I believe you can have a personal brand and be yourself. To me, having a personal brand is knowing who you are, what you stand for, what you believe in. It’s finding your passion, your element, and positioning yourself within it.

I think it’s just another way to say: find something you are passionate about, and reflect that, inside and out. And, passions can change. You can find your natural element to be different at different stages of your life. These environments where you are yourself are what shape you, and determine what your brand is.

In a nutshell, I would interchange the word “brand” here with “identity”. Brands are how we identify products and services. Therefore, I would suggest not getting intimidated, discouraged, or thrown off by the term “personal brand”. You have nothing to worry about because being who you are, and being comfortable with who you are is what your personal brand is all about–and that’s why people read your blog!

I think the blog post you linked to is spot on, so thank you for sharing that. It really bothers me that people think they can manipulate their person brand to be someone other than who they actually are, which I guess is what I was trying to explain in my post.

Thanks for your comment and for stopping by!

Thanks for your comment! I agree that personal branding has less to do with “marketing” yourself than it does with realizing that everything you create is a part of yourself.

Glad you stopped by!