What Running a Half Marathon Taught Me About Personal Branding

Photo by Matt Ramspott

Okay, so every time I hear “personal branding,” I can’t help it, I think of Stuart Smalley on “Saturday Night Live.” It’s hard to say those words and not feel like a dork. When did living an interesting, meaningful life and knowing how to talk about it become a cheesy business experiment?

Then I think about the past couple of years and realize these lean economic times have led to many of us having new obsessions with the idea of reinvention. We’re grasping at snazzy marketing-savvy straws like “personal branding” to deal with the fact that many of us feel stuck right now. Maybe we’re unemployed and looking for work, or stuck in jobs we don’t like. Maybe we haven’t had raises in recent years because of budget cuts and furloughs (I’m raising my hand on this one). You start to feel really frustrated and powerless, and want to have a master plan in place to transcend it all, and something like “personal branding” is as good a plan as any.

In August 2011, I made a master plan to train for the CareFirst Rock n’ Roll USA Half Marathon in Washington, D.C. I did it for all the reasons most people have for doing a race the requires a ridiculous amount of running: stress management, wanting to get in better shape, blah, blah blah. But I also did it because my husband was getting ready to apply for tenure at the university where we both work, and I knew that process would be challenging for both of us. I wanted a new project that would remind me work isn’t everything.

While training for a half marathon, here’s what I learned about, yes, personal branding:

• Remember your unique history. When taking on a new challenge, think about something difficult you overcame in years past, and what inspired you back then to get through it. For the half marathon training, I created running mixes featuring some of my favorite music that helped me survive high school. I would listen to Midnight Oil’s “Dreamworld” and suddenly getting to eight miles didn’t feel impossible anymore.  

• Map out your master plan in an accountable way. Early on in my training, I went into my Microsoft Outlook and set up reminders for my daily workouts according to the half marathon training program I was following. No matter how many committee meetings or deadlines I had at work that left me exhausted and brain dead, I always knew how many miles I had to complete that day because of the little messages that popped up to keep me in check. When you’re taking on a new project, make it easy to stick to the tasks that get you there, in whatever way works best for you, whether it’s an email reminder or a list jotted down on a piece of paper and pinned to your refrigerator. In other words, don’t make it high maintenance for yourself to complete important steps in your process of reinvention.  

• Selectively share your successes, but don’t hyper-broadcast them. Part of the fun of training for something like a half marathon is telling your friends, family and co-workers about all the runs you do, especially through a social media update of some sort. They usually chime in with supportive comments that make you feel validated you got in seven miles after a long day of back-to-back meetings and seemingly endless emails you had to answer. It’s great to seek out feedback; you just don’t want to over-bombard people with nothing but your updates on how awesome you are all the time. That’s boring and annoying. Instead, connect your project with something bigger and more universal. For me, that meant asking fellow runners for advice and sharing photos I took on long runs so others could enjoy them.  

• Let your mistakes empower you and invoke empathy. Working toward a long-term goal means that inevitably you’re going to screw up from time to time. Don’t be afraid to admit when something really dumb or disappointing happened. Stay humble and real with your supporters who are listening to your progress, and they’ll feel more connected to your journey. One day I left my running shoes at home (I usually squeezed in runs over my lunch break), and had to drive all the way back home after my day was over to get them and then head out again to the gym in the pouring rain when all I wanted to do was crash on my couch. I shared this mishap, as tiny and insignificant as it was, on Facebook, and it made people empathize with me and how hard it is to stick to a rigorous training schedule. I in turn felt good about dragging myself out of my house to make that run happen.  

• Channel your own bad-assed-ness. Somewhere along the way of getting ready for this half marathon, I became obsessed with the idea of creating superhero T-shirts for the race. My father-in-law, one of those amazing people who run and bike 17 miles a day well into their golden years, had also signed up for the half marathon, and I wanted to do something special to thank him for flying to D.C. to do it with me. I decided to go with green T-shirts because of the race happening on St. Patrick’s Day, and chose superhero names that related to the festivities, and what we were trying to accomplish: my father-in-law was “Green Lightning” and I got to be “Verdant Velocity,” a verbose superhero name that reflected my word nerd self. 

