Playing the Spoons and Personal Branding

Identity theft happens to as many as 10 million Americans a year, but I think there is a more insidious crime that is committed by many more Americans each day. Thanks to the accessibility of social media platforms which empower us to create our own "personal branding" for everything from our careers to our social lives, we have the ability to create whatever identity we want - the only limit is our imagination and creativity. There is no verification that the information we're presenting to the world is authentic. We can become whoever we want in this on-line universe.

While I am a fan and user of Facebook and I tweet everyday on Twitter, (Why don't they call it twittering? Is tweeting the plural of twittering?) I wonder if we're losing sight of something important to our humanity, important to our own personal integrity.

My grandfather was a tall, strong, stereotypical New England Yankee. He was a man of few words. With nothing beyond a highschool diploma, he provided wonderfully for his family. He could track a deer, play the spoons, and he loved babies. He was authentic. As a child, I learned to read his often stoic face as different individuals would stop by to talk with him. He had little patience for "chatterboxes" as he would call them. My grandfather measured a man not by his words, but by his life.

When I think of the leaders who have influenced me the most, I realize that one thing they all had in common was they were authentic, they were real, they were true to themselves and to their own ideologies. I know they were authentic because I interacted with them...in real life...not just on tweets and blogs and status posts. I saw them when life was good and I watched how they responded when life was hard and unfair.

I have also known leaders whose lives were so far from the identity they presented in public, and on facebook and in their blogs and in their books. Perhaps the greatest crime is when we lose the ability to discern authenticity not only in others, but more importantly, in ourselves. Inauthentic leadership is damaging and wounding to everyone it touches.

So, today, I am going to spend more time in real, face to face conversations. I am going to try to listen more than I talk. I am going to try my best to be sure that whatever "personal brand" I create on-line, it is genuine. I can guarantee it won't be perfect; but the best I can offer is that it will be real, it will be authentic and hopefully it will encourage someone else to do the same.