When talking to friends or introducing myself as working with Personal Branding, many responds that they do not want to appear as someone they don’t are. I totally understand that and would never suggest someone to pose as someone they are not. However, this arises another interesting question:
Who are you, really?
As Steve Chandler once said in his 100 ways to motivate yourself: ”I am sorry if this offends you, but you do not have any personality”, referring to that the personality you ”have” is created by many different factors such as environment, peoples opinions, etc. and that you can change it if you want. Just as you can change career, you can change who you are, and so, there is nothing wrong in working with altering your personal brand into something new and something that you want to be. Actually, imagining that you are something else, often is a great way of getting there. Ask any psychologist working with athletes how they picture their self in a position where they want to be in the future.
14 Comments on “You do not have a personality!”
As I always say…it’s what you do that makes you who you are and you how you project that to others that makes you memorable.
Why do you say that a person has a lack of personality if they can’t identify it and put it into a personal brand profile?
I am doing an assignment at university on my own personal brand at the moment, and to my own surprise i disagree with a lot of the main reasons for having one(personal brand)and why it is such a good thing.
I understand the main and basic reason for having one, but to me a personal brand narrows the qualities down, rather than highlight them…
Pia
Dear Pia,
first of all, you can not chose to have or not to have a personal brand, everyone has one even if they do not want to have one.
The brand of a person represents what other persons experience when they meet or interact with the person.
Even if you have worked with your brand or not, the people interacting with you will form an opinion of you based on partly superficial factors as looks and clothing and partly on more complex factors as what your standpoints in certain questions are and of your rhetorical skills to express those standpoints.
To answer your question about personality, the blog post states that you do not have one personality that are assigned to you when you are born or by external factors during your childhood etc., but rather that you can choose to develop the personality that you want to have.
Maybe you are happy with the one you have, but have you really thought about how others experience what you communicate. My point of view regarding Personal Brands and the way I work with them is a way of personal development with the core values of the person as a base and knowing yourself and how you are perceived as the main objective.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss the subject further.
I totally I agree with the blog post title ’YOU DONT HAVE A PERSONALITY’.
I think when a person is born they are born with no personality. Personality naturally develops while the person is growing up. It can be influence by family’ values, culture and maybe religion. The same thing work for the brand, but I think the personal brand has to be consistent with the personality and the image because people normally judge you by your image first. My question is can a person has two personal brand or personality at the same time?
paul
i always thought about that. i think personality is something developed naturally with us while growing up and last with us. in contrast, personal brand is something you develope in according to our desire and can be changed or altered as we wish.
I think nobody is just born with a personality. Our personalities always depend on the enviroment we are in, and the culture we have and were brought up with.
We all have personalities and even
’ Not having a personality ’ is a type of personality itself !
When you say what you do makes you who you are, do you mean someone’s occupation or do you mean in general, because if you meant your occupation makes you who you are, I disagree, a number of things can determine who you are, and having one brand because of your occupation limits your attributes.
therefore i agree with Pia.
hi i agree with wat you are sying as i think that a person personlity is always changing it all depends on the evironment and who your around.
AUSTIN SAYS…
YOU CAN CHANEG YOURSELF JUST LIKE YOU CHANGE YOUR JOB, BECAUSE YOU CAN DECIDED TO DO SOMETHING DIFFRENT IN LIFE AND THAT THING YO WANT TO DO NEEDS A CHANG IN YOUR LIFE.
Great post! I certainly believe you are absolutely right. I’ve personally ”reinvented” myself a couple of times and… yes, it works!!! Sure, it’s a bit like creating a character in a novel, you decide on styling, ”tics” and positioning, including such things as ambitions and dreams.
Right now I’m in the middle of deciding my new ”brand” for the next decade… Quite exciting because you do not only create a new ”you” but also a lot of new possibilities…
Regarding to the Personal Brand concept, I believe is just a way to control the impression people will have about us, as Rynge said ”you dont choose to have a personal brand,everyone has one”, the personal brand is just a name given to something that naturally happened, but the awarenes of the concept able us to control this image, besides, when creating a personal brand you don´t have to lie, or made up things, you just have to highlight you skills, achievments, lets say..everything positive of your character, and when I say creating a Personal Brand( it may look like, mading up) but the ”creation” is just the process to analyse wich of your characteristics will be highlighted. By the way,I´m probably making the same assignment as Pia and this blog is part of our Personal Brand process.
I totally disagree with the concept of “have no personality”. We are born with some th basic characters and personality that has inherited from our parents through our genes. But it is true that environment and society will shape us. The other point I disagree is “Just as you can change career, you can change who you are”. It contradicts with the basic concept of branding of being consistent. Changing career might change what we will be but not who we are. I do not think it is practical concept.
Kamikaze:
I would recommend you to read the post one more time and try to understand what I mean by it.
Please read the response to Pia as well.
To give you an example of someone that has changed their brand, look at Michael Jordan. His determination and actions during many years made him who he is today. Do you think he would have had the personal brand that he has without his actions?
Cool site, love the info.