What we can learn about personal branding from The Breakfast Club
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen The Breakfast Club, and you don’t want to know the ending, go watch it and then come back and read this.
John Hughes plops us in the middle of 1985, in what could be any high school in North America (pre-covid of course). For a variety of reasons, students are showing up for Saturday detention.
From the outside, they all look different.
A brain.
An athlete.
A basket case.
A princess.
A criminal.
Think back to your time in high school. Where did you fit in?
As teenagers, we’re all trying to find our place. And high school seemingly makes it really convenient by creating pre-determined groups (like the ones above), that most of us fall into.
OK, back to the movie. Mr. Vernon, who’s clearly super happy about being at school on a Saturday, is the first to judge them by their appearances. But throughout the film, each student starts to reveal there’s more to them than meets the eye.
If you look at yourself, that’s true for you too, right?
In the pie chart that is your life, there are many pieces of you. Some of them are obvious on the surface, and some not so much.
Personal branding isn’t about showing everyone every part of you. It’s about knowing every part of you; embracing every part of you, so you can come to the same conclusion that the students do (see below) and use it to make the best decision for you (and your business). Not the decision that someone else (even your business coach) thinks is right for you. The one that makes you feel 100% confident that you’ve got this!
If you aren’t feeling that level of confidence in your decision making, let’s chat.
Dear Mr. Vernon,
We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. And you see us as you want to see us... in the simplest terms in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...and an athlete...and a basket case...a princess...and a criminal. Does that answer your question?
Sincerely yours,
The Breakfast Club
