On fluid identity, rebranding, creativity
Our identity is fluid not fixed. So why be boxed in?
Hello, HUBster,
Here’s my premise and wondering: Identity is fluid not fixed. Why then should we fear being boxed in by others? Or are we the ones boxing in our genius?
When an executive or startup founder broaches me about rebranding or even when a creative employee tests the water for branding consulting, I often meet an understandable resistance.
Being boxed in
Sometimes these people are shifting suit. Leaving jobs or top-level positions. A big life change prompts a fresh look at, “Who am I?” Or they want to take their public brand seriously for the first time.
Sometimes they’ve become invested in their professional identity. So they’re hesitant to change their identity publicly. Organizations have their own version of this. This resistance is not unlike what psychologists call identity foreclosure - a stage when we do not explore other options for our identity.
They fear that if they brand themselves in relation to their signature ideas or publicly own their ideas or if they invest their identity with their business endeavors, they’ll get boxed in.
They’ll be stuck in a brand box. So they think.
The wonder
But maybe behind the resistance is an incomplete idea about identity. Maybe our identity is not fixed like stone but fluid like water.
I don’t mean that we’re all unreliable or chameleon-like. But when we bring more openness and curiosity to questions of identity - Who am I becoming? Who is this brand evolving into? What could be this endeavor's identity? - then we meet more possibilities.
This is where we foster facets of wonder in the process. Wonder can help us dissolve limitations and bust certain biases we have even with ourselves.
Our identities - both personal ones and brand ones - are complex and they evolve. Since I was 20, I have bucked against most conventional boxes that would complete the sentence, “I am __________." As pioneer psychologist James Fadiman demonstrates in his recent book, we each possess a “symphony of selves." There is no such thing as a singular fixed self, he posits.
Nietzsche, a rebel thinker who defied his fellow philosophers, implored his readers, “Learn and become who you are.”
In these ever-shifting times, so too personal brands and business brands can be complex, fluid, and capable of evolving.
So what can guide us as our own identities and our brand identities evolve?
»> Own our core values and virtues in action, for one. As fluid as our human identities innately are, what we stand for and what virtues guide our individual decisions can stay consistent. Identifying and owning those values and virtues is part the work.
»> Reclaim and activate our genius force of character, for two. We each are born with a complex genius force of character beyond nature or nurture. Learn to remember and recognize it, and you can bring it forward to your most impactful work in the world. Learn to activate it, and you can act in integrity as your brand or organization evolves.
A team also has its collective genius they can identify and reclaim. That genius can act like a moral compass that guides you toward your best work in the world, no matter the circumstances.
»> A brand evolves and can be fluid, not fixed. Some clients bring in their brands for an annual “check up” to see what’s shifting based on where they’re flourishing.
Maybe we can be brash and modify Nietzsche: “Keep learning and becoming all of who you are."
This is as true for the 22 year old UX designer as it is for the 62-year-old VC investor. It is as true for the creative employee who's shaping her own endeavor as it is for the established business or company leader.
Consider musicians, also wondrous business artists, as models. Miles Davis. David Bowie. Lady Gaga. David Byrne. None of them let their geniuses get boxed in. They activated and followed their geniuses and their curiosity, and they let their identities evolve as their work evolved. (And every one of them knew or knows a lot about branding and marketing.)
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All of those resistances can become opportunities to play your symphony of selves your way and in a way that just might stir something in other people.
Why not? So much is possible.
Your Turn to Wonder
»> If you could become more of any part of yourselves, what would it be?
»> What lights you up about the idea of reinvention and re-discovery?
Thanks for running with me,
Jeffrey