We’ve all been talking about Personal Brand Leadership for several years now. Yet it was a relatively obscure concept when I first proposed an idea on it during a networking keynote in 2008. At the time, I was helping networkers understand that every connection could perceive you in a certain way. Now we hear it everywhere. It seems like every presentation and take on personal branding varies to some degree. However, the essential insights are the same:

1. Personal branding is about you being your own corporate brand.
2. Personal branding can and should be entirely owned by you.
3. Personal branding is an ongoing, evolving process.
4. Personal branding defines how you live and engage both personally and professionally.

Great, but how do I figure it out?

What most people don’t talk about is how to figure out what your personal brand is. What is the process? Several months ago, I was sitting with a friend at Starbucks, and she was telling me about her struggle to find the right brand for her website. So, first I asked her a few basic questions about herself – dove into her feelings – and within 30 minutes, we had come up with several personal brand elements and a personal brand statement. She looked up at me and said, “Wow, that was pretty cool… and super fast!”