Human Appreciation

So much so that I had a minor slice or dice moment with a buzz that I tried to translate from Russian but which immediately simmered my thought juices because it was about personal branding.  The Russian author of the blog immediately corrected me saying my reaction was irrelevant to her blog - and here the danger of two worlds colliding is real.  My interpretation of a translation when I don't speak Russian, and her lack of knowledge of who I am and my default modus operandi, which is to think out aloud.   Here I am unable to write my profile page in Russian so the only thing I can say is "Appreciate the feedback" rather than saying this: Das Vidania.  Yet the interaction for me personally was productive because it gave me another opportunity to examine whether I have a bias, a character flaw or a naivety about personal branding.  That is what is valuable in my learning journey and not just my visceral opinion.

I am firm believer that our own words reveal most who we are but then we put layers of creamy image on ourselves until this layer cake becomes a personal brand.  Then we tell a humongous lie about our own humanity because we are more image than we are human.  That is regardless of the perception of others - we chose to see ourselves as an image and that is the whole freakin point of personal brand - a fear that someone won't buy us, hidden by an enthusiasm that we are exhibiting our "real self". 

The reality is that if someone is buying me or following me, which is the same as buying except it was done with attraction not money - then I either value that currency or I make it clear that I am learning and not earning here - and indeed quite willing to forgo earning for the sake of this kind of emergent learning.

Here I also make it clear that the meme of followers is not something that I follow. Stalking is simply an extreme form of following and I don't like stalking, so why would I give following legitimacy because it is more benign.  What I love is thinkers, even like that Russian lady who made a point that my thoughts had no relevance to her personal brand blog.  That is a characteristic of personal brand, when we touch a nerve that triggers, more in protection of the author who rejects the response.  By the time I have finished thinking through this paradox wisdom, I hope that insights emerge that change me.  In personal brand that kind of change is called an inconsistency.  I would rather be inconsistent than deliver a message.

Human appreciation is what makes us human not the other person and appreciation is the other person in context with our humanity.  I don't ask the three steps to build my personal brand but am I so limited to think that there are three steps to my own humanity?

It is attractive to think we are making a difference in people's lives, but sometimes making a difference is not really a good thing - not if those people changed without thinking why or what compelled them to change.  They own their thoughts, not I.  They are responsible for their lives as much as I am responsible for my own.  At a personal level - personal brand twists that relationship with this independence, because personal brand turns us into a group property rather than an individual introspection. 

Billy Joel sang great introspective songs and I find his music really great to listen to.  One of those people who listened to his music was his former wife Christine Brinkley.  A top model who found love in the words of Billy Joel.  At the same time Billy Joel is a strong personal brand and the question is whether Christine Brinkley fell in love with the man or with the brand.  The answer did come from his wife - when she divorced she said Billy was a good man, but he was not the man that she saw in her songs.  It took her a long time to discern the difference, but once she found the human - then this is the appreciation I am thinking about here. The rest is as he says work-in-progress as Vienna waits.