One of my favorite stories is about an apocryphal tribe where villagers say every child has a unique and special song. During a pregnancy, the mother-to-be and her friends go on their equivalent of a planning retreat–spending time in the woods until the unborn child has “taught” them his or her song. At birth, the entire village greets the newborn with that song, and it’s repeated on every milestone occasion. In this society, it’s said there is no legal system. When someone is suspected of wrongdoing, the tribe simply surrounds that villager and repeatedly sings the birth song–believing that no one goes astray if they remember who they really are.

I love that story because it says so much about human identity.  It also says a lot about the potential power of branding.  If you give voice to something that’s deeply true about yourself or your organization, and that others can recognize as compellingly true for them as well, you can start to stand for something that’s indelible and uniquely you.

At the heart of a brand is an identity that’s real and matters. I believe every organization, every individual–every product and service–has a a unique and animating presence that defines what they’re meant to stand for in the world. (Okay, is anyone humming “Make Your Own Kind of Music” yet?).  Maybe this makes me a branding Pollyanna–and I’ll certainly admit to being a branding Idealist—but wouldn’t the world be a better place if people and organizations had an authentic sense of identity that shapes how they show up in the world?

So, how do you develop a “song sheet” for yourself or your organization?  Since no one is going out in the woods to find it for you, you’re going to have to do what Jennifer Warnes sings about in a song I often turn to for inspiration: go to “The Well” (listen on YouTube here: http://bit.ly/2chXhfp).  If you look deeply enough, here are three things you’ll find in your personal or organizational “well” that add up to a brand voice worth hearing:

1.  Know your own story. You can’t sing a brand to life if you don’t understand the story you’re meant to tell. Your story captures what’s most meaningful and motivating to you—and what’s most likely to draw others to you as well.  If you want to explore this further, take the free story typing survey on my website.  It will identify one of 12 great characters you or your organization is most like: http://www.storybranding.com/take-the-svss-survey/).

Defining a story is based on a startingly simple but powerful question:  Who are you?  We don’t ask this question enough of ourselves, and we certainly don’t ask it enough of each other.  In most workplaces, we spend a lot more time on another question:  What can you do?  The problem is that question shifts much of our focus to enhancing performance in ways that encourage people to leave their most important gifts off the table.  When we focus on performance to the exclusion of presence, we leave half of ourselves behind (and much of what energizes and activates us).

So finding an empowering story isn’t just about branding (personal or organizational).  It’s also a foundational component for developing leaders, engaging employees, building teams and creating cultures where people want to participate and contribute.  That’s because defining an authentic storyline captures what people have both the capacity and the will to do (and be).

2.  Explore your own unique combination of strengths and values. Your brand “song” should always be based on what’s best and most distinctive about you—the strengths that shape what you can truly offer the world and the values that connect you with others.  This is what makes for great stories in the first place.  The characters in them use something they’re good at (their strengths) to realize something that matters to them (their values).  It’s this dynamic combination that fascinates us and imbues a great story with both meaning and motivation.  Brands that are built on this pattern do the very same thing.

3.  Articulate your purpose and your promise. We all need inspiration and purpose to keep us invested in our journeys.  Purpose captures our very reason for being; it offers the fuel to enliven and motivate us.  So, after you’ve answer the question of who you are, you also need to explore why you’re here at all.

Finding your purpose is an inspiring and empowering journey.  But there’s another one question that has to be answered if you want to activate your purpose in the world:  What makes anyone else care?  Every great brand needs to get to the happy ending; the outcome you can always be counted on to deliver that matters to someone else.  It’s the energetic fuel that helps you engage others.

Ultimately, a great brand “song” captures your passion and purpose in a way that’s so alive others can feel it, see it and hear it.  If you want to create a brand that’s both inspiring and authentic, listen to yourself and also listen to the things that move you.  Then deliver on a promise that helps those you’re meant to serve drink from the well also.  As Jennifer Warnes sings, “The wild world is speaking, let’s go to the well.”

Who do you get out of bed in the morning to be? This isn’t the first question that most of my clients expect me to ask.  It may not even be something they’ve ever thought much about.  But if you want to really unleash your voice in the world—if you want to be heard and seen and appreciated for something that will get other people interested in you—it’s the first question you need to answer.

