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Your Life is Your Brand
If our outward self is not in agreement with our inward self, problems will arise and it won’t be pretty.

Your Life is Your Brand

A young woman posted a rant on social media describing the perceived wrongs visited upon her by a local business that did not agree to sell her products. The electronic communique elaborated on every reason she was right and should be showcased in the halls of the business, and explained in detailed vitriol how the business was wrong in its decision to forego dedicating display space to her product. Her friends quickly chimed their support with words of solidarity and messages that figuratively threw additional fuel onto her verbal fire. By advocating a calculated internet tirade against the business, she felt her product and her brand were vindicated. She and her minions danced behind their keyboards as they celebrated a victory of crashing the business’ website.*

She continues to struggle selling her product. The problem was not of the product or the decision of that particular business not to carry the product. The problem was the young woman’s incongruous branding. The product she had created was one that evoked peacefulness and inspiration, yet when faced with a bump in the proverbial marketing road, the young creator demonstrated anger and revenge. The fact that she verbally blasted a business for a decision which was well within their rights to make, she used her resources to cause it further harm, leaving the entire incident as a clear lack of authenticity. Her words did not match her product; her actions did not support her brand.

What is this talk about ‘brand’?

Last spring, I attended a one-day workshop about blogging. For the majority of the population, this topic would be viewed as tantamount to watching paint dry or cleaning out grungy under-bits of the backyard grill, but the ideas tossed about in this workshop had far-reaching application. The discussion of brand development began, as I perceived, as a selection of logos and color choices. When the discussion ended in my head some months later, brand development became a champion of authentic living. While the blog may have been the target, the workshop hit more than one bulls eye.

While I listened intently to the instructor, Jackie Wolven, I furiously transcribed the tips and tricks that would surely catapult my weblog into the stratosphere. She spoke of “brand development” and I jotted a few notes about choosing colors, logos, and photo style. I left the facility with a bounce in my step and a WordPress account. I was armed for blogging bear.

Within days, I was neck-deep in the muck known as redesigning a website with HTML, scripts, cpanels, and a myriad of other terms so foreign to this novice, I nearly chucked it all to return to a stone tablet and chisel. It wasn’t pretty. During these days of modern-day medieval torture via blog-building, I continuously flipped back and forth through my notes from the workshop, reading and rereading her words about brand development, and scribbled notes about color and widget placement in the margins. When I emerged from these days, I had a webpage that, I must say, made my little heart swell with pride (or as much pride as Lutherans are genetically allowed), because it looked (and here’s a highly technical term) “pretty.”

All those flips and turns through my workshop notes were not for naught, however. The continual reading of Jackie’s words made an indelible impression on my thoughts, and extended the intended target far beyond that of a little webpage made in the tiny back bedroom of my house. A brand worthy of development is not isolated to a product, or a store, or a webpage. You are a brand. Your life is a brand.

Brand (noun) a particular identity or image regarded as an asset.

Some readers may feel better by using the word “identity” instead of “brand” so not to confuse the human existence with the minefield of modern marketing, but the two words, for purposes here, can be used interchangeably.

Everything you do, says something about you. Actions, behaviors, habits, words, likes, and dislikes — all combine to create your identity, your brand. When two or more of these elements are in conflict by not exuding the same values, authenticity disappears. When authenticity is not present, and one lives an inauthentic life, these inconsistencies ooze from the cracks, manifesting themselves in ways like relationship difficulties, negative habits, addiction, anxiety, depression, rage, loneliness, and general malaise. In short, it sucks.

Wha?

Examples of inauthentic living:

  • Being a yoga teacher who has not only spent years in training and practice but expounds on how to live compassionately, only to be found every afternoon tripping passengers and screaming obscenities on the subway.
  • A chef in a high-end restaurant who admits at the end of each day that he really doesn’t like cooking.
  • The motivational speaker who sits at the bar after a seminar, ranting about the gullible patrons who flock to these events.

These examples, of course, are the extremes but are described in this manner to make the point. While not one person on this earth can be expected to be consistently behaved in the absolute, we must understand that everything we do says something about who we are. If our outward self is not in agreement with our inward self, problems will arise, and it won’t be pretty.

The Disagreement of Self

In the example of the opening story, the young entrepreneur struggled to get her product featured in any storefront after that day, both due to her reaction to one store’s decision and her public display regarding it. The disagreement between her inward and outward belief systems placed a giant red flashing light over her endeavors, and screamed “Warning, Warning” to other businesses who might be in a position to feature her product. Why would any other business even take her telephone calls if they feared a public bashing should they exercise their right to decline her product line? Moreover, how could a product that evoked peace and harmony be a sustainable output from a person who harbored such conflict between the inward and outward displays of self?

