Well this was convenient happenstance.

Men’s Fitness released their list on The Game Changers of 2014. Amongst that varied list, which included juggernauts such as Stephen Colbert (I love that guy), Pharrell, Stephen Curry (I love the NBA), was … me! Sol Orwell, “The Educator”.

First off – what an honor. I had originally thought it was a list of game changers in fitness, so I was thinking – yeah sure, Examine.com belongs in that list. Only when this went live did I realize that it was a bit more encompassing than that. And I’ll admit, it felt awesome.

After my last post (in which I called out people like the Food Babe and Tania Browne about their narcissism), I had about a dozen people ask me – is building your own brand bad?

Of course not

Everyone builds a brand. The question to ask – is the brand about your self or about your work?

As an example, lets consider my friend Eric Cressey. He’s a “brand.” He has his own fan page. BUT – when you think of him, what comes to mind? Rehabilitation. Baseball/pitching. Teaching. All based around his work, not around him.

When you think of magazine writers like Lou Schuler and Adam Bornstein (I’d include Sean but that’s just cheating hah), their brand is not about themselves, but about their nuanced writing. Their fans are fans because of their work.

I’d like to believe the same applies for me. Sure, you may like me, and you may admire my beard (seriously – the #1 compliment I get is about my beard from guys), but what you really like is what Examine.com is doing.

On the other hand, when you think of people like FoodBabe, what do you think of? Their constant screeching. Their self-congratulations. It’s as if they love to hear themselves talk. Mememe all the time.

Just look at Tania Brown on twitter – how exactly did she find time to tweet 45,400 times?!?! Across 5 years, that’s ~760 tweets per month, or 25 tweets a day!

I’m tired just thinking about tweeting 25 times a day, much less every day for 5 years.

At the end of the day, we all build our own brands, and we even have different brands of ourselves. Our family likely knows us differently than our friends who know us differently than our significant others. But – is your professional brand about you or what you can do?