Assessing Your Value by Pretending it's Gone

Yesterday, I attended a branding strategy webinar during which the speaker posed the question: If your brand stopped existing tomorrow, what would be the impact?

It's not a new idea, but it's a great reminder brand marketers and strategists should reconsider every so often to ensure unique relevance and resonance among their target audience.

But my thought today goes beyond corporate communications and content marketing and branding strategy and L&D efforts. My thought today is: What if we applied that question to ourselves? (Not in a morbid way! In a way that helps us articulate our value at work.)

Personally, I work hard to add value in strategic ways. I work hard to connect with people and engage them and inspire them. Do I see my impact? Do others feel it? Those are two different lenses - how I see my impact, and how others see my impact. They should align, but you could do this exercise and explore whether they do or what it means if they don't.

Sometimes we take things for granted. Sometimes we forget how valuable something is - or how valuable we are. But when we envision that negative space, when we consider a future where that thing or person is gone (or different), we can more viscerally feel the impact. 

If we feel a tug, maybe some regret, or an urge not to leave, those feelings are telling us something. Maybe there's something to hold onto. Maybe there's something to embrace or fulfill to lean into. Or maybe there's something to let go of. If we don't really care about what would happen once we leave a place or situation because we feel excited by greener pastures and new adventures, then maybe that's telling us a shift would be welcome, and it's time to take a leap.

So, I see this exercise as two-fold:

1)

Ask yourself what would happen if you stopped doing what you're doing. Would your company feel it? Your colleagues? Your team members? Your projects? What would change?

If you can clearly see (and maybe quantify) the you-shaped hole, then you're doing a great job at adding value. You should feel validated and confident and impactful. And if you weren't doing that job but someone else were, and you can see the difference, then you should feel proud of the unique value you bring to the table, and you should keep finding ways to add (and elevate) that value. 

If you can't clearly see the impact, that doesn't mean you aren't making a difference; it just might mean it might behoove you to make a shift, or change your metrics, or consider amplifying Thing X or cutting out Thing Y. Or you could also pull other levers, like audience or application, as your impact might be felt more heavily in certain situations than others.

2)

If it makes you sad to imagine yourself not doing what you're doing, then maybe you're doing the right thing. Maybe that means you're supporting your passions and using the right skills and challenging yourself just enough, and you should keep doing that thing (and maybe even grow it). But if not doing it makes you feel indifferent or even energized, then you should explore that idea and see what that insight might be telling you.

My circle knows I'm big into self-awareness and reflection. I'm going to try this for myself, and I'd love to invite others to do this exercise, too. Take a moment and imagine yourself not doing your current job, or engaging with your current network, or doing whatever you're doing right now. And explore how it makes you feel, what that means for your future, and how you might use these insights to fuel your behaviors thereafter.

Questions for reflection:

• What is the impact?

• How is your loss felt?

• In what situations is your impact felt most heavily?

• How do you feel about it personally? Is it sad, or is it invigorating?

• What do you think this means?

• How will this impact your actions moving forward?

Reflection gives us data we can use to change our behaviors and usher in a better future for ourselves and others through intentional action.

Do with it what you will - hopefully something good!

Bonus:

Once you imagine the scenario in which you are no longer doing what you're doing, and you complete the mental activity of exploring how you would feel, how others would feel, and what would happen as a result, take one extra step and bring yourself back into the equation. Use your insights to a) take action -- either away from the thing you don't want to do anymore or toward the thing you do want to do more of, and b) practice gratitude. We all experience things we don't like, and we all have little loves in our life. We should be grateful for all of it -- the positives and the negatives, the lessons, the opportunities, and all that has yet to happen for us. I'd love to hear what actions you plan to take or have taken since doing this exercise, as well as how your gratitude has grown as a result.