The SlickLaRoo Brand

I love my job.  Everyone knows that.  But sometimes I feel like I need to add I love the company I work for.  While I do not see myself in this job forever, my company understands this and is very supportive in building us up to be the best person we can be, professionally and personally.  And while every job has its downside, so do companies.  I am not saying it’s perfect …but I’m thankful to be employed here and to grow here.

Last week at an all staff meeting we spent the entire two hours talking about our personal brands.  If you know anything about the details of my job, you may wonder why they would spend a precious 2 hours of the work day doing this.  Well, honestly, if you don’t know your personal brand, you may not know the best place for you to work.  So we identified our personal brands and I think it helped some of us realize if we were in line with the company mission or if perhaps we would best be suited somewhere else.  If I’m not bought into the mission or believe in what we do, I best be taking my brand elsewhere.  Luckily, that’s not the case for me.

So without further ado, my personal brand:

I am a believer, artist, and information-seeker with expertise in love and teaching others.  My experience includes urban education and community development.  I am unique because I se joy where some cannot and choose optimism when others do not. 

Anything related to “brand” lately has been quite buzz worthy, especially around social media networks.  However, call it what you want, it is a great exercise to figure yours out.  I like to think my brand is really “Love God, love others,” but this goes a bit more deep.  It can help identify you personally AND professionally.  And while I want God to bleed into all parts of my life, work included, that’s tricky being the self-declared non-evangelical that I am.  But perhaps others will see Him in my optimism, or at least wonder what makes this girl tick, or march to a different beat.

If you’re itching to brand yourself, feel free to use the outline below that we used to help craft ours.

I am a ______________ with expertise in _________________.

My experience includes _______________.  I am unique because __________________.

Something we are working on in the future is our “one sentence.”  Think about something that would go on your epitaph, or perhaps to not be as morbid, your catch phrase, for lack of a better term.    I think this will always be a work in progress for me but I think I found something for the meantime.

She taught; she learned.  She laughed; she loved.