How to validate your personal brand & professional identity

To understand your personal brand, you have to know WHO you are first. Your personal brand is the sum of all the best parts you want to bring to the table (see my post on hybrid vigor to understand that better).

When we examine the range of our professional identities, each identity we possess is not created equal. We have some professional identities we like, some we love, some we hate but still have to use (like being a bookkeeper), some we use a lot, some we have just because, and some we have and don’t even really know why. You get the point.

Your personal brand can’t consist of a montage of professional identities. That’s like eating a sandwich made with every possible type of sauce, meat, and extra topping. It just doesn’t taste good. You have to discern which of your professional identities not only belongs together but are also the best version of you.

Defining your true professional identities is a CRITICAL STEP before you can even create your personal brand.

Here’s where to start

As with any of our personal, social, and cultural identities, some of our professional identities last with us longer than others. 

Since professional identity can shift and change over time, how do we test which ones are our CORE? The primary ones?

By validating this, we can see who we really are, and then map our personal brand and hybrid identity from there.

If you’re a hybrid professional, your hybridity is formed at the intersection of your primary professional identities.

Your primary identities are your foundational identities:

• the ones you use the most,

• energize you,

• are your areas of greatest expertise,

• and you want to be known for.

Like building a house, there are foundational materials used in its construction, and additional materials might be added for visual interest or detail. Like our professional identities, some are nice to have, and others are must have’s.

Primary professional identities are your must have, foundational, and core work identities that make you YOU!

Four factors TO VALIDATE YOUR PRIMARY PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES

Instructions:

1. Ask yourself the following four questions and track your answers.

2. Beneath each question are a series of small prompts to help you reflect and dissect your responses.

3. After answering all four questions, go back and compare what you wrote.

4. Use the “Validated or Invalidated” framework at the bottom when you’re ready.
   

PART ONE: INTERNAL VS. EXTERNAL VALIDATION

• QUESTION 1: How do I see myself?

  • What do I call myself in my work?

  • How do I answer what do I do?

  • Who do I want to be in my work?

• QUESTION 2: How do others see me?

  • What do others label me in my work?

  • When I ask a few different colleagues about my work identity, what one word do they give me?

  • What catchphrases do people at work call me, like the “therapist”?

PART TWO: UNCONSCIOUS VS. CONSCIOUS IDENTITY

• QUESTION 3: What are my greatest areas of expertise?

  • What do I know the most about?

  • What am I the most competent in doing?

  • What do people pay me for because I’m so good at doing it?

  • What do I want to be known for?

• QUESTION 4: Who am I when I'm in flow (or zone of genius)?

  • Who am I when I lose track of time?

  • Who am I when things feel effortless?

  • What do I take for granted that others think is brilliant?

  • Who am I when I’m in my passion or zone of genius?

After answering these questions, you’re ready to validate.

VALIDATED OR INVALIDATED

Below, is the method to validate or invalidate if you’ve arrive at your primary professional identity(ies).

You can have one, two, three, or four primary professional identities. Four is the upper limit. If you have more than four, keep reducing. Four is the most a person can manage in a given moment, if you’re a hybrid professional. Additional professional identities are likely secondary or tertiary and not your primary ones.

STEP ONE: Check each primary professional identity against the four questions in the Venn diagram. Are the same identities appearing in at least 3 of the 4 questions? (Goal is 4/4 but 3/4 is still high enough)

VALIDATED IF: Your primary professional identities are consistent in at least 3 of 4 questions.

• Woohoo! Nailed it. Time to create your personal brand.

INVALIDATED IF: Your identities are inconsistent across the four questions. If you feel uncertain or see discrepancies, then keep pushing yourself until you find the professional identities that appear constant in all four criteria.

• RECOMMEDATIONS:

• Take a break, marinate on this, give yourself more time to reflect. Then check back again.

• Go interview more people to see how they see you.

• If you feel 80% certain that an identity is a primary identity, that's good enough for now. Getting to 100% might happen after a few weeks of using these and saying them aloud in the real world. Sometimes, once we start using them we can quickly tell if they are our primary and feel good, or if they don't feel right.

• Check-in with your body. How do these identity words FEEL to you? Ask your inner voice. That can give you a strong gut check.

READY FOR HOW TO BRAND YOURSELF?

If you’re ready to take this to the next level, join my Brand Your Hybrid Identity course. If you want more help on this stage, check out Professional Identity Decoded.