Hello, hello, and welcome back. In today's episode, we are talking about soul aligned branding. We're going to do a deep dive into the topic of cultivating what I like to call fearless authenticity and how you can weave it through your life and your business, which will ultimately help you attract dream clients and find greater fulfillment and balance in your life, which is what I think all of us here are.
ultimately trying to do. So I'm going to be covering this topic through the lens of an entrepreneur or a small business owner, a real estate agent, but these concepts are really, um, they're very relevant to personal branding in general. So when you own a business, you'll find that there are many similarities between your personal brand and your business brand, but it's important to remember that you are not your business and your business is not you.
So we're talking specifically about your personal brand here. So how you show up in your business, how you show up in business ownership, and also in your life. I mean, really. The you that is the business owner, the you that is maybe, um, mom or a spouse, um, It's, it's all the same really, right? You know, we, as business owners and entrepreneurs, we don't really have the opportunity to have, you know, these two different worlds at all.
It all sort of collides. So the best thing that we can do is really focus on creating alignment between our personal lives and our business lives. And we can do that through soul aligned personal branding. So what exactly is Soul Align Personal Branding? It's really a journey of understanding yourself and your purpose and making sure that how you're showing up in your life and in your business is reflective of who you truly are at your core.
It means showing up confidently in your brand as that truest version of yourself, knowing intimately, you know, what it is that you stand for, um, what makes you unique, and then weaving your personality and your own life experiences through your public image, your business, and your life. So how do you know that Soul Align branding is for you?
It all comes down to recognizing the feeling within your body that you are not living a life in alignment. It's You know, really quieting your mind to listen to what's going on inside your body and recognizing that there is some sort of inner dissonance that is preventing you from living this life of meaning and purpose and fulfillment.
So here are a few signs that can indicate that you're not living a life that is truly in alignment or reflective of your purpose. One of those signs might be that you're feeling disconnected from your true self. Like the life you're living somehow isn't connected or reflective of who you are at your core.
Um, some might call this an identity crisis. Another sign might be you aren't showing up in your life as confidently as you'd like. You're, you know, self conscious, or you know, you just haven't, you haven't stepped into that bold and confident version of yourself. It could be that you've recently started a new role, a new business, a career shift, but you find yourself doubting your ability to be successful.
Another one is a fear of failure. So maybe this isn't all consuming, But when you let your mind go there, you fear making mistakes or not meeting somebody else's expectations. It could be not meeting your own expectations. This one is a tricky one to uncover it. You know, it's, it's like layers of an onion.
Sometimes you have to peel back layer by layer. to figure out what it is that is living at the base of this disalignment and a lot of times it does come down to fear. Another sign is that you're constantly comparing yourself to others, you feel stuck or stagnant in your personal growth, you find yourself overworking to overcompensate for something, Or there's a little voice inside of your head that's constantly talking down to you.
And when you step back and think about it, you realize that if a friend or a family member was talking to you in that way, you'd be horrified or offended at a minimum. But you keep letting that little voice inside your head talk down to you. There's a reason for that. There's something going on at your core.
There is some type of internal dissonance happening, you know, in the very essence of your being that is creating that and allowing it. And another sign is that you know that there's more to life. You know you could be living your purpose or feeling more fulfilled, but you just haven't figured out how to tap into that.
And how to find that, you know, life balance, that satisfaction that you are living your purpose. So all of these are signs that you are not living within your, you know, true inner power. They're signs that you haven't uncovered your purpose. You have not figured out what you're values are or cultivated an appreciation for all of the beautiful things that make you you, you know, the beautiful things that make you so unique.
It means that there's so much more out there for you to tap into to live that life that you've really been dreaming of, the life that you've been seeking that is purposeful and meaningful and aligned with something, you know, bigger than you, or something really deep within you. So before we dive in further, I want to talk a little bit about what the difference is between personal branding and soul aligned personal branding.
So, Personal branding focuses more on the external elements of your branding. So this could be how you look, um, it could be the images that are associated with your brand, it could be a specific color, a personal, uh, logo, a style of dress. Um, one example might be if your personal brand is one of luxury, some of the reflective brand elements would be, it could be well, well manicured nails, professionally styled hair, leather, expensive cars, beautiful jewelry.
Um, these are all really external. elements that create your personal brand. And you know, it can go a little bit more, a little bit deeper, right? Into your brand values and your brand tone, but personal branding really ends there. Where soul branding is truly reflective of your core essence and what you feel to be your purpose in life.
So it goes beyond traditional branding strategies and it focuses on a deeper connection between the individual, or you, and your beliefs, your values, your mission in life, your personality traits. Through soul aligned branding, you can feel confident that you're living a life of meaning and that that life is, you know, reflected in the image that you're presenting to the world.
