Forged by Fire: How to Develop an Unstoppable Personal Brand

By Mila Grigg

...When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

-Job 23:10

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
• Release date: Oct 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781544530437

Mila Grigg

Mila Grigg is the founder and CEO of MODA, one of the most recognized branding groups in the United States. With twenty years in the field, Mila's expertise in building personal brands, growing leadership equity, and crafting marketing and social media strategies comes from her experience, not opinion or observation. From executives at Fortune 100s to first-time entrepreneurs and everything in between, Mila has helped leaders with various backgrounds and organizations of all sizes create, communicate, and profit from their brands.

Book preview

Introduction

My personal brand was built during the most arduous trial of my life. I was forged by fire, and made stronger by all the elements that combined during that incredibly difficult time—and if I can do it, so can you. I’m living proof of the amazing things you can accomplish despite the fires you may be facing.

The abbreviated version of the story goes like this: I was a newly married, young entrepreneur trying to balance the needs of my husband, four new stepchildren, and a growing business when the US Attorney called. I gave the phone to Gordon and watched as the blood drained from his face.

He hung up and told me, I’m going downtown today, and I’m probably not going to be coming back.

I started crying and yelled, What did you do? My husband being questioned for some unknown misdeed was not part of any future I’d ever envisioned.

Building an entrepreneurial brand is hard on a good day, but trying to do it with a husband facing criminal charges was going to be damn near impossible. Still, I put my head down and worked as hard as I possibly could. At the time, I was starting to make a name for myself in the business world and had been featured in several publications and magazines through sheer tenacity. My work focused on helping executives at all levels, businesspeople, and entrepreneurs build, revamp, or upgrade their image. Many of them were unhappy with what they saw in the mirror. They felt their image wasn’t reflective of who they really were—often not inspiring, current, confident, or polished enough. I didn’t try to change who they were; instead, I helped them change how they saw themselves and have an image that reflected who they really were.

Although survival was the only thing on my mind when Gordon was sent to prison nine months later, I ended up positively THRIVING. I soon realized my passion and calling went far beyond image and fashion—my God-given gifting was to help people find their purpose and help them to share their stories so that they would be seen, valued, heard. Through guts, grit, and determination, I grew my business and began coaching executives on branding. From there, it expanded to include companies and marketing teams. Then keynotes and employee training and coaching sessions. What a ride.

I was eventually tapped to give a series of keynotes for a Fortune 500 company in Tennessee. It was a huge opportunity at the time, and one of my first few at a business of that size and caliber. That I had been able to build my brand to a place where a Fortune 500 company was trusting me to train their executives felt like a huge success given everything that had transpired. It still blows my mind. To this day, I never take for granted the blessing of any client and am overwhelmed with gratitude.

That day, I was greeted by over a hundred faces in the audience. When I started talking about how to build personal brand and how to get recognized for your value, I realized the only way I could truly make my point was by sharing some key pieces of my story. I was as authentic as I’ve ever been in a corporate environment that day, and I figured either I’d get fired or it was going to be great.

After my presentation, I was met with a long line of people waiting to talk to me. Some people told me about their own fires. Others thanked me for sharing my heart. Most seemed moved and motivated by my message, and were fortified by the expression of faith I gave in response to some of their personal questions. Authenticity, as well as some courage, had won the day. There would be no firing, and lots more hiring.

I’ll never forget sitting in my car after that keynote and realizing how the trials in my life had come together to help me deliver on my own purpose. I was grateful and completely overwhelmed by God’s blessings. If I hadn’t been tested, I’d never know how strong I—and my brand—could become, or how absolute and determined I could be. Fires have a strange way of leading you to your true reason for being on this earth if you continue to focus on the purpose of the fire versus the pain of it.

People have told me that watching me go through the fire changed their lives. They admire the way I never wavered in my resolve, my faith, or who I was. I had moments to be sure, but I was resolute in my conviction of faith, family, and growing my company, come what may. I want to instill in you the same kind of steadfast faith and strength with regard to your personal brand and yourself. That way, if the bottom ever falls out—which it absolutely will at some point—you’re going to land on a solid foundation. You only fall as far as your brand allows you to fall. More on that later.

