Inspiration

Get Your Personal Brand On: Communicate Your Unique Value in 8 words or less

/ Susan Hendrich / 1 Comment

Every day is a new chance to “ride the elevator” with someone who can change your life by opening a door to your next career opportunity. Are you ready for those few seconds? Do you have your personal brand defined? Can you deliver it in a single statement—-using 8 words or less?

If you yearn for that breakthrough moment that propels you toward your dreams, here is a simple act you can take: Imagine having a laser-focused personal branding message that not only captivates attention but compels action. Can you see yourself confidently sharing your passion, purpose, and value, leaving a lasting impact on anyone you meet? That’s the magic of a well-crafted Personal Brand Story.

To craft an effective personal brand story, follow these steps:

  1. Discover and Reflect: Name your strengths, values, skills, passions, and key experiences. Consider what makes you unique and what you’re truly passionate about. Reflect on your accomplishments and the impact you want to have. Answer questions like:
    • What do I excel at? What are my strengths?
    • What are my core values and beliefs?
    • What am I most passionate about in my work or life?
    • What problems can I solve or needs can I fulfill?
    • How have my experiences shaped who I am today?
  2. Define Your Value Proposition: Based on your self-reflection, identify the unique value you bring to the table. Consider how your strengths, skills, and passions align with the needs of your target audience. Your value proposition should succinctly answer questions like:
    • How can I contribute positively?
    • What benefits do I provide to others?
    • What sets me apart from others in my field?
  3. Craft your Statement: Now, it’s time to put it all together into a concise, high-impact statement. Your personal brand statement should be clear, authentic, and memorable. Here’s a formula to guide you:
    • Adjective + Noun + Action + Impact: Use an adjective to describe yourself, followed by a noun that represents your expertise or field. Then, add an action verb that highlights what you do, and finally, convey the impact or benefit you create.
    • Here are some examples:
      • Dynamic Marketing Strategist igniting brands for explosive growth
      • Expert Storytelling Coach unlocking confidence through onstage magic
      • Innovative Training Leader driving a high-impact learning culture
      • Creative Graphic Designer visualizing your best branding
  4. Edit and Refine: Write down multiple versions of your personal brand statement and refine them. Keep it concise, ideally in one sentence. Even better if you can get it to just a phrase or three words. Test it out on friends, mentors, or colleagues to gather feedback. Here’s mine:
    • Light Shiner: Building leaders by illuminating strengths
  5. Align with Authenticity: Your personal brand statement should authentically represent you and what you stand for. Make sure it resonates with who you are and how you want to be perceived.
  6. Adapt for Different Contexts: Tailor your personal brand statement for different situations. You might have a slightly different version for your LinkedIn profile, resume, elevator pitch, or networking events.
  7. Regularly Review and Update: As you grow and evolve, your personal brand statement may need adjustments. Regularly revisit and update it to ensure it remains aligned with your journey and aspirations.

Remember, your personal brand statement is a dynamic representation of your identity, strengths, and aspirations. It should communicate your unique value and leave a lasting impression on those who encounter it.

So, what’s it gonna be? Get your Brand On!

The Power of Perception

/ Susan Hendrich / Leave a comment

Perception can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. The classic leadership book, The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, shaped my leadership approach. They teach the power of Perception. Consider the story of The Monk and the Travellers:

THE MONK AND THE TRAVELLERS

One day a traveller was walking along a road on his journey from one village to another. As he walked he noticed a monk tending the ground in the fields beside the road. The monk said “Good day” to the traveller, and the traveller nodded to the monk. The traveller then turned to the monk and said “Excuse me, do you mind if I ask you a question?”. 

“Not at all,” replied the monk. 

“I am travelling from the village in the mountains to the village in the valley and I was wondering if you knew what it is like in the village in the valley?” 

“Tell me,” said the monk, “What was your experience of the village in the mountains?” 

“Dreadful,” replied the traveller, “to be honest I am glad to be away from there. I found the people most unwelcoming. When I first arrived I was greeted coldly. I was never made to feel part of the village no matter how hard I tried. The villagers keep very much to themselves, they don’t take kindly to strangers. So tell me, what can I expect in the village in the valley?” 

“I am sorry to tell you,” said the monk, “but I think your experience will be much the same there”. 

The traveller hung his head despondently and walked on. 

A while later another traveller was journeying down the same road and he also came upon the monk. 

“I’m going to the village in the valley,” said the second traveller, “Do you know what it is like?” 

“I do,” replied the monk “But first tell me – where have you come from?” 

“I’ve come from the village in the mountains.” 

“And how was that?” 

“It was a wonderful experience. I would have stayed if I could but I am committed to travelling on. I felt as though I was a member of the family in the village. The elders gave me much advice, the children laughed and joked with me and people were generally kind and generous. I am sad to have left there. It will always hold special memories for me. And what of the village in the valley?” he asked again. 

“I think you will find it much the same” replied the monk, “Good day to you”. 

“Good day and thank you,” the traveller replied, smiled, and journeyed on.

___________________

THE POWER OF PERCEPTION

Tell me how this story impacts you? Does your own perception of situations evolve based on the attitude you bring? Sure makes a difference for me. Choose wisely.

The Four Agreements: Unlocking Your Best Self

/ Susan Hendrich / Leave a comment

Sometimes a book can change your life. The Four Agreements, by Don miguel Ruiz changed mine.

This international bestseller takes less than an hour read, and provides a simple (not easy) roadmap for releasing long patterns of self-judgment, worry, and self-limiting beliefs.

The Four Agreements are:

  1. Be Impeccable With Your Word.
  2. Don’t Take Anything Personally.
  3. Don’t Make Assumptions.
  4. Always Do Your Best.