• Share the spotlight with someone who has helped you. Though my father-in-law lives in a whole different time zone from my husband and me, he is still one of the most generous and supportive family members we have. He’s always got great advice about a project we’re doing around our house, or something I’m trying to figure out at my job. There was nothing more fun than running that race next to him. Not only did he check in and see how I was doing, but every mile or so, several people would see my father-in-law’s shirt and yell out, “GO GREEN LIGHTNING!” He loved ever minute of it. It made me happy to see someone who has been so loving and kind get a moment in the spotlight like that. He deserved it. He is a superhero, in many ways, with what he accomplishes and the ways he cares about people.

All in all, the race was FANTASTIC: my friends and husband and hundreds of strangers cheering us on as we raced through one of the best cities in the world on a beautiful day. I’m so glad I did it.

I don’t know what the future holds for higher education, or what interesting twists and turns my career might take in the next year or two. All I know is that I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, and feeling more fearless than ever about pursuing things that matter to me. I trust my creativity, intuition and ability to solve problems in a way that I haven’t for a long time. And I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Here's the link to one of my favorite half marathon training mixes on Spotify.

The BEST Valentine EVER That Social Media People Can Give

Engagement. Authenticity. Responsiveness. People who use social media for marketing and communications love these words. They use them with a sense of authority and power and promise.

I’ve used these words before, in various meetings and presentations. I like them. But I also hate them a little bit. Because they basically add up to this ironclad guarantee that social media marketers are supposed to make it work around the clock. They’re supposed to be staring down at their iPhones and their computers every other second, checking on something they tweeted, posted, uploaded, etc., to see if anyone’s commenting on it, liking it, REtweeting it, pinning it. To see if there’s something new they should say, in response to a question or comment or photo. Basically, these communicators, who in their previous lives were people persons ... people people?? ... are now auto-conveying emotion, meaning, humor. They’re becoming human robots with social ADD who are plugged in 24/7 to digital everything. The ones who are taking pictures of the Jumbo Screen at the Pearl Jam concert with their phones while the band is only a few feet away and could practically spit or throw a drumstick at them.*

But you know who hates “engagement,” “authenticity” and “responsiveness” the most? The significant others of the social media “gurus.” Ironically, these words used to describe the personality of someone who was a great spouse or boyfriend or daughter. Someone who paid attention, was spontaneously awesome in the real time of here and now.

Guess what? These words can STILL be used that way, in that context. Here’s how: If you happen to use social media as a large component of your job, do yourself a favor, and give your partner the BEST valentine ever! Grab your boyfriend’s hand rather than punch in another text while you’re out walking down the street to the restaurant where you're having what feels like the first dinner out in weeks with just the two of you. Turn off the damn device when you’re out to dinner. For God’s sake, DO NOT bring your iPhone into the bedroom, at least not into the bed. Put it somewhere where you can still hear the alarm, but you can’t reach it to fire it up first thing when you wake up in the morning. Instead, wrap your arms around whoever’s next to you --- your husband, your girlfriend, your dog --- and appreciate them for a little while instead. Ignore your status updates, your tiny blue birds, your blogs. Just exist for a little while, and remember why you feel so glad to have someone who loves you, and who you're also crazy about. And if you’re single, all this stuff still applies: Ultimately, the best relationship you need to have is with yourself, and you’re not a machine.

Here are a few other great words: “Unplug.” “Recharge.” And let’s not forget “Hootsuite” and “TweetDeck,” or, as I like to call them, “digital interns.” Take the night off and go have some fun, with your friends, with your girlfriend, with yourself. The digital world, changing at the speed of light, can’t exactly wait, but it will be there when you get back.

