Day 3: Personal Branding

Today with Book Yourself Solid I'm working on Chapter 3: Personal Branding. It starts out by exploring personal failures - moments when you've sold out or compromised your integrity or settled for less.

1.3.1 Ways in which you've sold out, settled for less, or compromised your integrity
 - Ghost blogging. I liked getting paid for writing, but I got no credit for doing it and it wasn't something I did because I wanted to do it but because I was desperate for the money.
 - Painting the "who cut one" tree scape. It made me sad to do it.
- Installing wordpress templates on a site when you know your site design is better but they want to look like everyone else. Makes me feel drained by the effort and totally useless.

1.3.2. Times when you've felt alive and vibrant - fully self-expressed
 - Designing the covers for the writers I have helped
 - Discussing book concepts and seeing them help the writers I know
 - Coming up with book ideas
 - Writing my own books

I don't want to ghost write. If I am going to help, I want them to develop their ideas themselves. I don't mind collaborating on a work, but I don't want to have a portfolio of work I can't show anyone else.

1.3.6. Write down one of your most important intentions as it relates to your business
 - I intend to book myself solid (hey, I'm borrowing from the author, but it's true for me)

1.3.7. Potential conflicting Intentions for the Intention you Identified
 - If I book myself solid, when will I have time to write my own books?
 - If I book myself solid, will I be able to live up to the promises I've made?

1.3.8. Answer the following questions: How are you unique? What three things make you memorable? What are special talents you have been good at since you were a kid? What do people always complement you on? What do you love or never grow tired of talking about in your personal life? What do you want to say that you would never grow tired of talking about when asked about your work?
 - How am I unique? In the words of a friend of mine - "uniquely creative" - I literally just bust at the seams with creativity on all fronts
 - What makes me memorable? Strong convictions, willingness to help, fun-loving nature
 - What are my special talents? Inventing good stories, teaching, analyzing, singing
 - Things people always compliment me on? People are always complementing me on my singing, on my ability to write and to tell stories
 - What do I love and never grow tired of talking about in my personal life? I never get tired of talking about love (God is love!) and about human relationships.
 - When asked about my work, I never get tired of talking about how what I do impacts lives for the better by helping people understand and find important truths about relationships

Okay, so what I do is that I help writers find and share their unique message with the world. I do it because I want to make the world a better place, and I believe that writing does just that.  Refining it. I do this work because I want to teach people how much God loves them. I'm making the world a better place by helping people find their unique love messages and sharing those with the world.

Love messages. Love letters. The knowledge that inside of you is a unique love letter from God to the world, and it is your job to deliver that message because you, as a writer, were born to do just that.
Making the world a better place by helping writers find and deliver their unique love letters to the world. I help writers find and deliver their unique love letters to the world because the world can always use more love. Mmmm...going to have to spend some time thinking about the tagline. That'll probably be a post for tomorrow.