Branding yourself
I have become aware of a new theme in my life recently. I can’t say if this is a mid-life crisis thing or not, but I think that it is a crucible that we all have to go through at some point. It is also a necessary philosophical question: who am I? In the last two years, and even before that when I was pursuing my degree, the question started popping up. Attempting to answer it is an important part of successful leadership, although I wonder if can ever be truly answered, as we are all constantly evolving.
Now this could easily drive one down a philosophical rabbit hole that great thinkers have been going down since antiquity. Socrates’ dictum, “an unexamined life is not worth living” comes to mind, although some might argue that he may have meant life in general, not necessarily one’s own life, but then again, aren’t we a product of our observations… see what I mean? No, I don’t think that I need to go that far to start my self-discovery, lest I never finish, and possibly never even really start.
I think that the best place to start is here, and now. And start as simple as possible. I’m alive, and I breathe, and eat and have all of the basic functions down. I also live in a house and am not currently ill or injured. WHEW! Next, I am a citizen of Washington State, USA, and as such I am afforded all of the social safety net provided to me as such. I am also gainfully employed as an Site Reliability Engineering Manager. I am a happily married and am currently hosting my wife’s mother. I suppose that you can sort of say that this is “who I am”, although this is not a complete picture. We must delve further.
Now we can explore the past. I have been working in the technology industry for about 20 years and as such have built up a level of esteem that makes me feel confident that I could even call myself a Technologist. Prior to that, there was a lot of juvenile delinquency which gave me street skills, as well as many attempts at skills, either through necessity or as a passing interest, that didn’t amount to much. Because of this, I can also add several other titles to my repertoire, but only on a technicality.
Ok, so far, we have the following:
I’m a human
I am a U.S citizen, and a Washingtonian
I’m a married man, and I have a good family relationship
I’m a technologist, among other things that I have spent less time at (musician, photographer, soldier, gamer, etc.)
That part was easy. This is where it gets tricky. Everything up until this point has been an internal discovery. Now we get the the part where we must look to the future, the unknown, the scary place. In fact, one can even say that I’ve somewhat answered the question, “Who am I?”, although it will take some polishing. Surely, it’s enough to put on my tombstone. We’ve also answered the question, “How did I get here”, although that might require more research as well, and more digging would be boring for my audience, so we will cut that part short for now. But now comes the big question, “Who do I want to be"?”
We were all probably asked this a lot in our formative years. It was so easy to answer back then. Up until I was 18, I can remember saying that I wanted to be an astronaut, a firefighter, a pro wrestler, a teacher, a doctor, a construction worker… the list goes on. Even from age 18 to 20, I wanted to be a photographer, a videographer, a musician, and a career military man. That was only in the first half of my my life. Then, for about 20 years, I would say that I was an IT professional. That’s who I “was”. If someone would ask me what I do, that would have been my answer. But that doesn’t make sense now.
I think that what I want is to be remembered. But as what, or whom? That is the real goal of this brand building exercise. McDonald’s is a real estate company, but they will always be remembered as a burger joint. However, in their messaging, they are also environmentalists, social justice warriors, philanthropists, career builders, and more. It seems that once I identify the values, the forms, and the essence of what I am and what made me who I am, it makes it easier to build my brand. I can be a technologist, or a cigar aficionado, or a musician… or maybe all or any of them. They all contribute to the oneness of me. And of course, like all beings that exist in this universe, I am the victim of unending change, so this whole exercise will have to be frequently revisited.
So to reflect on the original quote from Socrates, it seems that not only is an unexamined life not worth living, but it doesn’t really exist. If you don’t examine something, it is not observed, and if something is not observed, it does not exist. It has no form. If you don’t know who you are, you don’t have a brand. Therefore, you are unidentifiable, both to yourself, and others. If you want people to know who you are, you have to know who you are first. Yes, I know that I am going to get a lot of flak over these statements, especially from the existentialists. But I hope that this is the beginning of some real conversation.