Your hobbies define you. Your social circle is defined by your hobbies. If you enjoy working out, you’re more likely to hang out with other individuals that have a gym membership. 

You are the sum of your closest five friends. Your friend’s identity will often be blurred alongside yours. Our parents knew a thing or two when they told us to be aware of the crowd we associated with. 

It is time to audit your friends. This includes your real life friends plus all your friends on social media. When you make strides to improve your friends list, you are improving the perspective of yourself and your personal brand. 

Remember in high school when your parents told you to be careful who you hung out with?  Well that advice rings true today as adults.  As you might already know, the five people you spend the most time around is super important.  And it’s not JUST important because you start to become like them, but it’s also important as people judge you subconsciously as well.   

 

You know exactly what I’m talking about.  When someone is introduced to you as Jackie’s best friend and you ABSOLUTELY LOVE Jackie, you feel a special bond with that person.  Instantly you know that they HAVEto be a nice person since Jackie is so freakin nice.   

 

The opposite holds true as well.  When you have that HORRIBLE client that you were SOO excited to finally get rid introduce you to her great friend Jack who is looking for your type of service….what’s the first thing you think of? 

 

Exactly. 

 

I recently had someone tell me, you know, I want to be somewhere in life that I am not in right now, the first thing I’m going to start changing is my friends.  While I realize it’s NOT easy to change your friends, I can say it will completely change your life if you are more careful with the people you spend time with.   

Being friends with people you aspire to become more alike will help your personal brand by perception, as well as real life changes.  When you go out on Saturday night, you won’t be out drinking until 2 am with those old friends, posting photos laughing half drunk, but you’ll be white river rafting and hiking with a group of others while discussing how to create impact where you are most passionate.   

Homework assignment for this week- 

Audit your friends…not your facebook friends, but your real friends.  Who do you spend the most time with?  Are there people in there you need to remove?  Is there someone in there you need to add?  Be aware of this list and make strides in how to make this shift so that the 5 people you spend the most time with are people there on purpose, not just because. 

 

Thanks for watching this week, let me know in the comments how your personal branding journey is going so far.  Be sure to sign up for our Personal Branding Makeover Giveaway if you haven’t already.  See you next week! 

 

As most of you know, Alimond Studio has always offered strategy within our headshot sessions as well as within our video shoots.  However, we are stepping it up with now offering Personal Branding Strategies for professional that are trying to revamp their online presence.  We are doing it for individuals that want to not just look good online, but want to truly show others why they are different than the rest. 

Now this isn’t Branding for your Business.  We have wonderful relationships with full Marketing agencies that we’d be happy to refer you to that are amazing at helping you in that arena.  However, this is for YOUR PERSONAL BRAND.  

 

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