The words “personal branding” are all the rage these days. Every marketing book you pick up, every magazine or blog you read, is talking about building yourself into a brand, so that your own name becomes synonymous with what you do as does the word “ipod” to making you immediately think of Apple’s sleek little mp3 player… with the click wheel.
But once you have that coveted “personal brand“… and then something horrible goes awry…how can an entrepreneur recover and recast himself into something different, if your own name is the billing for his work and services? It’s not like the solution is to change your name…
The solution lies in the Nobel Secret.
As you most probably know, the Nobel Prize is a prize that is granted annually in several areas, such as Literature, Physics, and most notably, the Nobel Prize for Peace.
And now do you know the Nobel secret? It’s dynamite!
In the early 1800′s, there was a man named Ludvig. Ludvig was the creator of world’s very first successful oil tanker, named the Zoroaster.
While the design was widely studied and copied, Ludvig refused to patent any part of it. In fact, the very first tank steamer of the United States was actually built from Ludvig’s drawings and calculations after his death.
His death? Yes. One day in early 1888, Ludvig died. But, somehow, the newspaper reporting on his death had a mistake… the printed an obituary of Ludvig’s brother Alfred, instead!
Alfred woke up in the morning to an unpleasant surprise few people have the opportunity to encounter. He read an obituary for himself in the newspaper!
The article indicated that he, Alfred, would be forever remembered as the “merchant of death” for his invention of dynamite. Having 355 patents of all types and horrified that this was what his legacy was effectively described as after all his accomplishments, Alfred did not want to go down in history with such a horrible epitaph, Alfred established a foundation with his inheritance to grant prizes to recognize honored achievements in different fields.
He named the prize foundation he created after his family’s last name… in which he changed his legacy.
You see, Ludvig and Alfred were both sons of Immanuel Nobel… and the father of the Nobel Prize.
And now, the fact that Alfred invented dynamite is the lesser known fact that his foundation… in which Alfred realized that his own personal brand was not what he wanted to be remembered as, and not what his “personal brand” should represent….
You can position your own perceived image, buzz-worded today as “personal branding“, no matter what direction your life’s path has taken to until now…
It’s a matter of rising above the label that you currently wear- and done with enough enthusiasm, can relegate what you currently are as just a footnote instead of it being the story itself.
Your thoughts?
Recent Comments