The late comedian George Carlin has left an indelible mark in his profession, and a memorable if not controversial brand in the American psyche.
The evolution of Carlin’s personal brand exemplifies the power of reinvention and transformation that we can apply as microbusiness entrepreneurs. These 5 Personal Branding Lessons are:
- Ride the Zeitgeist and Reinvent Yourself.
- Identify Your Transformative Platform.
- Be Very Specific About Your Brand: This is What Makes You Unique
- With Any Success, You Will Face Hurdles: Don’t Give Yourself the Biggest Stumbling Block
- Will You Age Gracefully or Cynically? You Choose.
1. Ride the Zeitgeist and Reinvent Yourself.
Carlin was a successful stand-up comedian in the ’60s and was influenced by protests and counterculture. He changed his act and attitude and essentially, his customers (audience).
Those of us who are reinventing ourselves and changing our customers may not be thrown out by the old establishment as Carlin had been when his act was considered too risque even for Vegas, but we had better be prepared to be dumped by our old customers, as Carlin was dumped by his.
2. Identify Your Transformative Platform.
Carlin began using his comedic platform to share his social commentary and, in his unique way, to tell the truth (at least, his perception of the truth). Carlin made his brand as a contrarian, by challenging conventions and calling out hypocrites as he sees them.
Many entrepreneurs are using the web in transformative ways, including those leveraging blogs and microblogs. I have seen social media like weblogs and MySpace, and permutations thereof, such as microblogs like Twitter and Plurk, become transformative platforms in business.
What is your transformative platform?
3. Be Very Specific About Your Brand: This is What Makes You Unique
Carlin’s brand was challenging status quo – and more specifically – on words. Taboo words. Fuzzy words. Weak words that have become mind numbing agents and desensitizers in our society.
Carlin is best known for his “seven words you can never say on television, and as Carlin said, “There are no bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad intentions. And woooords.” I remember watching Carlin’s monologue on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show several years ago and was amazed at Carlin’s level of insight and skill at showing the cultural paradoxes that run rampant from our technological advances.
To follow up with my previous point, anyone can call themselves a blogger, but not everyone is a blogging expert or blogging “consultant”. Not all blogging entrepreneurs are capable of becoming unique, and be a true visionary and revolutionary in the way they make their blogging activity THE business instead of a tool or vehicle.
Just because I have almost 20 blogs doesn’t make me an expert in leveraging blogs for business advantage: blogs are part of my transformative platform, but “blog expert/consultant” is not my unique brand. The trick is to know the difference.
For those of us whose brand includes, for a large part, of the person and personality that we are, identifying our specific brand requires us to spend a lot of time with ourselves in a self discovery (or recovery) mode.
4. With Any Success, You Will Face Hurdles: Don’t Give Yourself the Biggest Stumbling Block
Carlin became addicted to drugs and it affected his health; the long term effects of drug abuse led to the heart failure that literally killed him. Carlin himself said of his drug use, “I lost years. I could have been a pole vaulter in those years, and instead I was kind of like doing hurdles.”
We as entrepreneurs are so focused on keeping out negative people to preserve the sanctity of our motivation. Yet many of us don’t realize that what gets in the way of our continual success is often not other people, but ourselves.
Our dark sides and addictions that have a way of rearing their ugly heads when the pressure and stress of success persist in our lives.
5. Will You Age Gracefully or Cynically? You Choose.
Carlin’s material became darker because he had “given up on the human race”. People who are very smart often gain insight into an ugly side of reality that, over time, can dishearten the most optimistic. With this comes a danger of detaching from the human race, as Carlin himself admitted.
I say “danger of detaching from the human race” because this type of detachment is not the “detaching from seeing as much of the bigger truth as our limited minds allow” but rather a “detaching as a result of persisting cynicism.” The former type of detachment widens your heart, the latter hardens it.
I’m a bit more optimistic than Carlin – I tend to believe that life and businesses run in cycles of positives and negatives, yet ultimately we will continue to evolve. With each cycle of growth comes new advances and new addictions.
Carlin epitomizes what one may expect as a transformative force in his field. This takes courage, and for those of us desiring or aspiring to such level of performance, we need to be ready for both the rewards and the sacrifices.
Reference: How George Carlin Changed Comedy by Time magazine’s Richard Zoglin.
