About that Word, Brand, that Keeps Coming Up

Filed Under Successful Blog | 24 Comments

As I Get Down from my Ladder

Personal Branding logo

As I took down the “register now” button for SOBCon 07, I pondered posts on the event that we all made our own last weekend. I was struck by how often in the blog posts that followed that the single word, brand, and it cousins mission, passion, and purpose were mentioned.

Two thoughts keep tap, tap, tapping me on the shoulder.

Branding is knowing who I am.

  • What drives me, gets me jazzed, makes me feel alive and unaware of myself??
  • What do I talk about when I can talk about anything?
  • Who am I to new friends who greet me with arms and hearts held wide open?
  • What twist on an old idea makes it new and exciting enough for me to explore and what to share?
  • Who do I like them to see when they look at me? That’s the brand that I strive for, the brand that explains me. Steve Farber would call that frequency.

Finding my brand is knowing who I as a person.

A new brand was formed — the SOBCon Brand. The promise was an experience unlike others. The participants made that brand happen. You can hear them explaining it.

  • Participanats had hands to shake, smiles to share, voices to hear. And the ideas that were shared came from all of us.
  • Pariticpants were the center.
  • A new conversation was started each time two people began to talk.
  • People were quick to help each other, to be involved in finding out more. It was the pariticpation and the interaction.
  • Like-minded people enjoy being the same as much as we enjoy our differences.

In this case the brand formed around thinkers, business folks, dreamers, and as Jeff Brown, the Bawld Guy, would say, “the Kumbaya singers.”

This time we seem to have also found a brand family.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Related
Finding Your Frequency in Business and in Life
See the Successful Series page Brand You Series.

Finding Your Frequency in Business and in Life

Filed Under Analysis, Branding, Business Book, Business Life, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 49 Comments

I've been thinking . . .

I’d known him for 7 years when, in 1995, I hired him as my “partner-in crime,” and my intellectual sounding board. Officially he was a consultant on an internaltional venture.

That week he’d introduced me to my counterparts in the UK — 23 meetings in 10 days. After the last meeting, he suggested a leisurely lunch on the next day, before I left for Heathrow. . . .

We’re close friends, but I didn’t know about lunch.

Finally, I said, “Only if you show up. I don’t want to see the guy who’s been with me all week — I want the person I know.”

Lunch was at a small bistro. The fruit creme brulé was spectacular. The wine was wonderful. The conversation was even more than I’d hoped for.

My friend had one way to be in business and another in real life. I suppose that’s not so uncommon. . . .

But that doesn’t mean it’s the best way. Does it?

Steve Farber, was working for Tom Peters way back then. Now he’s a leadership coach and author of Radical Leap and Radical Edge, a two-book narrative on extreme leadership and personal growth. He’s got words for what I was thinking and where I want to go.

In Radical Edge, the characters — Steve, himself, is one — call what I’m thinking of finding your frequency. They say these things about it in a scene over dinner.

“The first thing we have to do is find our frequency, find our station, the one thing that clearly expresses who we are at our core.”

“You have no business, no money no life without yourself right at the center.”

“I don’t know how much of that I could have accomplished if I hadn’t found my frequency.

Steve wrote the book, and he questioned the idea, “Human beings are more complicated than than that.”

He got this answer.

“Yes they are, But it’s not about finding your frequency by ruling out everything else; on the contrary, it’s about finding the frequency that includes all those other important values and ideals. The very act of trying to wrap it all up is what’s really important, because in order to do so, you have . . . define them, think them through, understand them to their core, and evaluate your life against each one.”

I can’t quit thinking about how much sense that makes. It’s the extreme added-value of relationships to really “show up” at the table. It’s the “authentic voice” of leadership, of being who I am I could argue that it’s what my gene pool was designed for.

Talk about finding a way to make a life, change the world, and have no regrets that you’ve used what you’ve got.

If you know what you value, you value what you have to offer.

I’m tuning out the static, to home in on my signal.

Can you hear me now?

Is this better?

Imagine what we can do when we can actually hear each other.

Liz's Signature

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