What is a Thought Leader, anyway?
Making your brand personal...
... is all about expressing your personality without fear.
Trusting that what you believe connects with other people.
There's a reason they use golden retrievers in all the ads out there.
They can't hid who they really are.
They are goldies. And will always be goldies.
Don't just be relevant. Be significant.
And never be afraid of showing the world who you are and what you believe.
Personal branding is vital to your success as a professional at every level.
Personality is how you communicate that.
Your brand story is not only about your business.
It's intimately tied to a clear understanding of what you are all about.
The way you live communicates a story to everyone you interact with every day.
And that's who you are.
What makes you, you.
You don't need to "create" a personal brand.
You've spent a lifetime doing that.
Embracing the things you love.
Loving the people you love.
Telling the people you love about the things you love.
What you need to do is show the rest of us who that person is.
Personal branding is about showing the world who you are.
More than that, it's about being confident in showing the world who you are.
Richard Branson shows himself crashing on a bike.
Mark Cuban talks to interviewers like he's just Mark. And sometimes corrects himself. Or changes direction because something happened to change his opinion.
Martha Stewart became friends with Snoop.
She doesn't tell us about it, she just goes around with her friend.
And lets us see it.
To be seen as a thought leader in your industry, you need to establish a clear, consistent, compelling voice that speaks to the needs, interests, and concerns of all the most significant people in your orbit.
You also need to be authentically... you.
And everything you do needs to sound like you.
And it can't just be about how you're relevant to other people.
Or other people in your industry.
It needs to mean something important.
To them.
Relevant is something that interests you.
Significant is something you can't succeed without.