The person you become over time is a result of the environment you grew up in and often people who are around you the most influence your personality.
Nowadays family, friends, colleagues and even brands judge you by the way you present yourself in social and personal situations. Hence there is a pressure to aspire to become the type of person you feel you would respect or want to be with.
The best way to determine your personal brand is to look around at your role models that you like to listen to, emulate and admire. Over years of interviewing Heads of States, Royal families, CEOs, Prime Ministers, I have discovered that role models tend to be parents or world leaders who inspire change that has brought them fame and success in their respective careers.
Every individual aspires towards being different and having a unique identity that would eventually become their personal brand. Most companies do regular staff assessments and have a staff development culture where they find the strengths and attributes of members of the team that make them stand out.
When addressing the need to develop their personal brand, many people these days look towards social media influencers who often become overnight successes with bought followers and likes. The youth who intellectually are not able to connect the dots and cave in to the pressure to feel wanted hence face classic delusions.
There are very few people who can really influence and this only comes with real authentic passion that translates into all aspects of the life of the influencer and not just for one perfect Instagram post that gets selected over thirty versions of the same image.
The sad reality is that by the time the search for that perfect picture ends, the magical moment is gone and the experience is not real anymore and results in mental roadblocks towards a more productive and long-term personal growth.
The challenge thus lies in taking bold steps to develop a personal brand that brings out the best of what you see in your role models, teachers and people you admire. Often, engaging with a mentor helps in guiding and shaping your personal brand.
Successful people reflect on their sense of self and observe habits and actions they relate to and respect. The best option naturally is to be with people who have similar values.
Hence if you are looking for authenticity and want to be true to yourself, then emulating someone else from a medium like Instagram where everything is posted for effect may result in disappointment especially when realization sets in that the image is staged and doctored and may not reflect the reality of the situation projected.
Enhancing your personal brand with improvements within your comfort zone and taking actions that reflect your values results in a meaningful and fulfilling lifestyle plus it helps in creating an authentic personal brand that makes you the person you want to be.
By Shereen Shabnam