A few thoughts:

Carpe Momentum: Two tips to accelerate success

/ Susan Hendrich / 2 Comments

“I could be so successful, if only I had more time…”

Have you ever started the sentence, “If only I had more time…” then finished that sentence with realization that you would fill that extra time with more hassled, stressful tasks that would leave you even more exhausted than you already are?

Time, precious time

Author Harvey Mackay says that time is the one commodity that we can’t reproduce, alter, capture or revisit. We each have the same quantity of time on a given day, day after day. How we use that time makes all the difference.

Think about the Food Network television show, “Chopped,” where several chefs open a mystery box with a tiny window of time and a mission to create fabulous food fare. Invariably, one contestant groans as the clock runs out and Chef Ted shouts, “Time’s up!”  The contestant stares at the unfinished dish below and states as if it’s the first time this has ever happened, “I ran out of time” as their reason for not including all of the required ingredients on their plate, or for not cooking their dish to the judges’ satisfaction. Each chef had the same ingredients, the same cookingtimesup station, the same pantry, and the same amount of time. Why were the other chefs able to finish on time with the intended delicious outcome, while Joe/Jane Too-Late is standing with a raw slab of pork on the station?

So how to make the most of this precious, limited resource? How do super-successful time managers seem to breeze through tasks and still have time to show up at the kids’ soccer games or catch a concert in the park?  Continue reading →

Kintsugi: The art of embracing damage.

/ Susan Hendrich / 2 Comments

Is it possible to be more beautiful in the broken places?

Recently, I sent a message to my friend who was struggling, in hopes of lifting her spirits.

My friend had been feeling down. Defeated. Convinced that she wasn’t capable or deserving of success. I knew better, of course. I’ve known her more than half my life. I’ve watched her rise from an aspiring writer to international best selling author. Countless reasons, I could offer, as to why she’s more than capable and perfectly deserving of success.  With indignance, I wanted to shout at her, “You’re already successful! Do you know how many people would dream to live your life for even just one day?”

I had really good intentions that day. It was a thrill, in fact, to think that I could be of help to a hero. Here was little old regular me, being asked to Help…Fix…Repair…Heal…this amazing role model of mine, who happened to be struggling. Being able to nurture and support this person who has served as a model of excellence for me for decades. Here was my chance to make a difference!

And the way I chose to help this supersuccessful person to feel better? I denied her feelings. Not a good thing, turns out.

I countered every single negative thought she was having with a reason why she was wrong and “should feel great” or “ought to forgive” herself or “was being too hard” on herself.

Thinking I was helping, actually I was making it worse. I took away her right to suffer. In fact, I teetered on the cusp of shaming her for feeling down.

With all the best intentions, I missed the whole point. She was feeling broken and needed to let the pieces fall on the floor in front of her.

Realizing that I was making things worse by only focusing on the sunny side and by denying her need to feel broken and fall apart, I suddenly remembered a concept I once heard about the importance of being able to “fall into” pain rather than simply denying it. This concept, I was now remembering, was about honoring and highlighting the broken parts. Drawing attention to the damage, even!

So, what is this radical-acceptance-like process of honoring and even highlighting our failures and broken parts?

It’s called Kintsugi, and it’s a beautiful way of turning damage into beauty.

The Japanese practice of “kintsugi” is the art of embracing damage. Check out this Kintsugi video:

“Now you shall transform to a new level, my friend. Think wabi-sabi and kintsugi: the art of embracing damage!”

Now remembering this concept of being stronger in the broken places, I stopped my barrage of “happy thoughts” and apologized mid-conversation to my friend. I acknowledged that I’d been trying to deny the fact that she felt broken. I was trying to pretend the cracks weren’t there. I told her that I’d suddenly remembered this Japanese art of Kintsugi, and that I would send her a video to illustrate the concept right away. We ended the conversation awkardly, and I seriously questioned whether I knew how to be a good friend.

Pushing past my disappointment in myself, I sent her the Kintsugi video, hoping that she was still open to my support, even after I’d botched and Pollyanna’d my way through our earlier conversation. After I sent the note and video link, I started to question myself.

“Who am I to tell this highly successful and internationally recognized thought leader how to live?”

“Why do I always appoint myself as the ambassador of all that is positive?”

“What if she resents my message and sees it as patronizing?”

There I was, spiraling to all my places in my head where my own brokenness lurks.

Worrying about how my friend might feel after I’d missed the point with her suffering, I was spinning in my own broken parts, thinking…

I’ve spent my whole life embracing the broken, the not quite, and the almost…

  • Saving birds with broken wings
  • Fixing toys with broken parts
  • Cheering for the underdog
  • Coaching those who don’t yet believe in themselves
  • Coaxing sunshine from clouds

Just as my negative self-talk was reaching a fervent pitch in my head, the phone rang.

There was my friend, laugh-crying through the phone line, telling me how she finally felt understood. The video just spoke to her. Captured her. She told me how she felt connected to this concept of embracing damage. How she IS kintsugi. How this concept of mending the broken pieces with gold and proudly displaying them was exactly what she’d needed. It was a great moment, and not just because my friend was feeling better or because I’d been able to help her. It was a great moment because she and I were creating Kintsugi in real time. We were piecing back together a set of broken shards of a conversation and making the resulting product even better than when we’d started.

I knew on that day that I would never look at broken pottery in the same way again.

Now, whenever either of us faces a rough patch in life, or when things fall apart altogether, a single word helps us both begin to put the pieces back together and to anticipate an even more beautiful outcome than the original situation could have intended.

Kintsugi.

Embracing the damage. More beautiful in the broken places.