I am the girl next door

“You look very familiar! Have we met before?” asked our new Practice Lead for Development Journeys to the CHRO of a very large pharmaceutical company, who also happens to be our customer.

“I am like the girl next door. So, you may find me familiar”. I was listening to this with a lot of awe and admiration. In a world where we take every chance to speak about our stellar bios and achievements, such a humble, heart warming introduction is rare.

On our way out, we spoke about including this anecdote in our Storytelling & Personal Branding workshops that we run as part of the #DevelopmentJourneysByJombay practice.

My work life gets me to meet different business leaders all the time. But this conversation is going to stand out for a while. In this attention deficit world, with so many star profiles and resumes around, it’s important that we are able to tell our personal stories to influence, connect with and inspire people. In the last 9 years of blogging, I have seen that some of my most popular blogs are the ones which wove stories together that delivered a very hard hitting leadership lesson.

Authentic Personal Branding and Leading with stories is going to be a strong leadership competency of the future. Who are some of your favorite story tellers?