So how do you actually develop your soul aligned personal brand? For the purposes of today's conversation, I'm going to keep it pretty basic. We're going to talk about two main areas where we'll really be focusing our attention. So the first one is taking a journey of self discovery. So really doing a deep dive into the self and understanding what makes you who you are, Um, what drives you to make the decisions that you make, um, you know, what sits behind your behaviors and then aligning those findings with each of the brand elements that make up your personal brand.
Um, it's a really intentional alignment where we take those findings and we apply them, you know, very, very thoughtfully to each of your brand elements. So let's start with this journey of self discovery. When you take a journey of self discovery, I think the most important thing that you have to recognize is that this is a lifelong journey.
You are constantly changing and shifting and transforming, and when you're truly understanding yourself, That understanding has to evolve as you transform too. So what are the tools that you can use to develop this strong understanding of yourself? One of my favorite tools is journaling. So you could journal, you know, with something simple, like, when do you feel like you're most in your element?
You could do some emotional journaling, tackling concepts like, you know, what makes you happy? What makes you feel frustrated? And I know these seem like simple questions, but when you're in touch with your emotions at that deeper level, it creates balance in your life. You know, being energetically balanced in your emotional self is really important for overall well being.
When you're not balanced, it creates that, you know, inner dissonance that's so disruptive in our minds, but it can actually also lead to physical symptoms too. So journaling helps us, you know, process this energy in our bodies. It helps keep the inner energy channels within our bodies flowing. Um, on my own journey of self discovery, I use journaling pretty frequently and there came a time where I was feeling, you know, I was doing all of this work to build my own self awareness and to get at the core of, you know, what drives me and where I should be going in my life.
And I realized that There was one emotion that was really missing in my life. I kept telling myself that, you know, I'm focusing on all of these learning tools that are going to help me heal and change and grow. And I was telling myself that I was doing them for me. And in my mind, These were the activities that were filling my cup every day, but I was actually really emotionally unbalanced.
I was missing happiness in my day while I was learning about myself, you know, exploring these tools, they weren't actually creating happiness. So I started what I call the happiness project and I keep an ongoing journal, um, journal entry where I fill it, you know, regularly with the things that make me happy, and I make sure to do at least one of those things every day.
So it could be something as simple as making sure that I take the time to go outside on a warm sunny day. finding a comfortable seat and just letting the sun's rays wash over me. Or it could be something bigger like traveling internationally. I'm, I find real happiness exploring new places and new cultures and I know that to keep my balance in life I need to make time to explore.
So really taking that time to find emotional balance is, it's so important and journaling is something that can help you, um, you know, on that journey. Other tools that you can, um, other tools that you can use are a gratitude practice. Other tools that you can use on this journey of self discovery are creating a gratitude practice, creating a yoga or meditation practice, I also really love personality tests.
I think everybody loves a good personality test and we all have our favorites. My personal favorite is the Enneagram. I love the Enneagram because I like the diversity in the different personality types that it has. categorizes you within, um, you know, there's, there's nine numbers, but then within each number there are wings.
So there's a lot of diversity in the different personality types that it, that it comes up with. But I love that the Enneagram shows us our strengths, but it also shows us our shadow side. It gives us a really strong indication early on when we're starting to live off balance because it says, you know, if you're an Enneagram 9 who is thriving, you'll have these personality traits.
But if you're an Enneagram 9 that's living in this space of, you know, unbalance, You'll start to experience these, uh, personality traits. And so, it gives us those early indicators that something is off here and I really need to take a moment to do a dive into what's going on inside my mind and how can I find that balance again.
It's also a really great tool for working in teams, for interacting with your kids, family members, friends, your spouse. So if you haven't taken the Enneagram yet, I definitely recommend figuring out what your number is and your wing. Another tool would be, you could do an exercise in understanding your core values and belief systems.
This is, this can be a pretty big one to tackle, but it really does help you get at the root of what you believe, what you value, and where those values and beliefs came from. I think my all time favorite tool for, for understanding yourself on a deeper level is astrology and specifically your natal chart.
So, astrology was, has been used by astrologers for as many as 5, 000 years. And the basis of astrology for building self awareness lies in your natal chart, where in super super simplified terms, it's, it's a, your natal chart is a map of the sky on the date and time of your birth. from the location where you were born.
The idea is that we each have 12 houses that govern a certain part of our lives. Um, each of those houses is assigned one of the zodiac signs and whatever zodiac sign rules each house and whatever planets are in each house, create a map of your inner world. Once you understand the basics, it's actually really not as complicated as it sounds.
And astrology was actually used by psychologists like Freud and Jung as a tool to help them understand the individual more holistically. There's so much that you can learn about yourself through astrology. When you think of astrology, you probably think of First associate yourself with your zodiac sign.