Flickr heart image above courtesy of qthomasbower. Pic of my husband and me above on right by the ever-talented Amanda Shea. *And yeah, I did go to a Pearl Jam concert once where people were really doing that, people with killer seats.

Big-Picture Communications: Be Nimble, Not Land-Locked

Public transportation: In Istanbul, Turkey, it can mean everything from a taxi to a subway to a ferry that carries passengers from the European side of the city to the Asian one. Yes, it is possible to be in two continents at once ... okay, not quite at once, but within a half hour ... in this vibrant city churning with people, places and cultures.

I recently spent a week in Istanbul catching up with an old friend, and I’m still thinking about the incredible 30 minutes we spent traveling over the Bosphorus during our ferry ride to Kadiköy. Everything ... the sky, the water, the crowded, overlapping architecture in the distance ... was glowing with that pinkish blue luminescence that happens during the last few moments before sunset. A young man was throwing handfuls of breadcrumbs over the side of the boat, much to the screaming delight of seagulls skimming the wind and light in whatever direction they pleased. Their persistent grace was awe-inspiring, an air dance that matched the tumbling, broken water falling behind them. And somewhere in this place between continents, moving forward seemed graceful, spontaneous, full of possibility and happenstance.

Now that I’m back in my daily world of deadlines and writing and social media-ing, I keep returning to that day on the Bosphorus because it reminds me of a critical truth about communications. We need to be nimble, and ready to change with the world changing around us, a world that can shift within hours, even seconds. Gone are the days when we have time to pin our hopes on something that's overly complicated and keeps us land-locked and unable to jump ship when needed.

Remember the fervor of Facebook Landing Pages and how much companies invested in them through design and links and other bells and whistles? Well, Facebook Timeline is coming to brand pages. We keep telling ourselves that global community is what drives the economy ... but are our companies, colleges and universities exploring the social media that is relevant to audiences overseas? For example, Qzone and Weibo are huge in China, Facebook, not so much. Will BlackBerries stay afloat, when the iPhone, Android and other mobile devices have taken on-the-go communicators by storm? What does it tell us about our priorities in the year ahead when in 2011, people spent more time on mobile apps than they did Web browsing? Is referring to social media as “social” no longer relevant, as we convince ourselves integrated marketing is key to our success? Maybe it should just be called "media" at this point.

The best creativity is by nature often spontaneous. And creativity drives the ideas that are populating the communications world around us, carrying us forward to the next horizon, the next conversation. The good news is that if you miss one idea, you can probably catch another one in 20 minutes or so. The bad news is if the ship has sailed and you’ve invested too much time, money and metrics into a specific system, you just might be adrift.

Here's a Spotify playlist that makes me think of the ride on the ferry over the Bosphorus.

How To Be a Frugal and Fabulous Jetsetter

Frugal and fabulous. Do they belong in the same sentence? Absolutely, especially if you’re a travel junkie who’s feeling the pinch of the recession-or, let’s face it, the sucker punch of the recession-and realizing you will go insane if you don’t get away somewhere, somehow, soon.

My travels, for both business and pleasure, have taken me to Berlin, Beijing, Amsterdam, London, and Brussels, to name just a few places. And seeing my family typically involves flying everywhere from Atlanta to D.C. to Omaha. Along the way, I’ve learned a few tips and tricks that have helped me enjoy my trips to the fullest without completely killing my budget. 

Off-season travel can be AMAZING and very affordable 

If you want to travel overseas, going during the off-season, like winter, can be a great bargain. Ticket prices are jaw-droppingly lower during winter months than the summer, when most European cities are mobbed by tourists and can feel like giant, sweaty amusement parks. My husband and I found tickets for a January trip to Istanbul that are comparable to what you would pay to fly from D.C. to Seattle. Last year we spent Christmas in Berlin, where we not only enjoyed deeply discounted hotels, but we also had the city’s sights to ourselves, often waltzing into amazing museums that under normal circumstances would have had hour-long lines. It was so nice to linger in front of art works and artifacts and really take them in without visitors moving us along or blocking our view.

