Earlier this year I joined a group of fellow brand and communications professionals to do for myself what I typically enjoy doing with others … branding. In simpler terms, branding is a set of ideas that can direct or influence what people think and feel about you. You would think that this would come easy, but our group Personal Brand Challenge proved to be worthy of the name. What a challenge!
Many of us recognized that finding and articulating that which is unique about ourselves doesn’t always come easy. It’s not for lack of skill or ability. For most of us, holding a mirror to yourself can be revealing and at the same time inhibiting. We wrestle with self-limiting beliefs and we overthink our inadequacies and underplay our strongest attributes. We rarely give ourselves credit, and are more likely to shy away when others do. So we (and by we I really mean WE because Brand The Change is that kind of community) decided to confront this shared sense of imposter syndrome and lean into the power of self-promotion with the #IAmRemarkable workshop.
This was a particularly special group of people to host the workshop with. We shared a common agenda as creatives leveraging the power of brand for social and environmental change. But more than that, we recognize the highest benefit of branding for those who want to build careers of impact. If we’re going to change the world, why not show who we are, what we do, and why it matters? And so we jointly flexed our self-promotion muscles with a simple, yet profound workshop concept. Turns out reflecting on our achievements and challenging our own perceptions is a great hack for getting to grips with one’s personal brand.
I really enjoyed co-facilitating this session. It reminded me that I can be intentional, consistent, and focused in my approach to building a career of impact. For me, self-promotion is a practice I have to keep building. It’s less about pushing my personal brand onto others, and more about inviting others into my path through the visibility of my work, interests, convictions, and passions. The more I do it, the less I think and feel like an imposter.