How to Feel Authentic While Building Your Personal Brand
Skip to content
Careers Feb 4, 2019

How to Feel Authentic While Building Your Personal Brand

Get beyond clichés like “adaptable” or “self-starter,” and learn to tell meaningful stories about yourself.

Play Pause
Listen to this article 0:00 Minutes
A woman draws herself in a mirror.

Yevgenia Nayberg

Based on insights from

Suzanne Muchin

For some people, self-promotion is analogous to a chore: we understand why it’s necessary, but we feel a little squeamish about it. Building a “personal brand” can seem contrived and inauthentic—even a little dishonest.

“People worry that selling themselves means giving a false impression,” says Suzanne Muchin, an adjunct lecturer in the Kellogg School’s architectures of collaboration initiative and co-host of the podcast The Big Payoff. “But nothing could be further from the truth. Great selling requires the purest form of authenticity.”

For Muchin, one important place this authenticity comes through is in the stories we choose to tell others about ourselves—stories that communicate our values, convictions, strengths, and goals.

“Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a job candidate, or an advocate for a new idea, good storytelling is one of the skills you need to stand out,” Muchin says.

Stories in service of your personal brand must be universal enough to work in a range of contexts. “Think of your personal brand as a portable suitcase—an authentic self that travels,” says Muchin.

But developing these stories is not exactly a straightforward task. How do we know where to start? And how personal is too personal? Muchin offers a few tips.

Turn Your Attributes into Stories

A common error most of us make when trying to sell ourselves is relying on lists of attributes to characterize our strengths. You know the ones: adaptable, creative, organized, a good communicator, a real self-starter.

“If you made a word cloud of the language people use to describe themselves,” Muchin says, “you would see how often we use the same boring nouns and adjectives.”

That’s why stories are so much more effective. It’s one thing to say you are adaptable; it’s another thing to describe the various life experiences that shaped your adaptability.

But a strong personal brand is not just about demonstrating your professional strengths. Muchin suggests asking yourself “What’s my unique value proposition to the person sitting across from me? What’s the promise I make to them when I walk in the room?” The most incisive question you can ask yourself is “What do I want to be memorable for?” If you ask that question—which is ultimately a version of “what makes me special?”—your stories will begin to surface.

“You need to be willing to get uncomfortable. It’s not just about being social. It’s about digging into your history to uncover what makes you unique.”

For example, on a recent episode of her podcast, Muchin featured “Office Hours” with a young professional who was interested in a career in healthcare, but was struggling to identify what made her especially equipped to stand out among her peers. In a real-time “ah hah” moment on the show, she recognized that her parents’ careers in that same industry (and at her current company) had shaped her most distinctive attribute: her confidence to enter any room with a level of professionalism and adaptability. By learning to tell that story in an authentic way, she was able to connect her personal history to a stand-out feature of her personal brand.

Be Willing to Get Uncomfortable


Sometimes, what makes us the choice for a specific opportunity is something very personal: our past experiences, for instance, or a deeply held belief. Yet many of us have an aversion to digging deep, which explains why so many fail to be authentic when selling themselves.

“The amount of self-awareness it requires to discover one’s unique story can make people uncomfortable,” Muchin says. “But that’s a necessary part of the process: you need to be willing to get uncomfortable. It’s not just about being social. It’s about digging into your history to uncover what makes you unique.”

This does not necessarily mean sharing your innermost secrets. The trick is to highlight parts of yourself that will help you connect with others on a professional level. Being honest can sometimes mean allowing yourself to be vulnerable, but you don’t want to overshare and make the other person uncomfortable.

For example, Muchin recently met a young professional who was honing his networking skills. He expressed that he loved the feeling of being “all in” on a project, and likened it to being inside a disciplined training regimen. It turned out that this student had competed in several triathlons and was currently training for another. But rather than bragging about being an “Iron Man,” or relating a flat-footed story about work ethic, he was able to incorporate his love of training and its application at work to share a memorable attribute and tell a memorable story.

Still, with storytelling, there are few hard and fast rules, and context is everything. It isn’t always easy to strike the balance between under- and oversharing on the spot, which is why it is so important to prepare ahead of time, Muchin says. If you do the work of self-discovery in advance, and come with a mental script, it will be easier to hit the sweet spot.

It will also help you to be present when the time comes to connect with others.

“Empathy is key in these situations,” she says, “and the only way to be empathetic is to be present. It’s easier to be present when you have confidence in your story.”

Have a Roadmap—and Be Disciplined

Once you’ve refined the stories that bolster your personal brand, the next challenge is learning how to weave them into conversations at job interviews, networking events, or any other situation where the goal is to sell yourself. Every answer you give is an opportunity to tell one of your stories.

“Whenever you enter a room, ask yourself ‘What conversation do I want to have?’ You need to have a roadmap for how to arrive at your story, and for how that story then leads you to a conversation that will engage others.”

Many scenarios call for some version of artful authenticity. Consider late-night television interviews, which are planned in advance but not entirely scripted. The goal is to give yourself the platform and the context in which to be your authentic self.