There is also something magical about a city in its bare-bones simplicity, without the distraction of crowds, something that makes it easier to meet and talk to people who live there, to walk up and down the streets and really see it. There are so many places I want to visit, and I love savoring the sights, culture and community of international cities during the off-season, when things are typically less expensive. 

Pack light and curate clothing carefully 

Travel is about completely immersing yourself in the world around you. You can’t do that if you’re stressed out hauling around a couple of heavy suitcases, a carry-on, your purse or briefcase, etc. And really, few people can afford to have that much stuff, with those hefty fees airlines charge us to check our bags. If you have a connecting flight, who wants to give the airlines an opportunity to lose your luggage? Not me.

When I fly, I try to pack everything in one of those rolling suitcases that are just small enough to pass carry-on regulations (be sure to check the specific regulations of the countries where you’re traveling ahead of time, as they can be different from place to place). I accomplish this by bringing a few basic black pieces that don’t require dry cleaning and can work well with colorful accessories like scarves and statement necklaces, which are much lighter and easier to pack in abundance. If I do bring a few clothes that aren’t black, I keep them in the same color range, like blue or purple, so I can mix and match and wear them in different ways. If I’m staying in hotels, I bring a tiny bottle of Woolite, so I can hand-wash my clothes in the sink and wear them over and over again rather than pay to send out laundry. Yeah, washing stuff by hand isn’t super glamorous, but smelling clean is! If I’m going somewhere cold, I’ll bring this pair of snug black tights that are lined with fleece and look great with dresses and skirts but can double as an extra layer under pants. A simple black merino wool cardigan, to throw over a T-shirt or a dress, is also good. You can find merino wool at stores like TJ Maxx and Marshall’s if you look around carefully, and it’s a fabulous find because it’s so light but very warm.

Shoes are the hardest part ... it’s difficult to decide what you have room to bring with limited space. Last year, I invested in a pair of Salomon weatherproof knee-high black boots that are comfortable, can be worn with everything and will hopefully last several years. I also tend to bring one pair of heels for dressier occasions and maybe my running shoes, if I think I’ll be able to squeeze in a workout while I’m traveling. I usually wear the bulkiest pair, like my boots, on the plane, so there’s more room in my suitcase, and stuff my other shoes I pack with smaller items, so every bit of space is used. Whatever shoes I bring, they all have to be comfortable, as I tend to walk everywhere and don’t have time for blisters, and they all have to go with my limited wardrobe.

There are a few beauty products I swear by that go with me everywhere, and save room in my tiny plastic bag for other stuff: Smith’s Rosebud Salve, which can be everything from a lip balm to a moisturizer on rough patches of skin. Benefit’s benetint rose-tinted lip and cheek stain, which goes on beautifully and is very natural looking. Benetint is nearly $30, but my current bottle has lasted me several years. I also love wearing perfume for special occasions, like a night out with my husband in a foreign city! Thierry Mugler’s Angel is my favorite, but you better believe I don’t tote that expensive, star-shaped hunk of glass in my luggage! Instead, I measure out a non-scented lotion, like Neutrogena’s Norwegian formula lotion, squirt some perfume in it and mix it up a bit, and voila, I’ve got my favorite perfume and a lotion in 3 oz.! 

Eat well and stay healthy 

If you are traveling overseas, you don’t have to torture yourself by trying to eat the meals they serve you on flights, which can be truly disgusting and unhealthy, especially during those twilight hours when your body isn’t sure what time it is. Instead of forcing down airline food, I'll stash a plastic spoon and one or two of those portable paper organic soup cups in my purse and ask the flight attendant for hot water, so I can hydrate them. I also sometimes brown-bag snacks from home like apples or nutrition bars, so I don’t have to buy overpriced airport food while waiting for my flight.

