The Brand Called YOU (And what to name kittens)

This month I have done three presentations on The Brand Called YOU. The first one was in Iceland to the women entrepreneur association and the second one to NAWBO in Sedona, AZ. Yesterday I did a free teleseminar on the topic to about 70 women who signed on through www.connected-women.com.
I want to highlight two things that have happened the last two days:
1) I just adopted two rescue kittens. One is a tabby (orange) and is five weeks old. The other one is all white and is three weeks old. They are ADORABLE. My daughter is really the big cat lover and she no longer lives at home but her roommate does this rescue work and these kittens were irresistible!
So we came up with the names Tiger and Snowflake. And then I realized that these were the most typical, unimaginative names we could have come up with. I told my daughter--we have to have better names. She loves Winnie the Pooh and wanted to change Tiger to Tigger and she wanted Snowflake to become Anna Bella. I said OK to Tigger and no to Anna Bella. A few hours later, I said OK to Anna Bella because I can call her Bell.
I really didn't think this through at the time that these cat names might affect my personal branding. I hope that part of my branding is that I am a creative person and I guess that kicked in, even subconsciously, as there was NO creativity in those original names. It's only after the fact (last night in bed) that I realized this WAS a branding issue for me!
(Plus--if you don't think Anna Bella and Tigger are very creative--I can just say, "My daughter named the kittens." That solves the branding issue for me, too!)
2) As I said, I was just in Iceland. I LOVE Icelandic fashion designers so someone sent me a link to where the founder of Steinunn, Steinunn Sigurd, one of my favorite Icelandic designers, has a Small Business Makeover by Fortune.
http://money.cnn.com/video/smallbusiness/2009/08/26/sbiz_mak_steinunn.smb/ and
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/1/smallbusiness/icelandic_fashion_business_makeover.fsb/index.htm
In the interview, Steinunn said she one of the things she learned through this process is to “Profile myself more so people can get to know who I am.”
Does this sound like “The Brand Called YOU”? I love having my messages reinforced in other places.
So--how do you profile yourself to carry out your brand?

A Presidential Slip

My daughter participates in a disability bowling league every Saturday morning. It’s probably the #1 thing she looks forward to during the week. Her presents at Christmas last year were her own bowling ball, shoes and bag.

I don’t know if she ever breaks 100 but she sure has fun. Thus, President Obama’s comment about “Special Olympics bowling” last week really hit home.

I’m not quite sure what to think about what he said. (I’m also not quite sure what to think about the President of the United States going on the Tonight Show!)

On one hand, when you are as overly scrutinized as he is, it is easy to make a blunder. His staff caught it during the taping and had an apology out before the show even aired!

On the other hand, the verbal “slips” that we make in public are often things that we may easily say – and believe -- in private.

Like the President, I grew up playing basketball and have played my entire life. I was an all-star, leading scorer, played Division I ball in college, but I learned more about life from basketball after I started coaching in a youth league. My daughter played in the Santa Monica YWCA basketball league and was on a team of nine-year-olds.. I was the coach. Erika usually had trouble catching the ball and would either fumble it out of bounds or get called for traveling. But one time, our top player, Stacy, got a pass from Erika and scored a lay-up. While running down to play defense, Stacy ran over to Erika and gave her a high-five to thank her for the pass. The audience knew Erika well and erupted in cheers to acknowledge the assist.

When I repeat that story, I add, “It took me to the age of 35 and a group of 9-year-old girls to show me the real meaning of basketball.”

Maybe President Obama hasn’t had the honor of having an Erika in his life, or seeing such an important play as Erika’s pass to Stacy. I have no doubt that President Obama has the best interests of the disabled in mind when he looks at policies, sets policy, etc.

Maybe this was a fortunate “slip” as it has increased awareness about the disabled and I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more on the subject. I understand some Special Olympians will be visiting the White House.

Now the challenge will be to keep the agenda for the disabled front and center, as there are many issues even more important than their bowling scores, such as employment opportunities, services, access to health care (including mental health services), etc. From the experiences of raising my daughter, I think that discrimination against the “differently abled” is the most prevalent discrimination we have. I also see it in my travels around the world. It by far surpasses most of the issues that get far more press. We may end up owing President Obama a thank you for bringing this to light by an “innocent”, yet no less demeaning, comment.