{"id":144,"date":"2017-01-26T20:00:21","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T20:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greensummit.co\/?p=144"},"modified":"2017-01-26T20:00:21","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T20:00:21","slug":"java-with-joe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greensummit.co\/?p=144","title":{"rendered":"Java with Joe"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Think less about your personal brand\u2026and more about being a person.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a new year and many of us are thinking about what we might like to do differently in 2017. Many self-improvement gurus\u2014folks like Tom Peters\u2014would suggest that one step we absolutely must take if we want to succeed in life is to create a powerful \u201cpersonal brand.\u201d Writing in Fast Company<\/em><\/a> way back in 1997, Peters wrote:<\/p>\n

Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.<\/em><\/p>\n

Google \u201cpersonal brand\u201d today and you\u2019ll come up with over 68 Million hits; check out Amazon and you\u2019ll find over 300,000 books promising to help you craft or improve your personal brand.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say that I\u2019m crazy about the term personal brand<\/em> itself, because contrary to what Mr. Peters and others say, I find it hard to think about people the same way I think of laundry detergent or running shoes or any other product. I also have a problem with much of what\u2019s written about \u201cpersonal branding\u201d because so much of it is about crafting an image of yourself and getting maximum visibility for that image in the market place. It\u2019s like selling Tide detergent or Nike shoes.<\/p>\n

In other words, personal branding strikes me as being more about style, image, and connections than it is about being a person of substance.<\/p>\n

What others think about you is certainly important. Your personal reputation (my preferred term) walks in the room ahead of you, and often shapes whether or not people in that room are willing to listen to you, trust you, or follow you. But that\u2019s not about image. No\u2014you build a reputation that inspires trust not by worrying about your image, but by treating others with the respect and dignity they deserve, by helping them succeed, by delivering on the promises you make. You build a reputation that inspires trust by not<\/em> focusing first on yourself.<\/p>\n

So let me suggest that this year, instead of working on your personal brand, you work on yourself as a person. We could all benefit from asking ourselves questions like these:<\/p>\n