Get ready to more rapidly achieve the next milestone in your career—and change the world.
If you’re just starting your journey to make your professional brand come alive, you may be wondering if it’s really worth it.
I mean, you’re already a successful leader in your field. How important could it really be to clarify your genius, what you stand for and at what you are best in the world?
I can assure you from my experience in working with literally hundreds of leaders—including hospital executives, PhDs, physicians, bankers and global nonprofit presidents—that following the time-proven ETA™ process from Revealing Genius can help you make an enormously valuable shift in your thinking about your professional brand.
And when you make this “seismic” shift in thinking about your professional brand, you’ll likely experience other shifts too.
Leaders I’ve worked with have gone from been fuzzy about their unique genius to crystal clarity about what they stand for. They’ve moved from feeling like they were “swimming in a sea of sameness” be being to effectively articulate what makes them stand out. And, importantly, they’ve gone from wondering about their contributions in their field and to the world to having confidence—even conviction—about their professional brand so they can “own it” and more rapidly achieve the next milestone in their careers.
Let’s look at each of these in turn.
Crystal Clarity About Your Professional Brand
As you can see in this picture, when water is crystal clear, you can see into its depths. This is also true with your professional brand. When you take the time to excavate, tell and affirm your brand through the ETA™ process, you’ll be able to see deeply into who you are, what you stand for and at what you are best in the world.
Better yet, working with Revealing Genius will help you learn how to effectively talk about your professional brand with others—in a multitude of settings, such as your LinkedIn profile, your website and the proverbial elevator.
And the benefits don’t stop there. You’ll also get assistance in developing conviction about your professional brand, so you will know in your bones that what you are pursuing is what you alone were born to do.
This is incredibly powerful.
No Longer ‘Swimming in a Sea of Sameness’
Some leaders feel like there are lots of others who do what they do. And at a base level, that may be true. Hospital CEOs do face similar challenges, for example.
But, as I always describe in our free 45-minute Excavate Your Brand webinars, no one can tell your very same brand stories. These stories are unique to you and your experience.
You can get a taste of this right now. Try this.
First, write down a story that’s unique to you and your brand. Include the details. What color are things? What are the associated aromas? What are the feelings?
Second, describe your ideal audience. What does that person value? What challenges do they face? What do they feel about how you can help them? Be specific.
Rest assured that no one else who does what you do can tell this exact same story or would describe the same ideal audience. Your brand stories and your ideal audience are yours alone.
In the next section, we’ll talk about unapologetically owning this genius of yours.
Developing Conviction About Your Professional Brand
Oprah says it was famous movie critic Gene Siskel who first asked her the question, “What do you know for sure?” While Siskel’s question stumped Oprah at first, it was ultimately so effective at drawing out what truly mattered to her that she has been inspired to ask it of many others in both her magazine and on her talk shows.
“Sometimes people (like me that first time) are caught off guard,” Oprah writes in this blog. “But usually, … they rally with thoughtful and profound responses that reveal the essence of who they are.”
So what do you know for sure?
The ETA™ process will help you build conviction that what you are doing is what you are meant to do. People who are on purpose like this, who deeply understand their unique reason to serve, are not just able to answer the question of what they do, but the questions of who they are and how that drives what they do.
And that helps them get results.
What do you want to do? Get a promotion? Be asked to keynote at a conference in your field? Achieve a board seat? Help your “ideal avatar” with what only you can give them? Fill in the blank ______.
This is the value of making a seismic shift in your thinking about your professional brand. Knowing yourself readies you to act on your genius, to better serve the world in the way that only you can.
Even by reading this blog, you are taking an important step in that direction. We can’t wait to see where you arrive.
