Define Your Personal Brand and Watch Your Career Blast Off

The most important part of the personal branding process happens long before building an online profile or posting valuable content on LinkedIn. It’s the critical first step that lays the foundation for a powerful and compelling personal brand: Knowing Yourself. This episode of BrandBoost is dedicated to that essential step.

But before we dive into that… the last BrandBoost episode, Present Powerfully, sparked so many fascinating conversations! I get it—it's challenging to make a lasting impact in meetings or deliver engaging presentations when people are multitasking. That’s why I’m continuing the conversation in my free Maven Lightning Lesson on Sep 25th at noon ET: Master Virtual Meetings & Presentations. There's no cost to attend, and it's going to be a lot of FUN! I hope to see you there!

O.K. Back to Knowing Yourself!

The personal branding process that I have used for nearly a quarter century is a three-step, serial process that has been proven to help career-minded professionals increase their success and happiness at work.

The first step, KNOW, is critical because all successful brands are built on a foundation of authenticity (Check out these quotes about authenticity to remind yourself to be yourself!). Being self-aware is a pre-requisite for growing your brand. Self-awareness also happens to be the most important skill for leaders in the new world of work. Understand and describe your brand by asking yourself powerful questions and soliciting candid external feedback.

Getting to Know You

(cue the song from Rodgers & Hammerstein's Broadway musical The King and I)

Here are four of 100 introspective questions we use at CareerBlast.TV that will help you unearth elements of your personal brand. The key to this exercise is to be take time with each question to unearth your honest response.

Passions

Your passions energize you and make you attractive to others. They help you get into the zone called flow – where you lose track of time and engage fully. Connecting your passions to work doesn't have to mean quitting your day job to pursue a career as a yoga instructor. When you’re clear about what moves you, you can seek out ways to link your passions to what you do for work and how you do it.

Values

Your values are your operating principles – your non-negotiables. They’re critical because they impact how you feel, behave, act and react. When you’re living in alignment with your values, you’re grounded, confident, and available to others. When you or others violate your values, however, you exude behaviors that are counter to who you are.

Superpowers

Superpowers are what we at CareerBlast call your signature strengths—the things you do better than others. Sometimes you discount their importance because doing them often takes little effort. Strong brands maximize the things they're great at—and become known by them.

Differentiators

“What makes you unique makes you successful.” Personal branding is about standing out. If what you offer is the same as everyone else who does what you do, you’re not a brand, you’re a commodity—replaceable by others who share your job title. When you work your quirks, you set yourself apart and attract the people and opportunities you need to succeed.

To build a strong brand, be introspective. Start with these questions. And if you want to get crystal clear on all six drivers of your brand, check out CareerBlast's BrandBoost - a virtual, video-fueled course to help you grow your self-awareness and amp up your personal brand.

Remember to register for my up Master Virtual Meetings & Presentations

To receive every episode of Personal Brand Boost, subscribe here. And if this episode brought a smile to your face, some wisdom to your brain or some warmth to your heart, please share it with your colleagues and friends. Thanks!