How to be a legendary Personal Brand?

I don't do fashion, I am fashion. Coco Chanel.

I have often wondered whether anyone felt like me: a dog on a leash, wearing ber-expensive labeled brands like an LV, Hermes, CD et al. We have all at some stage aspired to flaunt our worth by owning premium luxury brands. But midway through life, I have a re-take on my personal impulsive indulgences.

As I slung an LV tote on my shoulders, a stole with a Dior logo, or a Jimmy Choo on my feet, where was the real  Me ? buried under this ensemble. Who was I ? Did I at all own an identity, or was I an extension of a label I wore of some non-sensical firang (foreign) name. Honestly, I felt stupid stereo-typed and a wannabe when I only bought a label, in hindsight.

For a reality check, being classy or elegant is not the prerogative of the affluent. One can look and feel supremely confident with just street- fashion if one becomes a brand on ones own.

That's a personal brand. Something one's grown to be through trial and error over years: that very distinctive and defining entity that has character, compassion and has evolved a personal code to live by.

Each woman is gifted with a unique calling which is as distinct as our fingerprint. And the best way to succeed is to decode, discover and develop that unique gift to perfection, and thereafter offer it to others in the form of service, while allowing the energy of the Supreme to flow through us and lead us on to our highest potential.

It is utterly feminine to own a creative mind as much as it is important to maintain a healthy and well-sculpted body if possible or keep at grooming one's appearance. Channelising the mind in pursuit of any vocation, commercial or artistic, is a daily muscle- workout for the brain to enhance one's personal branding.

While each one of us has ones responsibility to the family, we do have a greater one to ourselves, to come into our own 'astitva' and a fuller expression of one's being. It's far more fulfilling and gratifying than all the jewelry and fashionable clothes a woman adorns herself with. When the mind of a woman is in full- bloom, she's birthing an idea which can impact not only her own life but also enhance the quality of life of future generations.

We think of frittering away on consumerism by buying depreciating assets like luxury cars and indulging in retail bingeing during one's earning years, quite forgetting that the life-span of our prime earning years is limited to an optimal of 3 decades. The latter half of our years require savings for contingencies, insurance for health and maintaining a quality life going ahead. It is in the primary years when we feel we will live forever, that we tend to be extravagant, prodigious and live beyond our means.

I have greatly admired the likes of billionaire Bill Gates wife, Melinda, or Infosys founder Narayan Murthy's wife, Sudha, as epitomes of moral grandeur and for living lives with purpose, because they never flaunted unrestrained capitalism. They did not glamourize poverty through cheque-book philanthropy, sipping champagne at some charity-ball to raise funds for an orphanage, but instead are grassroot activists, visiting the distressed at the spot of misery.

When one nurtures a pastime and passion one enjoys, its also a form of prayer, a creative quietude. All the above done in moderation then, is part of a whole, not the whole. I realized it the hard way that a life well lived was not one that was steeped in serial indulgences to the exclusion of all else, but one that was acquired through continuous reading, learning, reflection and contemplation.

So, flaunt your mind.....because that's your ultimate brand.....Revel in buying branded luxury, but let your personal branding be your stamp, one that overshadows material acquisitions.