I’m a huge foodie and enjoy great meals when I finally get to my destination, but if I need to, I’ll splurge on cocktails or wine, and eat an appetizer instead of an entree, to savor something delicious but less expensive. I also drink tons of water and have a few packets of Emergen-C with me at all times, which I can down if I feel a cold coming on. 

Live in the world, not on it 

Don’t be afraid to walk around and take public transportation in the city where you're traveling, provided those areas are relatively safe. You can learn and experience so much more when you get out there and explore on your own, without a tour bus or taxi separating you from what’s going on around you, not to mention save money on cab fees. Exploring cities on foot also means burning more calories, meaning you’ll work on maintaining your weight while enjoying amazing meals.

Read up on places and their history, check out local websites and news, keep your eyes out for random fliers advertising events that might interest you. Don’t rely just on what guidebooks tell you to visit, but what catches your eye and what you hear about on the street. Wandering is the best, and often leads to the greatest adventures and memories. If you’re going to a country where residents speak a different language than you do, be sure to learn some phrases, especially hello, goodbye, please and thank you. In the end, you’ll probably make some terrific new friends who will appreciate your interest in their country and who will invite you back to stay with them-for free!

So these are some of my travel tips I’ve learned over the years. What are yours? Share them in the comments below! And get inspired for your next trip by enjoying this "Jetsetter" playlist on Spotify.

The Miracle of YouTube and Flash Mobs: God Bless Us, Every One

Office potlucks. Family gatherings. Dinners with friends you only see once or twice a year. During the holidays, we’re often thrown together with a variety of people, many of whom have different ideas, dreams and ways of looking at the world than we do.

The holidays are also a time to celebrate the best of what we have to offer as human beings. I think Frank Cross, Bill Murray's character in one of my all-time favorite holiday movies, "Scrooged," says it best: “It's Christmas Eve. It's the one night that we act a little nicer. We smile a little easier. We cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped that we would be.”

Earlier this month, I came across these two videos that I think embody the ways people are trying to be the people we always hoped we would be. Whether it is staying hip to the young folks and doing a flash mob for our grandchildren to giggle about later on YouTube or dancing our hearts out in tightly fitted red leotards, God bless us every one, and the ways we want to bring joy to the world.

Happy holidays! Here are some songs to help you deck your halls with boughs of holly.

Telling Time

I finally broke down and added Facebook's Timeline to my Facebook Profile last week. I like the billboard branding... or should I say, buzzwordishly, the personal branding possibilities ... of the larger-than-life cover photo. I’m enjoying the bigger, brighter compartmentalized sections that Facebook has created for all of us to review and admire about ourselves and our friends. What I’m struggling with is the tidy little bar on the right, the one beginning with “Now” and ending with when you were “Born.”

Don’t get me wrong, I like that easy swoosh of scrolling down years and remembering things that happened through what people shared on Facebook. That’s conveniently nostalgic and interesting. What I’m struggling with is the assumption that Facebook is where we should store and document every aspect of our lives, even before we were on Facebook--even before Facebook was invented. It indicates we should do some sort of exhaustive digital scrapbooking. It seems to presume that Facebook is not only taking over the Internet, but our personal pasts that happened before its invention and relentless inventory.

After exploring Timeline and all of its bells and whistles, I found myself wanting to remember the other ways we measure our lives by time. So I did what a lot of writers do ... I conducted an informal poll with my friends on Facebook:

Doing some writing and have a question for everyone: How do you measure and keep track of time? Perhaps a better way to put this would be: How do you know time is passing ... how do you measure your life by time? Would love to hear everyone's thoughts. Thanks.

One artist friend said he knew time was passing when he saw trees he had planted, and how much they had grown. He has a tiny studio that’s nestled in a meadow off a winding road in Western Maryland. A dedicated mom of two I know said she told time by “the increase of grey in my hair, the height of my children versus the height of the kitchen counter, and by the increasing discrepancy between the weight on my drivers license and my actual weight.”

