Know it or not, you have a personal brand
Who was Steve Jobs? Here's this story:
Once, engineers presented an iPod prototype to Steve Jobs. Jobs snapped at them saying it was too big. The engineers said it was impossible to make it any smaller. Jobs stayed quiet. Then he stood, went to an aquarium, and dropped the prototype in it. Soon, bubbles floated to the top. "Those are air bubbles. That means there's space in there. Make it smaller."
From this, we could infer he was a quality-obsessed, minimalism loving executive. Even a tad nasty.
On the other hand, here's another story:
One day, Jobs's secretary was late. When he asked her why she was late, she said her car wouldn't start. The secretary was a single mom and a good professional. The same afternoon, Jobs walked to her desk with a set of keys to a brand new Jaguar and said: ‘Here, don’t be late anymore’.
What can we infer from this story? That he was generous, decisive, and quite unpredictable.
Everyone has a personal brand. While it's never just reducible to one attribute, everyone gets slotted into labels that we can collectively call a 'personal brand'. This happens whether you know it or not and whether you like it or not. A personal brand evokes a "promise" in the minds of others: what they expect of you in different situations.
Stories about people make their personal brands come alive. What stories do people tell about you that give evidence of your brand?
If you've never thought about your personal brand before, try these questions:
What would be 5 words that someone would use to describe you?
What anecdotes or examples would people recount for each of these words?
Which of these 5 words are more distinctive about you in comparison to your peers?