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Personal branding is a very popular buzzword these days. We are encouraged to create our own personal brand to represent ourselves, to create the reputation we want or to increase sales. Two speakers, Olesė Kekienė, an image designer, costume designer, lecturer, and Rasa Baltė Balčiūnienė, a business psychologist and founder of the HAI Institute, talk about how much authenticity is at stake in this game.

- What is authenticity for you when it comes to self-presentation, personal branding?

Olesė: Fashion, appearance, self-presentation is always a confession about what is happening in the environment at the moment: what are the relationships between people, what is the consciousness of the people, what is happening at the political and economic level, what is the general self-perception of the society.

Initially, the image was seen as an opportunity to construct one's personality. By constantly measuring different images, what is false eventually falls away and what resonates remains. Measuring other personalities, other visuals, you still end up concentrating on yourself, unless the process gets stuck in some unhealthy forms.

Today, I think that when constructing an image, you have to learn not to add, but to subtract. My daughter used to say, when she didn't know what to call what I did, that I was a 'dresser' and a 'beautifier'. Now I think I am more of a 'undresser' of all that is unnecessary, unnecessary, fake. I want to get down to the nugget. Authenticity for me is purity. I believe that future self-presentation is about that.

Rasa: Even if a person unconsciously chooses certain images, images, they are still broadcasting what is inside them. If you see on social networks that a person is trying to be like certain influencers, stars, it's easy to understand that they are stereotyped in their thinking and acting. Then you can ask yourself: do you need to partner with someone like that? Do you need this kind of client?

Another option is that the person chooses what he claims to be authentic, but in reality he is dragging in victims or very chaotic images. At this point, you should take off the illusory spectacles that these are random choices. Our psyche is only "in touch" with what we have inside.

Thinking about authenticity, I remembered the old legend of the Chinese rose, born in a cactus family. The cacti, wanting all the best, trained the rose to seek the cactus's conditions. But the rose will not bloom without water... We too are sometimes shaped by what our family, school, etc., wanted us to be as children, and often, having identified with the images that guaranteed our acceptance and survival, we are no longer able to separate ourselves from them and seek our own natural expressions. This is also important when thinking about personal branding, where I think the direction of authenticity, of authenticity, of naturalness, is becoming more and more apparent.

- So how do we strive for that authenticity, how do we not only be authentic but also look authentic? If you are authentic, do you naturally look authentic?

Olesė: Very often I encounter people's need to look rather than to be, to express what already exists. I think that intuitive, spontaneous, self-directed branding is when a person creates without hiding the self, the challenges, when they allow themselves to be sensitive, fragile, real. An important point, is your sign, your activity, your communication the cause or the effect of your own way of life?
When it is the cause, you try to hide a lot of things in your work, to adjust, to create what you imagine society needs, often without any connection to it, without any personal experience. It creates an illusion that you yourself are trying to fit into, to catch up with - it creates a sense of inadequacy, both for the person and for the audience.

And when it is a consequence of your own life, action, thinking - communication becomes authentic. Real courage is not fighting against something, real courage is sensitivity and authenticity. To reflect who you are, regardless of how you are received. With the decision to express oneself and communicate in authenticity comes a lot of reward. People want that courage. They don't want a commodity, they want a piece of the world that you have because you live in it, not because you pretend to live in it. They buy a service and a product because they believe that it is built on the values that you embody.

Rasa: The desire to look, first of all, means that people are still in their adolescent or childish stage. Adulthood is when we construct not what society wants and expects, but what we want from within.
For me, authentic personal branding is about what I do, what I believe, what I live and then I reflect and reflect on it.

Olesė:  I often think, why can't we be who we are, why isn't that enough? I'm a very sensitive, empathetic person, and the visual, auditory noise in our society is often too much for me. It has already been noticed that this world is more suited to extroverts, and there is still the idea that if it is loud, noisy, bright, it is significant, and if it is quiet, it is insignificant.

I was looking for my own form of expression for a while, and I wanted to create in a restrained, meaningful way, but at the same time it was scary to create in a quiet way - people often don't understand what silence is. They are afraid to be in it. They are afraid to hear their own thoughts, to meet their own feelings. They are afraid to feel their own already existing loneliness in silent spaces. In order to hear the subtlety, we have to be subtle ourselves.

I have recently finished the costumes for the play, which are simply white. I am well aware that someone watching might say that nothing special has been done here. But minimalism is not just about uniformity, it's about purity, no excess. Pure is when there is nothing superfluous. We have become so used to abundance, to stimuli, to a lot of stimulation of our nervous system, that it has become very difficult to feel the subtle nuances, the naturalness.

I would very much like to create and maintain a less noisy environment for children. People would then start to hear and see more deeply, to allow themselves to be who they are, without having to think about how to stimulate the environment by themselves. They would simply feel more respect for who they are. For the circumstances, for your body, for your work, for the feelings of others, for the experiences of others... Gratitude and respect are lacking in many aspects. To hear the silent, subtle ones, you have to quieten yourself and the world will reveal itself in its beauty of great diversity.

