Come with me on a little journey. What is a brand? A personal brand. Well, people like Brian Tracy say that it’s a promise. It’s a promise that the service or the product that I’m selling will always be the same.
So you could think your mom, for instance, your mother is a brand because whatever happens, your mother will always treat you the same. Your father, also a brand. Mercedes Benz, also a brand. When you buy a Mercedes Benz, you’re getting a certain level of quality, aren’t you? So what would the concept of brand out be like?
Brand out. So let’s say, for instance, you’re invited to go out for an evening. Go out for an evening. What would you do? Well, the very first thing you would do, you would go and have a shower.
I’m sure you would clean right up. And if at all possible, you would get a haircut. Perhaps you would get your nails manicured. You’d get your good shirt out, pressed shirt out, or your dress out of the closet to put on and get kind of dolled up and out you would go. You would go perhaps to a nice restaurant.
You would enjoy the company, have a nice meal. If you’re so disposed, you might have a glass of wine or a bottle of fine wine. And then after, you perhaps would go for a walk with your date, if you will. And then you would go to, gosh, a nightclub or for a walk along the beach. And in the end, you would take the young lady or the young gentleman home, back home, and you would go home yourself.
And it would be a nice evening, and you would have gone out in the old traditional sense. Well, that is your brand. When you go to present yourself in the world, you are taking your brand out, aren’t you? You’re gonna present your brand in the very, very best way. And you’re going to go on, gosh, even a bit of a journey.
Like, it’s the hero’s journey from Joseph Campbell. You start off and at the beginning, especially if it’s an important date, you’re a little bit nervous and you’re going to spend just a little bit more time to ensure that your brand, you, in other words, are going to present yourself in the best way possible. And there is hesitation, trepidation, and then you go forward. And at some point, you think, oh my gosh. I’m going to stumble.
I’m going to say something foolish. I’m gonna present my brand in an incorrect way. But then you get over that. And then as the conversation develops, as the evening develops, you start to realize the person really likes you. They think you’re a pretty nice individual.
And you begin to smile to yourself. Thank god I’ve been able to present my brand in a most sincere way. And then you go back home, you go to sleep. The next day, you’re left with a new impression of your brand because you have taken your brand out into the world. You’ve made that big promise, haven’t you?
And that’s what makes your brand special and unique. And this is not about selling yourself in the sense that you’re gonna make more money from it. You’re testing you on an ongoing basis because the brand is you, ultimately. It’s not like a suit of clothes that you take off and put on. Right?
It should be you. It should represent who you are, your core values as they like to say. What do you represent? Do you represent honesty, integrity, hard work? Right?
Are you a decent human being? Are you sharing yourself in the world? Gosh. I hope so. Right?
Because you are the brand ultimately. You know, I think all of us are greatly disappointed when we really revere someone and then we hear that perhaps they’ve been a criminal, they’ve done some nefarious activity, they’ve stolen money or perhaps they got drunk and fell down, and you lose the respect of that individual. And at the moment, for instance, Tesla is being greatly challenged, and I think unfairly so. But people are saying, wait a moment. Maybe Elon Musk doesn’t stand for the Tesla brand.
Maybe he’s not like he says he is. And rightly or wrongly, people are questioning, aren’t they? So think to yourself, when you go out into the world and you’re gonna test your brand, make sure that you test it continuously so you are on the right track. And right in your notebook, really begin to document what it was like to go on that date. What was the experience?
What did you feel? Was there some failure involved in taking my brand out? Did I make some errors? And I think slowly but surely, you will find your way, won’t you? Right?
Because in my experience, when you take the brand out, you are really excited. And if you’re excited, many times you also excite people. Wow. It’s almost like shout out in a sense. You’re shouting yourself out.
Look at my brand. I’m standing for integrity, honesty, hard work. Had a most interesting experience happen the other day. I always try to promote the idea that you should make your bed. Make your bed every single day.
Make your bed, write in your notebook, say your prayers, get on with your day. And this is a hard sell, especially to young people because they don’t understand why I should make my bed. My mom is gonna make my bed or no one. Who cares? But the other day, this individual, a real die hard individual, I’m not making my bed.
And then he said to me the other day, you know, teacher Leon, you know what I did today? I made my bed. I tell you that we have an idiom in English, knock me over with a feather. Honestly, I was so touched. I was really humbled.
Many times, we’re obviously not the message. We are just the messenger. Right? Because the message has been there forever, hasn’t it? So brand out.
Brand yourself out for sure. And you know what they say. You know what they say. Critical thinking is necessary, especially when you’re going to personally brand yourself out, and critical thinking is great. Truly great. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.