You are your company

Once upon a time there was a boy. He went to school, studied well, received good grades, and went off to college to get a degree, a proof of his worth. This boy, who became an adult in the process, went on a quest to look for a company that would graciously give him a job. 

He hoped to find a place that would see him as good enough to give him an opportunity to play on their playground. After getting a job, the boy was happy. It gave him a sense of accomplishment and a sense of belonging. After all, what would he be without this company anyway? He would be nothing…

Or would he be? I just read a really cool article about building a personal brand, and one particular sentence stood out for me: “I was Scott Monty before I came to Ford, and I’ll be Scott Monty after I leave Ford”. We each have our own company – ourselves. All those years spent in school, all those experiences we encounter in life – they are a part of building our own corporation, our own brand. You don’t have to be Oprah Winfrey to have a personal brand. Each of us has a brand, by default. The question is how can we nurture and build it up, how can we make the most out of it.

Going back to the boy in our story, most of us these days are like him- hoping that we’ll be good enough for someone to give us an opportunity. My 9 year old daughter asked me the other day, “Mom, would you be mad if I didn’t go to college and wanted to bake cookies for a living?” I told her that if she is passionate about baking cookies, she’ll most likely do all she can to have the best darn cookies in town. Her passion will be her fuel to overcome obstacles, to feed new ideas, and to give it all her best. And in that case, if she finds college classes as something helpful in her pursuit of being the best cookie maker, she’ll want to attend those classes. But if she doesn’t find the value, the alignment with her dream, then why should she?

I really hope our kids will see themselves as their own companies. Scott Monty is no smaller or less powerful than Ford. Actually, he’s more powerful. Because if all the employees leave Ford one day, there won’t be any Ford to talk of anymore. But Scott Monty will still be Scott Monty with all his potential, skills, ideas, and passion.