Building Your Personal Brand

If you were a product, say a barbie-like doll, what would you look like? In your box you would also have all of your strengths, passions, capabilities and all that you want to learn and do more of in your life. This package would be a perfect depiction of you in your truest, most perfect state. All of those hangups: the body features you hate, your parents divorce when you were young, teenage heartbreak, fights, fears, anxieties, etc. that have come to define you wouldn't be in this package. This package also does not include career, relationships and personal health. 

Why? The outcome of the experiences related to these different topics should serve to define your path in life,  they themselves should not define you. When you hold onto the catalyst for defining moments in your life (i.e. the divorce, heartbreak, career, etc.) they prevent you from fully embracing your personal brand, which as previously mentioned is perfect. When you take on this junk and not just the outcome of the junk then you are no longer wholly you, you are now you + all of your past and present problems. The defining edges that make you, YOU suddenly become blurred, you become less defined. 

When going through life the key is to experience it, learn from it, grow and continue to move forward... not to sew badges onto your suit of all the good and bad that you've encountered. When you sew badges you are allowing yourself to be defined not only by that which is not you, but also defined by the past.

This key point requires healthy disconnect. There are three ways you can experiences a situation:

1. conflict => learn nothing => continue on as if it never happened
   
2. conflict => learn the lesson then let the conflict go => continue on with a new, empowered perspective
   
3. conflict => learn the lesson and sew the badge => continue with a new perspective while comparing everything to the old conflict
   

The first point defines unhealthy disconnect, which is essentially apathy and disengagement. People who embrace this method may wonderful, happy people but they go through life with eyes closed and hands over the ears never sufficiently learning how to grow and evolve. The third point is unhealthy connect, when you learn lessons, but never quite fully because you are spending too much time and energy on what the catalyst was and not enough time on the outcome. Any situation, positive or negative, that leads to a lesson being learned is positive! It may have been painful but a learned lesson is an opportunity for growth and to learn how to do it better the next time.

This brings my to the second point, health disconnect which is when you are moving through life engaging fully with all around you, embracing life to the fullest. There is a lack of fear of opportunity, conflict or change because there is trust that every conflict creates growth. Similarly, you find yourself able to let go of the catalyst of each problem, focusing on the positive lesson learned that has created a more empowered present moment.

When you work on building this model into your life you can experience life with all the awesome successes of learning and evolving, without the badges and hangups that limit you over time. This means that you can have a bad day at work that doesn't follow you home, or an argument that doesn't ruin your day. You begin to experience life from the drivers seat, with full control over where you are going. 

You are a perfect package, with so many beautiful and powerful defining qualities. Focus on them! Slowly peal off all of those badges and liberate yourself from all of the things that you believe you should be. You can experience less than stellar jobs, relationships, situations because let's be honest, that is reality, you you don't allow yourself to be affected by them. You wake up each day and live your life with a focus on the good, doing your job as a human, moving through the junk that defines life and appreciating it as much as you appreciate all of those wonderful moments because they both bring you further on your path to make you more powerful, successful and awesome.