I have vivid, vivacious memories of maneuvering the middle school hallways with my trumpet case in tow, with an awkward bang trim and mismatched converse sneakers. I remember shouting "have a serendipitous day!" over the loudspeaker at 2:50 p.m. as everyone rushed to catch their bus ride home. I remember the day I acquired one of my dearest prized possessions, second only to my password diary and American Girl magazine subscription; a pink Motorola RAZR flip phone. I remember logging onto AIM at the end of the school day to message friends who I hadn't been in direct communication with for the past half hour. I remember obsessively catering to the "look and feel" of my profile, carefully caressing the font and color of the text, updating my personal quote for the week and notifying everyone that I was about to have ravioli for dinner that night. I remember not caring what others thought.

I remember falling asleep at 2:00 a.m. I remember weaving poetry in a wrecked journal. These were trivial, but no less tortuous turning points for the rise of my teenage self. I was on a journey of radical, righteous self discovery, and I was doing so right along with a cumbersome and digitally consumed world. I was on the path of constructing my personal brand.

How does someone achieve prowess in personal branding? How is it possible to mimic the meaning of our wholesome, multifaceted, enigmatic selves with a carton of milk, or a shampoo bottle, or an all-inclusive hotel offer? It's simple, really. We all wear labels, just like the carton of milk. These labels are projected and perceived by those who acknowledge our utter existence, whether we fly by the wall or drive a media frenzy. We have authority over how we present ourselves to the consumers in our lives: our parents, spouses, siblings, bosses, acquaintances, friends, and enemies.

We have the obliged opportunity to renew and refuel our irrefutable appearance with a certain flavor of character and charisma. That image, without our consent, is calculated and accepted in a myriad of complexities, often within a spectrum of envy and admiration. We are judged and cast judgment ourselves. Truthfully, we aren't left with much else than the autonomy to build upon and reform this grounded, capricious foundation, placing the pieces together and at times, completely refiguring the puzzle.

But let it be known, we are all walking, living, breathing marketing campaigns, with the power of a personal brand within us. We ought to alert our consumers when the puzzle pieces have been altered, because otherwise we are nothing more than a nonsensical, incredulous conundrum to the everyday eye and to ourselves.

So, what exactly is a brand? A brand is the portrayal of a value. It's the effort to endear and evoke emotion and the veracious attempt to connect and imprint a lasting impression. A brand is the answer, not the question. It's the exchange between the student waving their hand in the air and the teacher validating or denying what the student asks. We can establish our interface and nuts and bolts, but we cannot establish our core composite at whim. A personal brand isn't derived from who we hope to someday become, it's who we are today. But that's not to say we aren't a work in progress, because we are.

Identities are fragile and fluid, nuanced and idiosyncratic, brazen and insecure, all at once.

Ignoring our identity can result in a variety of unruly reactions. It will grow tired, bored, vapid and dim, slowly decaying while we continue to walk on without it, often against our acknowledgement or will. Personal branding isn't, and should never be solely for the sake of others. It should be built upon values before others are invited to bask in its zeal.

A personal brand isn't found in a registered domain name or a logo of our initials. It isn't the clothing we don or the Pinterest boards we collect or our resume template. A personal brand can't be bought, designed or marketed. The production of a brand doesn't begin with advertising if it's too unsubstantiated to advertise. A clean, responsive website and alluring Instagram feed are most certainly steps in delivering quality value, but those steps can never be taken without declaring the value first. You can't bow for your audience without ever addressing your soliloquy.

Before sharing your Wordpress account or finessing your Twitter bio, begin by exploring who you are, why you are who you are, who you never want to be and who you're too afraid of becoming. Take a morning, or a weekend, or a July to teach yourself about your origin, your presence and your value. This may be an easy exercise, or it may be frightening to learn how little time you've taken to invest in yourself.

We have to become the biggest advocates of our endeavors before anyone will follow our labyrinth of an adventure, and most certainly before anyone will believe in our brand.

*You have been given official permission to talk to yourself, even aloud. If someone gives you a grimace, just inform them that you're conducting some personal market research. Wink wink.