Traditional branding strategy says you should start by understanding your target audience–and knowing what they care about is a critical step if you want your message to resonate.  First, though, you need to understand who you are and what you’re passionate about offering up to the world so that you can have a vibrant, vital, authentic, arresting conversation about it.

Defining and articulating the essence of who you are is what unleashes your authentic voice, and allows you to engage others at the human level where real relationships grow and flourish. It’s what connects others to you in a lasting way, gives life and shape to what you have to offer, and provides a foundation for inspiring messages. When you understand yourself, you create the kind of zeal that gets attention. Your success can then be enhanced by shaping what you say in ways that are relevant to others.

What’s the best way to do this? It’s all about seeing your organization or yourself in the context of a meaningful and motivating narrative.

Doing that allows you to take the three most critical steps for unleashing your voice:

• Step one: Defining and sharing the great story you’re moved to tell in the world
• Step two: Fully stepping in to the role that helps others most understand and connect with your core purpose
• Step three: Shifting your communications away from informational and promotional content to messages that connect and motivate

So if you’re a non-profit, it’s great for me to know you have 452 programs for helping those you support—but you won’t touch my heart until I see you as a Caregiver who recognizes and develops the potential in all. If you’re a government agency, I do want to know that you have the world’s largest database of critical scientific information—but I won’t feel a strong connection until I understand you as a Sage who uses that information to answer tough questions affecting my quality of life. If you’re a food manufacturer, it’s great to know that your nutrition bars have eight superfood ingredients—but I won’t feel much loyalty until I see you as a Hero on a mission to reshape healthy eating in this country.

Caregivers, Sages, Heroes—they’re all characters in great stories that people love to her and share. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we all have an essential story we were born to tell that features a compelling character. The strengths and values of these characters can shape our organizational or individual purpose, and give us the courage to stand up and stand out in the world.

I get out of bed in the morning to be a Creator. When I build my business and my professional life around Creator gifts and talents, I’m at my most effective, productive and fulfilled. When I’m acting on my Creator mission—to help others understand and express who they are in the world—I’ve got a lot to talk about. Often, I find that the right people, partners and clients are listening. So, how about you? Who are you in the story you most want to tell?

I’m a big fan of Patti Digh, author of Life is a Verb, Creative is a Verb, and a wonderful blog, 37days.com.  Patti started the blog, which launched her writing career, when her stepfather died—just 37 days after he was diagnosed with lung cancer.

That’s the kind of wake-up call that would shake any of us, and it was a call that Patti answered in a significant way. She decided she had something to say, first to her daughters and then to the world–messages that she needed to leave behind if she ever had just 37 days, and messages that needed to shape her life if she had many more.  The writing that followed became a kind of instructional manual to her daughters for how to be in the world and how to live a fuller, more intentional life.

Patti started asking herself what she’d be doing that day if she only had 37 days to live.  And she also began championing the concept of 37 days as a timeline for living—not just for dying.  She decided that if you devoted 37 days to almost anything, it would change your life; that it’s enough time to change a habit or create a new one; to incrementally but significantly alter your worldview; to figure out what you really have to say and start saying it.

And that’s where this all begins to tie into to branding, to message strategy and to unleashing your voice in the world.  I’m thinking there’s a kind of “37 days” litmus test we could all put to a personal or an organizational brand.  It would include questions like:

• If you or your organization had only 37 days to live, what do you need to get busy saying right now?
• Why are you talking about anything else, anyway?
• What can you do in the next 37 days to make sure you’re standing for and communicating something that matters?

The sense of urgency that comes from not having much time has a lot to teach all of us.  What really matters becomes crystal clear.  What we care about most moves front and center.  Who we are without all the excess window dressing is far more evident.  There’s no time to waste on the extraneous.

All of that is what makes a great brand, well, great.  Its focus is clear; its message is loud and proud; its intent is real and human.  It knows who it is, and it doesn’t try to be anything else.

And you can create that kind of brand for yourself or your organization—especially if you use the “37 days” filter to shape it. It’s pretty simple, really. Build a brand identity based on who you really are and what you need to say, and share it in a way that matters to those who need to hear it.  Let an imagined sense of urgency guide you to that clear focus, that proud message, that authentic intent.

Oh, and don’t give yourself more than 37 days to do it.