I usually like to take my walks after work to refresh my brain and break from thinking about what happened during the day. As I live around the Downtown area of "Toronto", my walks are in the streets and between buildings where I pass by many shops from different industries; food stores, cosmetics, clothes, luxury, and many more.

It is inspiring to see the logos and the designs of the different stores as they try to build a connection with their target customers. tEach brand feels like a person with personality, feelings, and interests.

Similarly, many of us work on developing our own personal brands. The identity which we aim to use to help advance our career and life and lead to new opportunities and connections.

Building our brand is not very different from how commercials create their own. They all revolve around defining the core values with which we'll be operating with.

For me, I tried to reflect on one of the brands that I favor the most, and see what I admire about their core values that I’d like to use for my own personal brand. This could be a fun and effective exercise, where you can unleash your own values by knowing why you love a certain brand over the other. You can also join me by writing in a few bullet points which brand inspires you and which of its core values you'd like to reflect on yourself. I know this question is sometimes common in interviews, so it’ll be a great way to practice.

BRAND OF INSPIRATION:

For me, “LUSH” has always been a recognizable brand the moment I was introduced to it when I received their Bath Bombs as a birthday gift from a friend. I fell in love with the colors, the smell, and the magical show it provides when taking a bath. Lush is well known for its long success as a cosmetic brand for over 25 years leveraging a strong ethical presence in the market.

I can summarize the main values that represent this brand which I’d like to reflect on my own as the following:

• Recognition and Credibility: Individual successes are celebrated in the company with every product purchase. Each product is presented with the employee or the team who made this product innovation. As a leader and a project manager, this is one of the key values to embrace when working in a team is to know how to celebrate your team’s success without compromising individual efforts.
• Build inclusive Impact: Every product and every service offered by Lush considers the overall impact not only on the direct consumers and business but on the environment and the world in general. Their “Naked” approach to reducing waste and CO2 footprint by selling unpackaged products along with prohibiting animal testing are great ways of representing the impact brands could generate outside of their direct circles. Similarly, being in STEM is a way for me to build digital solutions that not only simplifies the lives of people but also drive efficiency and sustainability. We’ll do our jobs better if we feel the impact we make expands beyond the direct circle.
• INTEGRITY: It’s about knowing and doing what it’s right. Despite their huge success and high engagement on social media, the recent announcement to exit and deactivate all of Lush’s presence on social media due to pressure on their values of remaining ethical and transparent with their customers across their full operation. Despite that this might not be an easy value to acquire since it’ll require careful decision-making and analysis. However, this could be a reminder to stick to your vision and objective and to ensure that what you do is integral.