East West - The Asian American Lifestyle Magazine

By Erin Yoshimura

I don’t care what other people think of me. At least, I didn’t used to care.

As an Asian American woman, I was taught to be aloof and stoic because you can’t always control how others perceive you. You can only control your own actions.

Here’s a twist on that old adage: knowing what others think of you will help you succeed, which is something you can control.

Just like we can’t see the back of our head, we’re often unaware of how our actions and behaviors impact others. Take Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell in the NBC comedy series “The Office.” Driven by his need to be idolized, he’s painfully delusional about his political incorrectness.

Here’s a three-way mirror that will help you see yourself from behind: branding.

The term “branding” often refers to a product or a company, but it also applies to people.

Contrary to what many people think about branding, it’s not a logo like Nike’s swoosh or a signature design like Campbell’s soup cans (these are brand signatures). Instead, branding is what people think and feel when they see those brand signatures.

When we see or hear the word Nike, we generally think health. When we see a can of Campbell’s soup, most of us think comfort food. It’s all about the emotional impact those products induce. And, when the emotions get stirred, the image stays on the mind longer.

This also applies to human beings. We all have an emotional impact on others when they hear or see our name.

The question is: what emotions are you stirring in others? And, could this affect whether you get that much-deserved raise and/or promotion?

People with strong brands include Oprah, Tiger Woods and the Dalai Lama. You know what they stand for because they weave their natural talent and passion into all parts of their lives.

With today’s turbulent job market, becoming familiar with your personal brand can help you differentiate yourself from others. Or, it could help you uncover that you’re not doing what you’re truly passionate about.

The only time we get feedback about ourselves is usually at work through performance appraisals, and that comes from one or two people, most likely your manager, based strictly on how you perform on the job. You end up with a narrow perspective of who you are and where you excel.

Imagine instead receiving feedback from a wide range of people about what they see as your natural gifts, strengths and weaknesses, and hearing what role they think you have a penchant for.

For $30, you can get such feedback from all types of people you interact with—friends, colleagues and customers—by taking the 360ºReach Personal Brand Assessment at www.reachcc.com.

Send the survey to as many people as you want within 30 days. It’ll take less than 10 minutes to complete and it’s anonymous, so they can candidly and honestly put down what they think of you.

The feedback is categorized and rated for attributes, skills, greatest strengths and weaknesses and the team role you’re best suited for. There’s also a place for comments.

Compare the feedback against your self assessment. The gap between what people think of you and how you see yourself is where your brand makeover begins.

When I took the assessment, community-oriented was voted my top attribute. This surprised me because it’s not something I actively and consciously work at. But because it was rated so highly, it’s worth integrating into my work.

My top skill and team role were communicating/listening and being a facilitator. These are pluses as a trainer and a coach, so it validated my own assessment that I was regarded this way.

Be prepared to hear some hard truths about yourself, too. Someone said that I was temperamental! Can you believe that?

And while much of the feedback is useful, you need to sort through and determine what’s useful to you and what you can discard. Focus on the patterns that emerge from the feedback.

It became all too clear that my top weakness is my lack of self-confidence. When you know something internally and then learn that others also perceive that in you, it definitely needs attention.

To get a more complete assessment, try to send it to at least 30 people from diverse backgrounds that you’ve had contact with at least three times, and try to get an 80 percent response rate. You can always send it to more people within the 30 days.

Avoid sending the survey to family members. No matter how old we get, we’ll always be the big sister or the one who ruined a cousin’s 8th birthday party. These roles are often hard to break within families.

Branding is filling the gap between how people perceive you and how you want to be perceived. Now, that’s something you can control.

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Erin Yoshimura, chief empowerment officer of Empowerful Changes™, specializes in Emotional & Cultural Intelligence training and coaching. Learn more at www.empowerful.com or contact her at

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