“Now (telling time) is in the development of Samuel. Before him, I didn't really notice. Am I not still 28?” wondered one friend of mine who is a proud dad. “For about the last 8 months, I've measured time by the size of my belly,” said another friend, who is expecting her first child.

For the dedicated educators I know, the passage of time was marked by pop cultural references their students could no longer relate to and watching students go on to have kids and pursue graduate degrees. “Time passes? I thought I was living the same term over and over again,” one joked.

Books proved to be another source for keeping track of how years were passing by. “Rediscovering my notes from a book I've read some time ago and reading it again and discovering other things in it,” responded a professor friend. “Coffee spoons (literally),” said a poet I know, wryly citing T.S. Eliot and revealing her one-pot-a-day caffeine addiction. “People I have spooned with,” added my artist friend.

No matter how we spend time, measure it, mythologize it and reexamine it through digital documentation, the most unexplainably beautiful, memorable moments are perhaps best experienced when we’re living in the present, and reaching out and holding onto them with both hands. Stopping to notice and acknowledge them and realize they are not permanent.

Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration. - Khalil Gibran

NEW FEATURE: Starting today, I'm going to create a Spotify playlist for each new blog post. Here's the one for Telling Time.

Reading Between the Lines in the Waiting Room

Tablets. They’re not just for first graders learning handwriting anymore, but for people who want to read on the go. With no heavy lifting required, but instead that sense of confidence that comes from having the world in your hands, in a slim electronic package.

I was in my doctor’s waiting room the other day and I noticed a woman who was calmly reading her Kindle, while the rest of us grumbled about our practitioner running late. So I started talking to her about it, as I’ve been thinking about getting my husband one for Christmas. Her name was Pat and as it turned out, she teaches writing to inmates at a nearby federal prison.

Pat told me she loved her Kindle. Her current reading selection, which she chose because Kindle recommended it: Darcie Chan’s mystery “The Mill River Recluse.” I asked her about the Nook, which is what my mother-in-law has and loves, and she told me people buy the Nook for the color. “But if you just read, you don’t need Nook’s color,” she told me.

Pat’s whole family had Kindles, and they all subscribed to each other’s digital reads online and shared and downloaded books together. Like me, her husband was a bookworm, and had a Kindle but missed the smell of books, she said, and finding out what people were reading by happenstance, like when he glanced at their book covers in subways. “You can see people are holding a Kindle, but you don’t see the title of whatever it is they’re reading,” she said.

A 30-something-year-old guy was sitting a few chairs down from us, and he chimed in: “I’m thinking about getting my daughter a Kindle.” We found out he was a plumber whose company had him drive two and half hours to Washington, D.C., and back every day. “They pay for my gas, though. ... and there’s not much local work in this area for the unions.” He told us how he and several other guys he knew were working around the clock to finish the plumbing for this elementary school that had burned down and was being rebuilt. “We want to get it done by Christmas,” he said. Like Pat, his girlfriend had a Kindle, he owned one, and now he wanted to make sure he got his daughter one. “She just loves to read,” he said.

I told them about how the first time I had seen a Kindle was when I was traveling to China for work and one of my colleagues showed me how his Kindle was wrapped in an medieval-looking leather binding. That leather cover made me think of Melissa Bank’s “The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing,” whose heroine said hugging her non-committal boyfriend was like embracing the surrogate wire mothers in the rhesus-monkey experiments, “more like the idea of a hug than the real thing.”

But here we all were, killing time in the waiting room, the perfect opportunity to read, and all Pat had to do was pull out her Kindle and let the distractions and stresses of everyday life fade away as she lost herself in a great book. A popular mystery recommended by Kindle readers that she would probably eventually share with her daughter through a download. A story that might help shape an idea to pass along to her inmate pupils, who were struggling to find the words to rewrite their own stories.

However we choose to read these days, it makes me so happy to see people, young and old, love books, want to talk about books and want to see their kids and friends and loved ones read books. That rules. : )