So I was born in November. My zodiac sign is Scorpio But what a lot of people don't realize is that there are actually three signs that are most important. So Scorpio is my Sun sign and this essentially represents My ego, my identity, my overall role in life. But you also have a moon sign. So, you know, wherever your moon was, um, at the time of your birth, this represents your emotional self.
So it rules your moods and feelings, and it reflects how you think of yourself. Um, it's really, you know, reflective of your inner world. And finally, there's a rising sign. So, your rising sign is your outward persona, it establishes how you present to people. And a lot of astrologers will actually use the rising sign as, you know, a more prominent sign than your sun sign because the rising sign is more specific.
The rising sign changes every two hours, so it really depends, um, you know, your, your rising sign can vary greatly, you know, hour to hour. So because your rising sign correlates with the very moment you took your first breath, astrologers say that it describes the path you'll take in life. Some of the things that you can learn from astrology are you can learn a lot about your career path.
There are a few houses that are directly relevant to your career. There's also something called the mid heaven, which is, um, which can be really telling when it comes to your entrepreneurial journey. So some of the things that, some of the ways that you can understand your natal chart are you can book an appointment to see a natal chart reader.
There are also a ton of podcasts that help you understand your natal chart. That might take a little bit of time and commitment to understanding the basics of astrology, but if it's something that interests you, it's really easy to, once you understand the basics, it's really easy to interpret some of the, some of this information and apply it to what makes you do the things that you do and why.
There's also several apps that you can use where you can actually just punch in your, you know, your birth information and it will actually give you translations for each of your houses and the planets. So, um, it's pretty neat. If you take a little bit of time to dive into that, it's, um, it can be pretty telling.
Related, but not the same. You can use human design. or tarot. You can actually pull your own tarot cards. Uh, this does, you know, it requires a little bit of, um, taking a deep dive into being in touch with your intuition. Um, you can also just see a tarot card reader, but those, you know, I love some of the tools that are a little bit out of the box, because I think that they allow you to really tap into your inner world and your inner consciousness to, to listen to the self and what lives really deeply within, um, to help you just discover a little bit more about yourself.
But however you decide to build self awareness, it's best to get into a routine. So maybe you create a weekly date with yourself where you do a deeper dive into one of these bigger tools. Maybe there's a podcast that you listen to every week and then you do a little bit of journaling about it. Or maybe you establish an early morning routine where you, you know, maybe you do a little bit of journaling every morning.
You have a gratitude practice or a meditation practice, but You set your day with the intention of doing a little bit of that self discovery, which then leads you through the rest of your day.
Once you have this core understanding of yourself, you can begin to apply it to the more formal branding elements like the visual look of your brand, the feeling or vibe of your brand, the client experience. Since we just took this whole journey of self discovery, Transcribed The best way to transition into these more formal brand elements is through the internal branding elements, specifically like figuring out what your core values are and your brand tone.
So how many of you actually know what your core values are? Years ago, before I took the time to really understand what my core values were, there would be times when I would be doing work or pursuing business that just didn't feel right. Um, I was working in real estate and other real estate agents would be cold calling to get business.
And so it seemed like that should be something that I should be doing. It is after all, one of the first things that real estate coaches and, you know, office manager guides suggest that you do. Maybe not like cold, cold calling, but calling your database regularly to like check in and ask for referrals.
So the deeper I dove into my own journey of self discovery, I really started to understand that I'm an introvert who builds relationships Um, so I'm really not at my best when I'm on the phone with somebody for, you know, a quick 30 seconds trying to capture their attention and earn their trust, but I'm really great at cultivating genuine relationships over time.
So cold calls felt really salesy to me. Um, and, but that's because they were directly in conflict with my core value of authenticity. And I knew that, you know, as I had. developed a deeper understanding of my introversion, I knew that, you know, it was directly in conflict with that personality trait too.
So, some other core values that you can explore are, you know, integrity, boldness, confidence, faith, diversity. There are a ton of core values that you can explore, uh, you can actually go to my website under the free resources and you'll find a core values activity which helps you explore, um, you know, a bunch of core values but really narrow it down in a simple way to figure out what your, you know, top three core values are.
You'll also want to develop your brand tone. So, this is the voice that you use to communicate with your clients. Um, again, it's really important that when you're, you know, identifying your brand tone, it is in line with your brand. You know, the personal you and the business you, because again, you are all just one person.
Um, so for example, if in your journey of self discovery, you find that you're an Enneagram eight, which is nicknamed the challenger. And one of your core values is boldness. You're probably not going to go with like a super Zen brand tone. Although I could be wrong. My Enneagram type is a 9 with an 8 wing, so I'm a peacekeeper at my core, but my 8 wing says I'm also a challenger.