Muchin likens it to the approach she takes when she prepares to facilitate a panel or fireside chat. After plenty of preparation on the main points that she wants to make, as well as the stories she wants to either tell or bring out of others, Muchin spends time mapping out the “beats” of the conversation in advance rather than writing out “remarks” or a full script. “You want to be authentic, but you also need to be artful,” Muchin says. “And that requires discipline.”

Learn to Enjoy Sharing

Yes, developing a personal brand—and the stories that make it successful—can take some work. But the payoffs are not limited to your career. Muchin thinks people shouldn’t forget the intangible benefits of sharing our own subjective experience.

“Talking about ourselves in a certain way can be extremely rewarding—it stimulates brain activity and increases our dopamine levels,” she says. According to a 2012 study, sharing information about ourselves activates neural pathways associated with rewards—suggesting we find it inherently pleasurable to do.

“Storytelling mode is still our default setting, so it’s no surprise it’s the mode we’re in when we’re being the most authentic. But sometimes we need to remind ourselves how powerful it can be, and that we can all tap into it.”

Featured Faculty

Clinical Associate Professor in Leadership Development and Communications

Most Popular This Week
  1. One Key to a Happy Marriage? A Joint Bank Account.
    Merging finances helps newlyweds align their financial goals and avoid scorekeeping.
    married couple standing at bank teller's window
  2. Take 5: Yikes! When Unintended Consequences Strike
    Good intentions don’t always mean good results. Here’s why humility, and a lot of monitoring, are so important when making big changes.
    People pass an e-cigarette billboard
  3. How Are Black–White Biracial People Perceived in Terms of Race?
    Understanding the answer—and why black and white Americans may percieve biracial people differently—is increasingly important in a multiracial society.
    How are biracial people perceived in terms of race
  4. Will AI Eventually Replace Doctors?
    Maybe not entirely. But the doctor–patient relationship is likely to change dramatically.
    doctors offices in small nodules
  5. Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Is Still Entrepreneurship
    ETA is one of the fastest-growing paths to entrepreneurship. Here's how to think about it.
    An entrepreneur strides toward a business for sale.
  6. Take 5: Research-Backed Tips for Scheduling Your Day
    Kellogg faculty offer ideas for working smarter and not harder.
    A to-do list with easy and hard tasks
  7. How to Manage a Disengaged Employee—and Get Them Excited about Work Again
    Don’t give up on checked-out team members. Try these strategies instead.
    CEO cheering on team with pom-poms
  8. Which Form of Government Is Best?
    Democracies may not outlast dictatorships, but they adapt better.
    Is democracy the best form of government?
  9. What Went Wrong at AIG?
    Unpacking the insurance giant's collapse during the 2008 financial crisis.
    What went wrong during the AIG financial crisis?
  10. The Appeal of Handmade in an Era of Automation
    This excerpt from the book “The Power of Human" explains why we continue to equate human effort with value.
    person, robot, and elephant make still life drawing.
  11. 2 Factors Will Determine How Much AI Transforms Our Economy
    They’ll also dictate how workers stand to fare.
    robot waiter serves couple in restaurant
  12. When Do Open Borders Make Economic Sense?
    A new study provides a window into the logic behind various immigration policies.
    How immigration affects the economy depends on taxation and worker skills.
  13. Why Do Some People Succeed after Failing, While Others Continue to Flounder?
    A new study dispels some of the mystery behind success after failure.
    Scientists build a staircase from paper
  14. Sitting Near a High-Performer Can Make You Better at Your Job
    “Spillover” from certain coworkers can boost our productivity—or jeopardize our employment.
    The spillover effect in offices impacts workers in close physical proximity.
  15. How the Wormhole Decade (2000–2010) Changed the World
    Five implications no one can afford to ignore.
    The rise of the internet resulted in a global culture shift that changed the world.
  16. What’s at Stake in the Debt-Ceiling Standoff?
    Defaulting would be an unmitigated disaster, quickly felt by ordinary Americans.
    two groups of politicians negotiate while dangling upside down from the ceiling of a room
  17. What Happens to Worker Productivity after a Minimum Wage Increase?
    A pay raise boosts productivity for some—but the impact on the bottom line is more complicated.
    employees unload pallets from a truck using hand carts
  18. Immigrants to the U.S. Create More Jobs than They Take
    A new study finds that immigrants are far more likely to found companies—both large and small—than native-born Americans.
    Immigrant CEO welcomes new hires
  19. How Has Marketing Changed over the Past Half-Century?
    Phil Kotler’s groundbreaking textbook came out 55 years ago. Sixteen editions later, he and coauthor Alexander Chernev discuss how big data, social media, and purpose-driven branding are moving the field forward.
    people in 1967 and 2022 react to advertising
  20. 3 Traits of Successful Market-Creating Entrepreneurs
    Creating a market isn’t for the faint of heart. But a dose of humility can go a long way.
    man standing on hilltop overlooking city
More in Careers