Personal Brand

None of us will ever know how we are perceived. At least not fully. How others see us covers the entire range of judgements, perceptions, experiences and interpretation. Most, if not all of it, out of our control. And luckily much of it we will never know.

We each create, in our own minds, our brand.  We strongly identify with our branding. We are kind, thoughtful, generous, giving, funny, affectionate. We are private, withholding, distant, discerning, proper. Our brand is a personal, strongly held belief.  “I’m easy to be with, you know, not demanding.” “I am very understanding and open to new beliefs.” Then there is the “I never” or “I always” aspects of our marketing materials.

Here is the thing. Often what you believe to be so very true about yourself exists only in your own mind.

I find myself to be delightful, generous and funny. Some might throw in smart or intelligent which I most likely would agree is the case.  Off the cuff, I would say I am warm and inviting, yet I know that my direct approach to the world is off-putting to many.  What I take as honesty or clarity, others perceive as abrupt or in your face. These days, I do not use my direct approach to hurt (I will cop to the fact that in my younger years it was a shield I threw up), but it does not change the fact that I am perceived as prickly.

I have been labeled and judged by many for their perceptions of my behavior, some of it imagined and some of it real, but the reasons are not those that have been assigned to me. It brings me back to the schoolyard adage, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”

Yet we allow words to color how we feel about ourselves and/or the people hurling them in our direction. When I first married my husband, people I perceived to be close to him treated him rather poorly, turning away from him and trying to do things they felt might hurt.  I was his self-appointed protector and raged against these actions.  One day he smiled that delightful smile of his and said, “Their behavior has nothing to do with me, it has everything to do with who they are. Don’t waste your time babe.”  Sadly, I continued for a while longer, but finally caught on to the wisdom of ERJ.

In this atmosphere of ugliness that many feel is pervasive in our society today, I am choosing the ERJ way.  I am who I am. I know what I have done and what I have not done. I know my intentions. As I have said to friends for years, I know that on any given day I could say or do something that given my tone of voice or their personal battles might seem hurtful or abrupt. I do, however, charge my friends that if this happens, they need to tell me because it will have been unintentional and unknowing. Nothing can be fixed if it is not allowed to come up for air.

What is your brand? How many people would agree?