I want to emphasise that I am not just talking about the calm, unshowy image of the haunted girl. It can be very expressive and colourful. If it is organic to you, if it is an expression of your inner self, of your thinking, of your values, then it will feel real and it will not create noise.

Rasa: Every society, every era has its own trends. Nowadays there is a fashion for self-realisation, for showing your talent, for not being mediocre. A few decades ago, the fashion was not to stand out, not to be different. When we don't feel a deep connection with ourselves, our attention shifts outwards and we automatically want to conform to the external fashion and still get approval and support from those around us. We are now a 'likes' society.

Olesė: Fashion is not a separate entity - it is our reflection and we create it. It allows us to see what is important for the majority of society at the moment. Right now, for example, there's a lot of tension, a lot of demands on ourselves. I agree with Rasa's opinion that we are still in an adolescent, childish stage, when we let others decide how things should be, when we obey the rules, the norms that society dictates. If you are a mature person, you can choose. Either you agree with the fashions/choices of the environment or you don't.

As far as personal branding is concerned, elements of self-discipline and willpower are currently emerging. Self-discipline of thoughts, feelings, actions. One is what happens in your life, the other is what you communicate, how you choose what to share. What you put into yourself is a very important point. I don't allow everything that comes into me to be; I am very conscious of my thoughts, which I would like to flourish, and which are destructive and don't allow me to flourish. How we communicate with ourselves is also very important.

- Why do you think that people who are experts in their fields, masters, very bright, change-making personalities, sometimes don't see the point of communicating about themselves, of creating their own personal brand? They may not have a commercial interest, but it may be altruistically important to dilute the chorus of those who speak loudly but have nothing to say.

Rasa: Young people, children, copy influencers, who are often people who construct themselves artificially. And those who are active, professional, often pay little attention to their personal branding. What happens is that the younger generation, with very little information about people who are active in a meaningful way, sees a much narrower picture, with far fewer alternatives to look up to and learn from.

If there were more modern, interesting people of all ages on social networks, perhaps young people would start to see the older generation differently, more openly. The transfer of experience only happens when we are open, when we believe that the other person is relevant to us in some way, and when we do not deny them. Sharing our experiences and wisdom with other generations is simply a vital need, a basic instinct.

Olesė: I think that personally, I am one of those examples of people who do a lot, create a lot, but only show a tiny piece of it. When we were talking, I felt a sense of responsibility (laughs).
I feel like I've had a responsibility to do something, and I feel like I've had a responsibility to do something. I want other people, especially people who are growing up, people who are emerging, to see how many possibilities there are, how many ways there are to communicate, to be, to act.
Branding can really be "built" on craftsmanship, on communicating knowledge, on revealing what processes you go through. There are areas that share the process quite openly, but there are also very closed ones. For example, students who study fashion often have not seen certain fashion processes and come to work in companies without any knowledge of them.

Exposing the process of mastery in one's own field is, I think, a noble and complete communication. It is both sharing and teaching without the appearance of ego. All of this is more cohesive and sustainable than branding, which is all about the individual. I believe that this is the branding of the future, where not only do you grow in a sustainable way, but the environment grows with you.

- Do you think it's worth turning to experts for advice on how to build your personal brand? It seems that the information should come from within us.

Rasa: Our brain network works according to learned patterns, stereotypes, and sometimes it's very difficult for us to see ourselves in a new way - we have very strong habits, automatic functioning. A good practitioner can help you to see yourself in a new way, to accelerate the expression of the growth that has already taken place inside, to save your mental energy and to help you to move to a new qualitative level, avoiding the inertia of having to choose again the familiar forms and ways of acting.

Olesė: I agree - a good professional can guide you through the process, add a sense of purpose and effectiveness to it.

It happens that in childhood there are certain fixations, traumas, which then lead to the fact that a great professional, a specialist in his field, feels a great fear of going out in public and saying what he does, of sharing what he knows. Just subconsciously, it seems dangerous to him. This is where the right facilitator can help to break this barrier.

Rasa: I notice that nowadays we are often afraid of commerce. It's like if they want to sell me something, then I'm immediately manipulated. And for those who want to present their work, there's a fear that others will think they're the ones who want to manipulate, or they have few clients, and that's why they're selling themselves.

And really it's an interesting process for people: what works for you, what doesn't work for you, what you have realised. Not a show-off, but a real journey. In this way, when you create your personal brand, you are doing a kind of education, you are making connections and you are creating a kind of diary.

I think we need to ask ourselves whether our personal branding is 'forced' on us, stemming from a compulsory responsibility, and whether we are acting according to trends, perceived needs and, inevitably, stereotypes. Or do we create our personal branding out of choice, out of what is in our shared living network, where knowledge and wisdom are passed on and become an organic way of life.

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