued this aspiration. Madonna, an incredibly strong brand herself, is one of those people. She said from a very early age, I’m going to be either a famous singer and dancer or a nun.
Though some people do know their goals very early in life, most of us have to think about the various possibilities, consider different scenarios, and gain experience in different kinds of work before being able to clarify our goals and see how they support our vision and purpose. Visit www.careerdistinction.com/workbook to explore an exercise that helps you define your goals.
There is no greater source of peace and fulfillment than living the life you want to live. Yet, most of us find ourselves well into our adult lives when we suddenly wonder whether we’ve “missed the boat.” We ask ourselves, “There has to be something more, right?”
There is something more—and you can make it happen by identifying your values and passions. Your values are your operating principles and part of your belief system. You take them with you wherever you go. For example, Kirsten’s values include intelligence, independence, pro-activity, family, flexibility, and making a difference. Knowing your values is crucial for making career decisions, because it helps you recognize whether you and a particular organization would make a good match. For instance, if you value family, you would be far more productive in and satisfied with your work in an organization that is highly ranked in the Working Mother’s list of 100 Best Companies. The story that follows reveals the importance of living your values through your work.
But identifying your values isn’t enough. You also need to articulate your passions—the activities that most energize you. For example, Richard Branson, the British entrepreneur best known for his Virgin brand, has a consuming passion for adventure. Martha Stewart’s overriding passion is for entertaining. And Bill Gates has a passion for technology.
In addition to fueling better on-the-job performance, your passions also make you memorable. Many people have discovered that talking about their passions during development discussions with their boss or during job interviews makes them more energized and interesting to hiring managers—even if their passions are not directly related to the position at hand.
And even if your colleagues don’t share your passions, they will likely respect and admire you for having them. One of William’s clients expresses her passion for all things humorous with the joke of the week she posts on her door, the true-life funny stories she uses to start all of her meetings, and her top-10 list of the world’s funniest people. Another client who is passionate about health has started an after-work yoga class, designed a health-food menu for the company cafeteria, and provides daily health tips at the bottom of his internal e-mail messages.
As Dave’s story reveals, there are always creative ways to connect your passions to what you do and how you do it. And, often it’s this creative combination that differentiates your brand. For example, when Kirsten realized that she could successfully marry her passion for technology with her passion for helping people gain control of their own career success, her brand came into sharp focus.
Sadly, many people are disconnected from their passions. If you have this difficulty, go to www.careerdistinction.com/workbook to find a helpful exercise for identifying the activities that most energize you.
My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.
—Bette Davis, Academy Award winning actress