By the year 2023, experts believe that the first “implantable” mobile phone will be available. This supposedly means greater freedom and flexibility. We’ll be more connected than ever. The tilt of your head might be all that is needed to make a phone call. There’ll be constant access to monitoring and connecting to other devices that then start to predict your preferences. There will be a rise in ratings that you give in real-time to companies, and individuals, rating products and services that you are consuming. Perhaps all with the flick of your wrist, as it connects to all of your social media profiles. You’ll also be receiving ratings from others. Sounds a bit like Black Mirror?! Hello Netflix! There’s going to be an economy and ecosystem of full (brutal) transparency, in relation to brand psychology.
Radical Transparency and Self-Identity – Brand Psychology
With transparency comes anxiety, vulnerability, and comparison. Anxiety to come across to others as having it “all together”. Vulnerability in comfortably sharing both the good and the bad – the shiny and rough parts of life – the shadow and light dimensions of who we are. Comparison with the filter of “am I good enough” for likes, comments, compliments, bookings, sales, smiles, invitations, enquiries, job offers etc. This side to radical transparency has the potential to be destructive and just plain exhausting.
The ultimate question is…
Are we ready for radical transparency on a psychological level?
It is vital to our future health and wellbeing to learn to be unapologetically ourselves, without fear or hesitation. From a personal brand psychology perspective in your career or business, it is the key to your resilience and success! When you can be completely yourself, you can be fully transparent, without the weight of psychological insecurity.
When you know yourself, you can BE, DO and HAVE all that you desire!
When you know yourself, you can fully express yourself!
On one of my trips into Brisbane CBD, there was a guy skateboarding down the footpath beside Gregory Terrace. He was dressed in a pirate’s outfit, complete with an ornate jacket, a pirate hat and waving a bright red, shimmering flag floating in the breeze beside him.
In amongst the sea of cars, all driving to their work or school destinations in an orderly “predictable” fashion, there he was zipping past the cars of mediocrity and sameness, and he was rocking his own individuality. He was full of freedom and joy at that moment, and he didn’t care about what the drivers looking on would have thought of him. It got me thinking about how being totally uncensored can be so magnetic. Being unapologetically you can captivate and draw interest from those around you.
Living Uncensored
Being uncensored is so important to your brand psychology because it shows that you have conviction in your beliefs, in your values, and in who you really are. Your self-expression becomes much less about people-pleasing and more about doing what’s right for you. It’s a deliberate manifestation of your own sense of worth, value, and how you see yourself in the world. You walk the talk.
To be unapologetically you is bound to polarise some of your friends, your family, your clients and your work colleagues. Those who follow you will do so because they feel strongly about you and what you stand for. You will command attention. You become this fascinating part of their world that communicates something that they’re also yearning to show to the world themselves. Your personal resilience will grow and your personal identity will become more grounded, as you stand in your truth and own who you are as an individual.
When you fail to be transparent, when you hide from the world and limit what people see, your message becomes diluted. You blend into the sea of faces who are too afraid to show themselves. You don’t inspire others to really care either way about who you are or whether to connect with you. They’re always on the fence about you. They could take you or leave you. Failing to share your wisdom and truth, can feel unfulfilling and frustrating because you diminish the value you bring to the world.
Dance like everyone is watching, but you just don’t care
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
If you aren’t listening to your own music and dancing to the beat, then how can you expect others to join in with you? If you aren’t switched on to your “rawness”, vulnerability, and speaking your truth, then how do people connect with the real you?
It’s exactly like the story about the guy skateboarding down the footpath in a pirate outfit. There would have been a mixture of motorists who thought “What a weirdo!”, others wouldn’t have even noticed him, and then some would have thought, “Wow, isn’t that cool?“. Personally, I was in awe at the sheer ease at which he rocked that pirate outfit!
How do we become more unapologetically ourselves as our raw true selves?
- Raise your awareness, watching for when and how you are censoring yourself.
- Stop inviting in other people’s opinions about yourself or what you’re doing, particularly if they are people who don’t have the perspective that you are looking for.
- Tune into your intuition.
- Make it fun when you are being open and vulnerable. Find a way that brings you joy and naturally reveals your individuality without you having to work at it too hard. It might not be in wearing a pirate outfit, but find your own version of ‘fun’!
I DARE you to step up and be visible and authentic!
