This morning I sat down to attend a LinkedIn Live on personal branding. Ironically, it happened about 20 minutes after I’d been thinking about creating a little corner of the internet called “Jill’s Backroad”. The timing felt perfect.
For about 45 minutes, I sat there peacefully listening to designers talk about building a personal brand and presenting yourself professionally online.
Then the doorbell rang.
In less than two seconds, my calm little world of personal branding came crashing down and I entered what I now consider the real Jill’s Backroad.
Bogart, my 100-pound mastiff hound mix, immediately lost his mind. Barking. Running. Full security detail mode. I tried every trick I know to get him to settle down, but nothing was working. Finally, I resorted to what I call emergency kibble scatter protocol. This involves tossing kibble across the floor just long enough to interrupt his brain so I could slip outside without him launching through the door and accidentally scaring a sweet older couple into cardiac arrest.
Turns out they were Jehovah’s Witnesses telling me about their website and all the articles they had available online. Honestly, they were incredibly nice people. So I stood there and listened, even though deep down I knew the only reason I’d probably visit the website later was to evaluate the UX design. Some habits die hard.
I finally came back inside hoping to resume my LinkedIn Live, but by then my husband had come upstairs to talk about his allergies and ears, and I decided maybe today just wasn’t meant to be my polished professional growth morning.
So naturally, I thought:
“Let’s take the dogs outside to burn off some energy.”
BIG mistake.
Our older dog, Delilah — or Athena D. as I like to call her when she taps into her ancient warrior spirit — immediately found some kind of critter hiding in the tall grass. Ed and I managed to redirect her, while Bogart, who is supposedly part hound yet somehow completely clueless about all things chipmunk-related, decided that if Athena D. was excited, he obviously needed to be involved too.
Eventually, we got everyone separated and the dogs took off running and chasing each other around the yard.
Crisis averted.
Or so I thought.
About five minutes later, I decided it was entirely too hot outside because summer had apparently arrived overnight in Chicagoland. I started calling the dogs toward the door when suddenly I spotted Athena D. with something in her mouth - a chipmunk!
I yelled:
“DROP IT!”
Thankfully, she did.
Unfortunately, Bogart interpreted my yelling as permission to launch himself directly at Delilah in what can only be described as full-contact backyard wrestling.
So now that the chipmunk was saved, Delilah needed to be saved, and I was out there sweating in the Illinois humidity trying to stop a 100-pound teenage moose-dog from body slamming his elderly sister.
Pure chaos.
And by the time I finally got everyone safely back inside, I was exhausted.
Now, my friends, at this point I stopped caring about crafting the perfect personal brand because honestly… this IS my personal brand.
A little chaotic.
A little compassionate.
A little exhausted.
And a whole lot of dog.
But maybe that’s the point.
Maybe discovering who you are doesn’t happen in perfectly curated moments. Maybe it happens somewhere in the backyard. Sweaty, overwhelmed, and trying to hold onto a little calm in the middle of complete chaos.
Because sometimes the real version of ourselves shows up long before we’re polished enough to share it with the world.
Perhaps the goal isn’t to wait until our lives look perfect before we let people see who we are.
Maybe, just maybe, we should share our personal brand with the world anyway. Even if it’s still a little messy.