Is all of this too woo-woo, too out-there?

The workshop that described branding was intended to teach the attendees how to develop a “look and feel” to a website that carried through to all areas — social media, business cards, advertisements, website — but after the instruction settled into my thoughts, I realized that it was far more than that. It was about life.

This is not to advocate developing a life by picking and choosing elements in a calculated display of control, quite the contrary. Rather than deciding the outward display of one’s life first and trying to change the inward feelings to match, the development of a life-brand, a personal identity, one must always (always, always) begin at the inside. The core. Deep in the marrow of who we are.

Then the work begins. What are our core values? How would we describe ourselves? What behaviors illustrate our core values? What actions or words work against those values? Is your inward identity in agreement with your outward one?

Let’s let Hollywood give us an example from Runaway Bride (1999):

How do you like your eggs? Are you like Maggie who agrees with those around her just to keep the peace, or to make herself seem in unison with others? In this simplified version, we see the disagreement between the inward and outward clearly — Who she is at the core is not the person she displays to the world. If you watch the entire movie, you would see that conflict arises from that imbalance throughout the story.

This is the crux of my words today: While disagreement between the inward and the outward self is quite common in today’s world, we cannot be surprised when troubles arise because of it, because it will. We cannot expect success with a product line if we argue with every business who decides not to carry it. We cannot expect to enjoy our job as a chef if we really don’t like to cook. We cannot expect harmony in a relationship if we never reveal our true selves. We cannot expect fulfillment of any kind if our inward and outward selves are not in agreement, not aligned.

Everything you do in your life is branding. Everything you say, each action you take, each behavior you exhibit, is an illustration of your core self. It cannot be manufactured. Everything you throw out into the world is a description of the truth of who you are at the core.

What are you really telling the world?

 *The particulars of this story have been changed to preserve the identity of the persons involved. The message, however, and the overall lesson remain the same.

Rita Herrmann lives in the Ozark Mountains with her two dogs and Netflix subscription. A lifelong writer, she's learned to draw deep thoughts from the simplest of observations. Through her work on She Wears Red Shoes, she inspires others to be the best version of themselves, even though she often eats too much chocolate. A good road trip with a great playlist is how she rolls. Her core beliefs include dancing spontaneously, singing randomly, laughing often, living simply, and learning to forgive.

4 thoughts on “Your Life is Your Brand

  1. HaHa I must have a brand, identity, of a highly faceted stone! Just depends on the angle, light and circumstances as to which of my identities will show up. I love it! That’s my brand.

    1. Definitely not too woowoo or out there for me! I am WITH you in every word. The Universe knows. And these days the Universe acts quickly to reveal to truth! There is so much in this that I am nodding my head to, especially this bit…

      “how could a product that evoked peace and harmony be a sustainable output from a person who harbored such conflict between the inward and outward displays of self?” and this bit…

      “one must always (always, always) begin at the inside. The core. Deep in the marrow of who we are.”

      Do you know… and this IS out there, but whatever, it works for me… sometimes when I’m exploring a new product and there is more than one comparable brand on offer for the same price, I look at the packaging – not the marketing – but the actual material the packet is made from – is it plastic, brown paper or maybe even glass? What inks where used? I’m talking in terms of food products mostly and in particular “Organic” food items. Are they REALLY stewards of Mother Earth if they are using plastic packaging? I know, I’m picky, but it comes back to that branding and authenticity your talking about. And to push the “out there” wagon even further… I admit to using my intuition when all else still leaves me undecided. I stand there with both packets and I breathe a moment and “feel” which product holds more truth, love and gratitude. No kidding, I’m serious I really do and it works every time. Now putting food items aside, humans are a lot more complicated but who a person is and how they feel deep within will ALWAYS rise to the surface – just as you say – and the longer those things remain hidden and suppressed, the uglier it is when they show up.

      Love how your words provoke such rich thought xo

      1. YES! I so totally understand your manner of selecting products to bring into your home and into your life! Love love love this! Imagine if we all looked really deeply at the choices we make – whether our behaviors, words, thoughts, or actions — and saw what each of those says about the life we want to live, OH, the differences we might see. Being conscious of everything, waking up and truly SEEING, this is what makes a difference in a life and by extension in our world.

        I feel like we just had one of those “you totally get me” moments around a firepit with wine. xoxo

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"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."
e.e. cummings