So you have decided to be your own original brand and even create an awesome pseudo logo in order to commemorate your general awesomeness. Awesome, now comes the hard part. This is the final, and most important, part of this whole ridiculous exercise that I have had you do.
Anyone can decide who they ought to be like, and agree that being original and not another Heineken toting, football watching, and shopaholic redux version of Apple or Pepsi. But when it comes time to step up and stand up for what you and your brand are all about, many people reside to putting their tail between their legs and watching the box set of Friends like a good little boy or girl. I am here to tell you that your whole life is going to be a total cookie cutter joke if you do not stick to what you believe in and stand behind your personal brand 110%.
Of course you will agree that sticking up for what you believe in is an important facet to anyone’s life. And while this doesn’t mean starting a fight with every person who tries to mess with your head and tell you that you are retarded for believing x, y, or z (and take it from me personally, I get that a lot) it is equally important to be firm in your understanding of what things you believe and do not believe in. Sticking to your guns, as they say, is the core of having your own brand (fancy logo and all) and being true to it.
So this sounds all fine and dandy, but what the hell do I mean anyway? I mean when someone tries to compromise one of the values of your brand, you don’t allow them to. Gasp! This might mean you will inadvertently step on a few people’s toes a little bit as a result of sticking up for who you are and what your brand is all about. Believe it or not, by having your own limitations, goals, and general strategy for who you are and what you are trying to be is an admirable quality. When you don’t allow someone to compromise who you are (even in a slight way) they will inherently have more respect for you as a person. Do you think that many of the greats of world history compromised who they were when it was convenient for them? How would have Gandhi ended up? Or MLK? What about Bill Gates and Wayne Gretzky? The common denominator behind all of these people is the same, they stuck to who they were and what they believed in and as a result led a life that they could be proud of.
Now having a personal brand isn’t always going to be a defense based effort, there are going to be many opportunities for you to exert your brand onto others in an effort to help them and somehow help to benefit someone other than yourself. This philanthropic nature is critical to the success of any major company, brand, or person, so you must a conscious effort to put your beliefs on the line to educate, motivate, and help others who may or may not have the means to help themselves.
Say for example that your brand is a strong supporter of the arts, specifically that of music. In order to put yourself and your brand on the line, you need to go out of your way to extend yourself in ways that will put your passion for the arts into the hands of people who will appreciate it. This could mean any number of things from offering free music lessons to the unfortunate, to volunteering to help conduct and lead a local school musical production. You could promote other organizations that support arts programs in schools and donate money to help keep music and art programs an integral part of a child’s life. The options are literally endless for any aspect of any brand. All you have to do is put forth some effort that is no half assed and decide that putting your passions on the line in order to help others is something that you want to, and should be doing. Trust me, even if you think that running over to your local school right now to offer your services free of charge is a pointless effort that will be refused, it’s the effort that you will continually put in that will have big long term payouts for you and your brand.
If you take anything away from this series, just make sure that you don’t let anyone compromise your brand, and always put your brand on the line for the right reasons, and you will go far in life.
Cheers
Gabriel
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