Physician Heal Thyself

The moral of the proverb is counsel to attend to one's own defects rather than criticizing defects in others... but today I use it in a slightly different manner.

Recently I began a journey to clarify my own direction (professionally). As a classic generalist, I have become somewhat of a jack of all trades (marketing channels) but a master of none. In today's digitally centric, in-bound marketing world, that is problematic.

So I have been on a journey to discover the proper parking spot (thanks to Greg Hartle for that metaphor) to park myself and my social media marketing company, Converse Digital, for the forseeable future.

And I really should (given my extensive background in brand building) be able to do this myself -- I should be able to "heal thyself" to quote Luke 4:23. But try as I might, I couldn't.

But why?

Well, after much discussion with myself (yes I do talk to myself... a lot) and others whose opinions matter a great deal to me I realized there were two issues standing between myself and a bit of brand clarity.

First, the age old metaphor, "The cobbler's children have no shoes." I'm pretty busy right now with a number of exciting client projects and doing "Tom Work" just keeps getting pushed off the daily To-Do List.

Second, to quote my friend Steve Woodruff, "You can't read the label of the jar you're in." (Sorry Steve if I misquoted....but y'all get the point.)

So what is a boy to do?

In my case, I made one very important decision -- I hired someone to help me figure out my own brand. Steve Woodruff, many of you may know him from the Twitters, has been doing Clarity Therapy and I decided after talking to Steve and reviewing his site that it was just what the doctor was ordering.

Hiring someone else to help you figure out your brand accomplishes three things.

• First, it gives you an objective outside voice in the discussion.
• Second, just like buying new workout clothes can make you actually go to the gym (lest you waste all that money you just spent), paying someone to help you figure out your brand helps you justify prioritizing that on your To Do List.
• Third, paying for a 4-hour Clarity Therapy session means you'll actually spend four solid hours thinking about you and your brand.

When's the last time you spent four full hours just thinking about you, your professional journey and your career?

So what was the outcome?

Well the jury is still out on that because Steve and I aren't quite finished yet. We're still finalizing a few key point -- like my Analogy -- and of course I have to have the willpower and faith to pivot myself and my company a bit to focus on what we discovered is truly my differentiator... the one thing that I seem to have that we didn't see a lot of in others in today's digital marketing space. But stay tuned (if you're interested in the outcome) because I have a birthday coming up and well, this seems like a pretty good gift to give myself.

Am I alone here? Are any of you feeling the same way? Like you too could use a bit of help figuring out your "go to" skill and then how to market it? Let me know.... be very interested to hear.

Photo By Perfecto Insecto