Happy 2025!
If you do only one thing for your personal brand in 2025, do this. Craft a signature story that’s so strategic that it positions you as a category of one in a cluttered talent market.
A good signature story becomes a valuable asset on your career balance sheet
Why? If stories are the bedrock of culture, then your signature story is the bedrock of your personal brand.
A signature story is nothing but a compressed narrative that describes ‘who you are and what you bring to the corporate table.’
Here are 3 ways a signature story strengthens your career.
- You must have heard the phrase, “Your reputation precedes you.” A strong signature story precedes your reputation.
- When you invest in a strong signature story, you will be pleasantly surprised when friction reduces and conversations start flowing more smoothly, that’s becauseyour signature story clarifies who you are and exactly what people can expect from you.
- As you keep updating and refreshing your signature story, you will find it easier to get support and even cheerleaders, because your signature story transmits signals that allow the market to self-select, seek you out, and want to work with you.
Like all good assets, strategic signature stories compound over time.
What are the ingredients to ferment a strategic and a category of one signature story?
Yes, ferment.
Which is the first country you think of when I say ‘wine?’ Not New York. Because its weather is not conducive for Vitis Vinifera, the best grapes for wine, and are generally found in Europe. Even if grapes grow in NY, the cold weather makes them highly acidic.
But human ingenuity can convert even a less-than-ideal natural habitat into lush vineyards and produce sought-after wines.
Here is a signature story of New York wines I crafted from this article.
I think of the process of crafting your signature story like fermenting wine. In a vineyard, nature is in charge – the soil quality, weather conditions, acidity of grapes, and the amount of rain and sunshine.
Humans cannot control nature but they can mix ‘n’ match the right grapes, ferment, and adjust the finest signature story that tells your story of ‘who I am,’ best.
Here’s how you can ferment yours.
Ingredients that make a signature story strategic and category of one
1. Be truthful
Concocted experiences, AI generated emotion and plastic grapes don’t make great wine.
Great signature stories are built on a foundation of 100% truth, or else you get found out, just like Jay Shetty, who spun a false origin story of living as a monk in India for 3 years.
2. Work backwards from the themes you want to communicate
First decide what you want people to think about you.
If you want to be seen as trustworthy, share a story where you returned that extra million your company mistakenly credited to your account.
If you want to be seen as resilient, share how you cleared the entrance exams to your dream college after 3 years of gruelling prep and failures.
3. Be vulnerable:
Vulnerability is not a victimy sob story. It is when you share an experience that has shaped you from the inside out.
Dig deep. Deep into your childhood. Deep your highs and lows. Deep into your excitement and despair. Your vulnerability will connect with the human part of the listener and make you more relatable.
4. Share a unique insight:
Unique worldviews make you stand out as unique and thoughtful.
If you have a unique, even contrarian view, bring that out.
I have written an example signature story for Rick Rubin here.
5. Be true to yourself:
Break free from the socially acceptable moulds we are taught to squeeze ourselves into.
We assume our signature story should be disinfected with Dettol, and be the same as everyone else’s. This is 100% Wrong.
Break free from this snooze fest of sameness and lean into your unique experiences, even your ‘not socially acceptable’ personality traits and personal history – no one else shares your worldview. Therefore, no one else can have your particular signature story.
6. Dig into your experience
For any good wine, the grapes need to be of good quality. Good signature stories only come from real-life experiences.
Here s an example signature story for a product manager.
Micro signature stories
You contain multitudes and a multitude of experiences have shaped you.
Then just one story will not be enough. You need a tapestry of micro-stories that bring out different aspects of who you are and for different situations.
There are four types of micro-stories I have in my arsenal.
1. The ‘tell me about yourself’ interview story
The worst way to ‘tell people about yourself’ is to rattle off your resume. Your resume is just a list of facts – where you went to school, your degrees, and the companies you’ve worked in. Not only is resume parroting boooring, it also does you a grave disservice. It does not differentiate you from the other “10,000 ‘middle-class’ IIT-MBAs.”
2. The ‘I did this’ achievement story
Each bullet point in your resume is an achievement. You need a micro-story to describe this bullet point in a short, impactful manner to highlight your contributions.
3. The ‘I failed but I learnt’ growth story
We all have flaws and we fail. Flaws are not as important as lessons. How did we grow and learn from our failures?
4. The ‘what’s next’ transition story
When we change jobs, change industries, or take up early retirement, we need a story that explains why we are transitioning.
Free workshop: Escape invisibility. Master your category of one signature story.
I am offering a free 2-hour workshop on 25 or 26 January 2025 to help 6 readers master their category of one signature story.