Why my brand’s super power can’t keep its mouth shut but I don’t want it to…but 3 questions to control it…
As a kid we generally get in trouble for something. What was yours? What put you on your Mom or Dad’s last nerve? I am not just trying to get you to feel bad or evoke a bad memory or point out a flaw. I am asking you do to research on your brand. This is important information. This is generally something you couldn’t stop yourself from doing. Find this and you’ll get clues to your super power and a big part of your brand.
In my quest to identify and leverage my strengths I looked at my past for clues. What I saw was that in my family I was the one who asked the question that made people uncomfortable. Why isn’t she coming to the wedding? Why haven’t they seen them for years? What happens if you don’t go to church? To me they were questions to which I needed answers and didn’t hold a lot of emotion around them. They were seemingly innocuous questions, but not so much. These questions generally stopped the conversation and everyone looked my way. To which I then asked “What?”
The question about your history will give you a starting point. Then you take that thought and compare and see if that gets you in trouble today. Well, I could say get you into “awkward moments” since we’re all adults here. My brand is absolutely grounded in that I ask questions to get the conversation to a deeper level. If I was super good at avoiding those awkward moments or asking it in a different way or a way that was always diplomatic thing might be different. For one, I know I would have a really sweet job as American ambassador in a country that is just a tropical island that would never be considered a threat in any way. But asking questions to get to a deeper level is not exactly going to win diplomacy awards. So I ask the question but not always in the most delicate way. Even when people are paying me to help them get to a deeper understanding of a situation the questions can be awkward.
But people do pay me to ask the questions. And people pay me to see patterns in behavior. And I am usually giving help rather than asking for help. What is new for me and my brand is to ask for help. To identify my needs and then ask for those needs to be met. My challenge is that I am not used to being my own advocate and asking in a way that is conducive to perhaps a reasonable response. I have to practice modulating my superpowers too….
When you first start exercising your super powers ask these questions:
- Is using my power for good? Does this benefit the situation and my need without harming the group?
- Am I applying the right pressure of my super power on this specific issue?
- Is this the right time and method for bringing my superpower/brand expression?
While you’re in process become the participant / observer by really watching how people around you react to the use of your power. Now that you’re aware of your power, start noticing that it is in fact a power that universal. Now you will need to fine tune your usage and manage it and use it! But watch how it works and when it works and start to fine tune your power to build your personal brand.
When you want to clearly understand your super power and how to leverage that power for your brand, call me. I’ll ask the questions that make you uncomfortable and you’ll be glad I use my super power for good.
Pat Weiland is with Sage Strategies and Sage4change – call now to be added to the waiting list for Personal Branding programs that build professional at 310.503.5856.
