What Do Others See As Your Identity?

Logos communicate an image or idea instantly.

In business, identity is critical. We see it with quickly recognizable logos – for example, Nike, KFC, BMW, or New York Yankees. Business cards are designed to instantly convey who you are and what you do. When a company comes up with a unique product, they take legal steps to establish their trademark. And more and more these days, enterprises become extremely protective of their brand, who they are as a whole – think NASCAR, or Disney.

What do you think of when you see this silhouette?
What do people think when they see your "logo"?

Have you ever considered, even if you don’t own a business or head a company, that you also have a “logo,” “business card,” “trademark” and “brand” by which others can assess who you are and what you stand for?

Recently I read the following that speaks to that: “Your smile is your logo, your personality is your business card, how you leave others feeling after an experience with you becomes your trademark.” And I would add, “whether others aspire to be like you is your brand.”

Think about it: Whenever we have an encounter with someone else, whether in the workplace, neighborhood, supermarket, school, even a ball field, we make an impression. And impressions are lasting, sometimes indelible. People associate us with an image we’ve created – in essence, our logo, our business card, our trademark, and our brand.

So what does your personal “logo” look like? Is it a smile that makes others smile as well, or a frown that darkens someone’s otherwise sunny day? When people look at your “business card,” are they drawn to you as a person they want to hang around with – or when they see you approach, do they look for somewhere to hide?

I’ve been around people whose “trademark” was extremely appealing. They had the innate capacity to turn my frown upside-down. There have been others, however, who made the Grim Reaper seem like the life of the party. And there have been some individuals who, even though they’d be embarrassed if I said so, exhibited qualities I greatly admired and wished to emulate in my own life. In other words, I appreciated their “brand.”

A logo, trademark, even a
business card, make up
a brand - literally and
figuratively.

You might be thinking – as I do – that's easier for some people to pull off than others. Energetic, effervescent, gregarious people seem to attract others like magnets without much effort. Folks swarm around them, thinking, “I’ll have what she’s having.” What about introverts (and I’m one) who have to labor at engaging effectively with others. Are our logo, business card, trademark and brand doomed from the start?

For followers of Jesus, we will always have the personalities – winsome or otherwise – we’ve been hard-wired with from birth, but we have an advantage: He can, and desires, to manifest His life through us. Reading about His life in the gospels, we find Jesus had people flocking to Him all of the time. “News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases…. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him” (Matthew 4:24-25).

That’s nice, but what does it have to do with us and how we interact with people around us? Actually, it has a lot to do with it. Because, as Galatians 2:20 says of each believer in Jesus, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

If that’s true, what’s the result? Simply that when people encounter us, they should feel – consciously or subconsciously – that they are in His presence as well. As the Scriptures tell us, “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life” (2 Corinthians 2:14-15). 

Would people say you exhibit the “fragrance of Christ”? If people were to describe your logo, trademark or brand, would they say that Jesus Christ is a significant part of it? Is He an integral part of your identity, of who you are?