So sometimes you get the super zen version of Jess, and sometimes I can't help but be bold and direct. So, um, Only you will really know, you know, what the, what the true reflective tone is of your brand. But you know, for me, I think before I figured out that my Enneagram type is a nine wing eight, you know, if you think about it, they're really contradictory.
I'm a peacekeeper with like a side of being a challenger. So there, I always felt like a little bit of internal conflict. Like, wait a minute. Why am I, I thought I'm supposed to be this like. chill person, but every now and then I, you know, I just can't help but kind of break out of that mold and, and be a little feisty.
But understanding my Enneagram type really helps me to understand that about myself. And so, you know, maybe my brand tone is that I'm zen and direct. So they kind of contradict each other. But when I'm selecting, you know, those as my brand tone and really formalizing it, I know that there's a reason why I'm picking Zen and Direct.
From there, you'll really start diving into the visual aspects of your brand. So as you pick your brand colors, for example, you can apply the principles from the psychology of color that will align with various aspects of your personality. Maybe you're a Pisces rising sign and you really love the like watery greens and blues and decide to incorporate those into your brand.
You can also apply these principles to any brand images that you want to use. So if you do any kind of marketing that uses stock photos or really, you know, any standardized photos, and you want those photos to reflect your brand, You should, you know, be looking into creating a suite of photos, uh, whether that's, you know, finding and purchasing rights to the photos online or creating them through an AI tool, um, where you would really dive deep into how your brand has developed the tone, the vibe, and those images should really be reflective of that information.
The last thing we're going to talk about today is your brand story. Brand storytelling is a huge buzzword right now, and for good reason. Consumers, especially younger ones like millennials, are really looking to connect with a brand or an individual on an emotional level before they make any sort of purchasing decision.
So, in order to make those connections, you have to be willing to share a little bit about who you are or what you're Why you do what you do or how you got to where you are right now in order to make that connection with them. So to develop your brand story, you're really looking for a couple of like key phrases, bullet points that incorporate some of the life experiences or critical moments in your life, turning points, synchronicities.
You're looking for impactful moments that help you relate to your customer. You do want to be selective about the information that you choose, though. Just because you're developing this brand here, it doesn't mean that you have to share all of the details of your life. It's okay to be private. It's okay to keep personal information to yourself.
But if you can come up with just a few key points that would really help you relate to your target audience, you'll be able to, you know, establish a little bit of a, a deeper connection, an emotional connection. And then that serves as the foundation for those authentic relationships that stand the test of time.
Now, if you're a business owner who does a lot of social media, email, or direct marketing, you can tie this whole thing up with a little bow by incorporating your brand and your brand story into your overall marketing strategy. So how do you do that? If you're an introvert like me, maybe it involves developing more of a content marketing strategy Longer form content.
So, you know, as I mentioned before, I'm not great with the short form content that, you know, connects with people instantly. So, longer form content would be more appropriate for somebody like me. If you find that you're an introvert. That might be really helpful for you, too. You know, maybe instead of cold calling and farming neighborhoods, you establish a relationship based marketing approach where you really invest your time in cultivating relationships with past clients who then become your loyal customers and your brand cheerleaders.
So there's lots of ways that you can dive into all of the personality traits that you've discovered on this journey and all of the characteristics of the way that you work, your core values, and incorporate them into how you do your business, how you run your business, how you market your business. It just takes that extra, you know, that extra step.
It's a more thoughtful approach. But when you do that, you're really able to connect with the clients who are right for you. So before we go, I just want to say this, by developing your fearless authenticity and showing up in your life and in your business exactly as you are, you're not going to be for everyone.
Not everyone is going to connect with you. Not everyone is going to like you, but you're not supposed to be for everyone. If you were. You know, if you really were targeting your marketing or gearing your personal brand to appeal to everyone, you'd have to strip it down to like the absolute bare basics.
You'd have zero personality and it actually had the opposite effect because at this point now instead of appealing to everyone, you're really connecting with no one. Now, do I think you should be sharing your political views on Facebook in the name of authenticity? No, but if you have a core value or a core belief that might not vibe with everyone, it's okay.
You probably actually really want to attract those values aligned clients and customers instead. The purpose of this exercise is to build balance and fulfillment in your life. to grow your business by attracting all of the clients who are right for you, and ultimately that means that you're understanding and you're accepting that you're not for everyone.
But once you build that client base of people that you're really connecting with, you incrementally grow your business in a way that feels aligned with your values and your purpose because you've made a commitment to the vulnerable practice of staying true to yourself. So that, my friend, is how you develop your Soul Align personal brand.
If you have questions or thoughts, I'd love to hear them. As always, you can find me online at jesscallaghan. com or on Instagram at jesscallaghan underscore. Until next time, bye!
