The cobbler's children have no brand strategy

How nice to have a companion wherever you go. I imagine that the rider and the ridden have very different experiences of the same journey, however. (Image by jplenio)

You will never, ever be able to see your own face.

(Unless you’ve mastered astral projection, I guess.)

You can see a reflection of your face. You can see a reflection of a reflection of your face and see how you look to other people. You can see a photograph of your face. But your own eyes can’t perceive themselves. All they can do is get a glimpse of part of your nose, if it’s big enough. We can never truly see ourselves as others see us—or as we see others.

The situation gets even more challenging when we go beyond the visual. While we see everyone else’s faces and not our own, we have the opposite problem when it comes to thoughts and emotions: We can only directly perceive our own, and our perception of the inner lives of others is limited to only what they choose to show. We can, as John Green puts it, “imagine others complexly,“ but our knowledge of who they are is a fraction of our knowledge of ourselves.

It’s no wonder that so many of us have a hard time figuring out how to express what makes us unique. When we can’t see ourselves alongside others, and we can only speculate on what’s inside their heads, how can we even discern what we offer that no one else can? How do we sift through all of the multitudes we contain (sorry, Whitman) to figure out what is relevant for a specific purpose or to a specific person?

Many of us carry shame because we struggle to draft our resume, write our bio, build an “about” page for our website, choose a head shot, design branding, come up with a tag line for our business, or talk about ourselves in an interview. We feel like we should know how to express who we are and what we stand for.

The truth is, these seemingly straightforward activities are actually really difficult. Things get especially ironic for those who work in marketing, branding, image management, coaching, and consulting—it’s much easier to help others than it is to do this work for yourself. As the old lament goes, the cobbler’s children have no shoes. Not only are we often our own last priority, this procrastination happens because we don’t know where to begin with nebulous projects like defining our values and brand.

The solution, as ever, is to get help. Another word for this is collaboration. Several years ago, I hired someone to manage a moving project for me. I saw a room full of junk and could not figure out how to deal with it. I was just too close to the problem. Amy came in with compassion for my situation but no emotional connection to the stuff. She figured out what needed to be done, made decisions on my behalf, and solved my problems. She was so good at it that I hired her again a few years later to do the same thing.

The funny part is that Amy, herself, has ADHD and struggles with executive functioning. When she does projects like this in her own life, she experiences the same indecision and lack of clarity that I do. However, when applying her skills to someone else’s mess, she is briskly competent and confident. I strongly suspect this is very common. Can you relate?

It’s okay if you don’t know how to solve your problem right now. Chances are, there is someone to help you. There’s even someone to help you find someone to help you.

If you seek this kind of support or guidance, it doesn’t mean you are weak or stupid or lazy. There’s no law that says that you should be able to find solutions your own problems all on your own. There’s no logic behind the idea that it should be easy for you to answer deep questions about the value you create in the world and how people feel about the work you do. Paradoxically, these are the very hardest questions to answer about yourself.

Defining who you are is a weird thing to have to do. I believe that it’s okay to avoid or defer the issue; it’s reasonable to leave it to someone else. All the while, we can, as Rilke says, live our way into the answers to these questions about who we are and where we’re going. As we progress, that which is reflected back to us from our fellow human beings may be our most valuable tool in understanding what we uniquely contribute. In return, we can do the same for them.