What brand are you?

🔊 Listen to this

We live in the labeling era. whatever we relate to, we tend to label and “store” it on the proper shelf of our brain. From cars to mobile phones, from restaurants to clubs. For each we have a category and subcategories. Sign of the times we’re living – and regardless you noticed it or not – same applies to you, to myself and to mister everybody.

With that in mind I thought to myself what kind of “brand” am I? who do you think you are? who do others think you are? are you the “you” you intend to be? and is this you the one you expect people to see?

While writing this post I’m listening to the Stones “you can’t always get what you want”. Funny, in good old days I used to think it was “you can always get what you want”. Matter of giving the song the sense you want. That’s the good thing about songs, it allows people to connect with part if their life, the lived of the desired one. How often we imagined this or that song was meant/written to us?

During a job interview I was asked if I had a kind of motto, a slogan, something that could be my visit card. Despite knowing in general the interview process as I did some interviews myself, I must confess this one caught me unguarded. Of course first things that comes out are “Reliable”, “hard-worker”, “team-player”, “trustful”, “independent”, “entrepreneurial”, “objectives driven” bla bla bla. I might be all that, but does it really makes me stand out of the crowd to anonymous people? aren’t those attributes becoming quite “trivial” during a job interview? will they convince the interviewer? So what am I really good at that can persuade him, or anyone around me?

We’re the sum of all the experiences we had in life. The way we faced adversity, the way we enjoyed our small victories, the learning we had from each and how willing we are to take our life in our own hands, be the main actor of our life experience. My brand is how I relate to others. Coming from a place where we used to live in community – blame the internet and all media evolution of the last 25 years – my name itself was my brand. In nowadays you’d need all kind of new jargon to define your brand.

I don’t mean to refuse or deny current era of internet and social media we’re living in with all the positive things it brings, but I want to stick to good old times where my name was my brand. My name is Amaro Araujo. Should you know me? ask yourself “why not”.