"The Chained Elephant" is one of the short stories from the book "Let me tell you a story" (2010), by Jorge Bucay, psychiatrist, and psychotherapist. Like Bucay, we wanted to use this story to promote reflection on essential aspects of personal and professional well-being, namely the importance of self-knowledge and building and communicating a cohesive and authentic personal/professional brand.

As in many tales, we could begin with a "Once upon a time"...

Once upon a time there was an elephant who grew up tied to a stake. While small, he struggled, trying in vain to free himself from the chains that bound him. As time went by, he gave up fighting. He accepted reality.

What could explain this outcome? How could the Elephant, great and strong, have let himself be quiet, when he was bound by such weak chains, which would certainly have succumbed to his strength by then?

One could speak of a learned discouragement, or even of an ignorance of its strengths, which would enable it to adapt to its surroundings and redefine its path. 

We are often like an elephant in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world, in which not knowing ourselves and our resources, as well as not investing in their development, has repercussions on our choices, our authenticity, our well-being and even on the way we present ourselves to others in the context of personal and/or professional relationships.  

In order to adapt to the surroundings, and build HIS path, it would have been an advantage for this "elephant" to have a fundamental resource – positive psychological capital. Psychological capital is the psychological state of positive development in which the individual is characterised by: 1) a high confidence (efficacy) to expend the effort required to succeed in challenging tasks; 2) making positive attributions (optimism) about being able to succeed in the future; 3) persevering towards the goal despite obstacles, redirecting the path to get there (hope), 4) as well as showing the ability to bounce back in the face of adversity – resilience (Luthans et al., 2007)[1].

We realise the importance of this psychological capital and the urgency of investing in the development of these resources. Several studies have shown its relevance in terms of psychological well-being, stress management capacity, engagement, professional performance, positive interpersonal relationships, work and life satisfaction (...) (Avey, Reichard, Luthans, & Mhatre, 2011; Luthans & Youssef, 2017).

Promoting this psychological capital involves investing in self-knowledge – "who am I and what kind of person am I becoming?", "where did I come from and where am I going?", "why am I going?", "how am I going?", "when am I going?" – aware that past experiences do not have to limit the choices and paths to be taken. It also requires knowing and analysing one's own potential and limitations at different levels, openness and availability for continuous personal development, as well as practising authenticity on a daily basis. 

 

Personal and professional branding: building and communication

To better understand the importance of personal branding, we ask you to do the following exercise:

Think of someone you admire – it could be from your group of friends or from university. With that person in mind, try to answer the following questions: What do you admire most about that person? What is their working style? What are the person’s main values? (...)

Surely the person you thought of has left an impression on you – their personal brand. We all have a perceived personal brand.

When we talk about personal brand, we include aspects such as the way you present yourself, communicate, your attitudes and behaviour, values, skills, personality, personal image and your digital reputation.

So, before we move on, we pose the following questions:

What is your perceived personal brand? How do they see you as a student / future professional? Are they seeing you in the way you want to?

These questions, which place the emphasis on the knowledge you have about yourself, allow you to open up spaces so that you can strengthen your personal and professional brand and communicate it in an authentic and coherent way.

Building your brand is a process that takes place early on and requires care, since it can easily have a negative impact in the different contexts in which we move, including the digital world. 

We constantly leave a "digital" impression, through our shares, comments and interactions, so social media can act as both an ally or an adversary.  It is therefore not surprising that very often recruiters turn to the internet to do an online profile check of the candidate, analysing the person in 3 dimensions – identity (who the person is), behaviour (what the person does and says), references (who the person is connected to and what others say about the person).

Considering the importance and the impact of the "digital fingerprint" on our personal brand, we call your attention to the following steps:

STEP 1 – REFLECT ON THE QUESTIONS:

• "In my role as a student / professional how do I want to be recognised? What guides me?"
• "How do you see me as a student / professional (...)?"
• "Is there congruence and consistency between the professional image I present and the one I convey through social media?"

STEP 2 – ANALYSE YOUR DIGITAL PRESENCE AND DON'T FORGET [2]: