What Do You Want to Be Known For?

That matters.

Because people put people in boxes.

Founder. Investor. Designer. Operator. Technology person. Retail person. Someone who builds companies. Someone who fixes difficult situations. Someone who knows everybody.

Or the dangerous one:

“Really interesting person. I'm just not entirely sure what they do.”

One of the reasons I care about this is because I don't think most people's CVs explain who they really are.

Job titles certainly don't.

You might have worked across five industries. You might have had completely different titles. You might have started businesses, advised people, worked for somebody else, invested, failed, started again.

On paper it can look messy.

But there may be something remarkably consistent underneath it.

Perhaps people always ask you to solve complicated problems. Perhaps you're the person who gets everyone around a table. Perhaps you spot commercial opportunities. Perhaps you make things happen. Perhaps you build teams. Perhaps you see what something could become before everyone else does.

That pattern is much more interesting to me than your chronology.

Your history contains evidence.

The job is to find the red thread.

This is something I see all the time.

The more complicated someone's career has been, the more they feel they need to explain.

So they tell you everything. They think the detail creates credibility.

Often it creates confusion.

You don't need everybody you meet to understand everything you've ever done.

You need them to understand enough of the right things to know why you matter.

That's different.

If I meet you tonight and tomorrow somebody says: “You should speak to Mark. He'd be brilliant for this.”

I need to know why.

That's the test.

Can somebody who has met you explain your value when you're not in the room?

I'm slightly uncomfortable with the phrase “personal brand.”

You are not a packet of cereal.

And I don't want this exercise to manufacture some polished version of you that sounds impressive on LinkedIn but bears very little resemblance to the person someone meets over dinner.

We're trying to do almost the opposite.

We're trying to find something that is true enough to earn.

What have you repeatedly demonstrated? What are you unusually useful for? What do people already trust you with? What could you credibly become known for? And where do you actually want that reputation to take you?

Because there's another danger here.

You can become extremely well known for something you no longer want to do.

Your history matters. It is evidence.

But it shouldn't become a prison.

If you've spent twenty years doing something, people will naturally continue to associate you with it.

That doesn't mean you have to spend the next twenty years doing the same thing.

You are allowed to change. You are allowed to decide that a chapter has done its job. You are allowed to become interested in a different problem.

But there has to be a bridge.

You can't simply announce a completely new identity tomorrow and expect everybody else to believe it.

You need to understand what your past gives you permission to do next.

And sometimes that bridge is much more interesting than you realise.

You can change your LinkedIn headline tonight. You can rewrite your biography. You can build a beautiful website. You can announce that you're a thought leader, visionary, strategist, entrepreneur or whatever else you fancy.

None of that means anybody believes you.

Your reputation exists in other people's heads.

The strongest position is one that people eventually start repeating without you asking them to.

That takes evidence. It takes behaviour. It takes consistency. Sometimes it takes time.

So this exercise isn't going to finish by giving you a slogan.

It's going to help you identify a reputation worth earning.

By the end, I want you to understand:

What people probably think you're good at today.

What you actually want to become known for.

What evidence gives you permission to occupy that territory.

Who you need to matter to.

What is currently confusing the picture.

What alternative position you may be overlooking.

And importantly: what you would need to do next for that reputation to become true.