Self esteem and authenticity

A recent post by my friend Pascal Derrien and the commentary thread, most notably contributions by CityVP 🐝 Manjit and CityVP 🐝 Manjit prompted me to share this perspective on the notion of personal branding.

My comment on Pascal's post ( http://tinyurl.com/hcenllb) was this: 

You're a brave dude to share your vulnerability my friend. The notion though of personal branding is beginning to ring hollow with me as it has about it a formulaic approach that I think is antithetical to real authenticity. Perhaps it is simple nomenclature. I concur that establishing and displaying consistent personal character - whether in the home or the workplace - is key. Humans are not products. We cannot be distilled into statements of features and benefits while attempting to define and communicate a sustainably differentiated 'brand'.

beBee is a great place to consider alternative perspectives and points of view. There are many provocative writers here who inspire genuine conversation and exchange. Pascal's post took me to a chapter from my recently-published book Riding Shotgun - A book for men and the partners they care for. While the context of my original motivation for writing this was somewhat different it appears (to me at least) to be relevant in this context as well.

I wrote:

In my work as a copywriter and branding consultant, I enable my clients to present themselves in the most authentic fashion possible to all stakeholders. Authenticity in this regard refers to offering an audience genuine, transparent, and honest stories about a product, service or experience.

I often quote Danish futurist Rolf Jensen, when explaining to clients and prospects why their stories can be more important than their products. Jensen observed, “A critical component of a great brand and the most essential component of its composition is that the experience of the brand must create an emotional connection with the consumer. Emotion is the one human ability that cannot be automated.”

When recently reading Dr. Alice Miller’s book, The Drama of the Gifted Child - The Search for the True Self, it struck me that what I do in my business is something we probably need to do as individuals. My work revolves around helping corporations discover their true self and, in turn, present that to consumers in a powerful, relevant manner.

But what about learning how to express our own true selves to those closest to us? That’s something I am learning more about every day.

Dr. Miller writes, “There are, however, many people who can tolerate the loss of beauty, health, youth, or loved ones, and although they grieve, do so without depression. In contrast, there are those with great gifts, often precisely the most gifted, who so suffer from severe depression. For one is free from it only when self-esteem is based on the authenticity of one’s own feelings and not on the possession of certain qualities.”

I have worked with companies that struggle to understand why consumers don’t intimately understand and accept their grandiose claims - the best, the fastest, the easiest, the cheapest! For many years, corporations, both large and small, felt that simply delivering a consistent message loudly, again and again and again, would lead consumers to blindly accept that what they said was true.

How many of us do that with our own lives?

Simple repetition should convince people around us that what we are telling them about ourselves is true, authentic, and genuine. Right?

Not so much.

Consider Dr. Miller again, “…it is impossible for the grandiose person to cut the tragic link between admiration and love. He seeks insatiably for admiration, of which he never gets enough because admiration is not the same thing as love. It is only a substitute gratification of the primary needs for respect, understanding, and being taken seriously…”

There is something remarkable that happens when we begin to accept our own truths, when we explore our hidden corners. There’s also something remarkable that happens when our business learning and personal journey begin to integrate, forming common perspective.

If you’re considering therapy, remember this: just as no corporation should be fearful of learning what it’s authentic story is, so should no individual purposely avoid attempting to discover their authentic, true self. In both cases, the exercise can be fraught with challenge, but the outcome is inevitably beneficial.

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