Personal brand variants (how the world sees you)

Ask 10 people what they think of you and you’ll get 10 different answers.

I never really understood the concept of a personal brand.

Ask me 5 years ago and I would have told you it’s a logo.

But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

If I looked you up online and found an article about you saving a store from a robbery, that’s your personal brand.

If I saw a bunch of old selfies back in your college days getting drunk at parties, that’s your personal brand.

If I found nothing about you, that’s your personal brand.

The truth about a personal brand

Most people don’t understand what a personal brand is.

It’s not your logo. It’s not your colors. It’s not your style. Those are just components.

In simple terms, it’s your reputation.

But a more accurate, less obvious definition is this.

How people feel about you when they hear your name.

Every interaction you have with anyone shapes their perception of who you are.

Your personal brand isn’t fixed. It’s got way more sides to it than a logo, and it’s more fragile than most people think.

Everyone carries a different version of you in their head.

Everything you do can shift that, for better or worse, sometimes instantly.

Here’s the part most people miss. There’s a difference between the version of you that you’re actually building on purpose, and the hundred other versions living in other people’s heads that you never chose.

The one you’re building on purpose, that’s your core narrative.

It’s built from your purpose, your values, what you’re good at, how you show up, and the mark you leave on people.

I could list more. I’ll stop there.

It’s your entire story, and you’re the protagonist.

That’s the one part of your personal brand you actually control.

Everything else, every other version of you sitting in someone else’s head, is out of your control.

All you can do is build that core narrative as clearly as you can. These days that mostly means a personal website and social media, something solid people can find when they come looking for you.

If you don’t do it, someone else will do it for you.

So remember, a personal brand isn’t one thing. It’s every perception anyone’s ever had of you, and you only wrote a fraction of them.

You don’t just have one personal brand.

You have a fuck ton.