The Spark: You

Whether you realize it or not, you already have a brand. In fact, you are one.

Your brand is you. It’s WHO you really are. It’s what you say and do, who and what you associate yourself with, and the way you show up in the world. It is how people describe you and it matters.

How well you cultivate brand YOU determines whether you nail that hard-earned promotion or get passed over for it. Whether you’re recognized and sought after for your talents or remain invisible to others. Whether the CEO of your company greets you in the elevator or stares at their feet, watch, or phone—anything but start a conversation with you. Whether you land that board position. Whether you are given the opportunity you deserve. And so much more.

Because let’s get real here: you can be incredibly smart. Dress well. Communicate effectively. Have high emotional intelligence. Be a purposeful and inspiring leader. Know how to share on social media. But if you’re missing one element of an unstoppable personal brand like those I mentioned and more—and you’re making the same mistakes over and over without even realizing it—you’re never going to get where you want to go or reach your purpose.

Brand-stoppers can be as small as the look on your face when people come to you with a business challenge, the way you acknowledge—or don’t—your colleagues when you walk into a meeting, or your fashion choices. Often, we don’t even know we’re doing these things, or that anyone might possibly think what we’re doing is ineffective, a turn-off, or even offensive. So many seemingly minor missteps can put the brakes on getting ahead.

After helping thousands of clients—from freshly-minted graduates to high-powered CEOs—further refine (or fully repair!) the image they’re projecting into the world, I am now more convinced than ever that today’s fast-moving, technologically-advanced, socially-connected world demands presenting the best of who you are at all times—in person and online. The only way to do that is by taking control of your own narrative. If you can’t share your story, you will be left behind and lose out to someone who can. Especially when you’re competing, growing, or transitioning jobs, the last thing you want is to unintentionally send the wrong message or turn off the connections you’re hoping to attract.

Now I want you to get brutally honest with yourself: as it stands today, are the values and qualities your brand represents truly aligned with everything you are and aspire to be? Have you shared your authentic self and story so other people are seeing you in the best light? Or are you letting others take and shift your stories, goals, and dreams into something unrecognizable, throwing you off your God-given path?

If you’re now realizing you might need to take better control of your personal brand, never fear. The spark is already inside you to successfully relaunch the new and improved brand YOU. I’ll be right here with you to show you how.

The Fuel: This Book

This book is designed to help you build your personal brand—step by step, brick by brick, leaving no stone unturned—so you won’t ever have to wonder where you took a wrong turn or why you’ve found yourself at yet another dead end again. None of this is fluff. I hate when consultants or coaches offer fluff and motivation without tactical advice based on experience. Do you want more opportunities? This is how it happens.

It starts from square one and moves forward in a progressive, actionable manner. Every chapter increases your understanding and knowledge, offering tools and tips on how to develop, improve, or fix elements of your personal brand. By the time you’re finished reading, you’ll have the full facts on how all the pieces work together and what you need to do to create the strongest, most authentic and effective personal brand possible.

Of course, there are many other great books out there. I give them prominent shout-outs throughout these pages, find them incredibly aspirational and inspirational, and admire their authors. I consider many of those brand leaders to be my mentors, whether I know them personally or simply because their work resonated so highly with me.

I always recommend reading as widely as you can, because it’s crucial to keep learning, growing, and exposing yourself to new ways of thinking and ideas. But when it comes to personal branding, my advice is to START HERE. While other books deconstruct personal branding into individual parts, focusing intently on singular aspects of it, this is the only one to my knowledge that brings all of those pieces together in one place.

The Fire: My Trial

Right now you might be thinking, How on earth does this woman expect me to build a brand and be my best self every single day despite everything else going on in my life? I expect it from you because I know it’s possible and worth it. I successfully built my brand even as my husband was serving a prison term. Now allow me to expand that story a bit further, because while it was not pretty, it also wasn’t as heinous as people tried to make it out to be and it’s a crucial part of how my experience will help you.

After the phone call that changed my life, Gordon quickly confessed to both me and the government, sparing no detail and taking full responsibility for his actions. He hid nothing and held nothing back. The 2008 crash had hit his company hard, especially the money management side of it, and eventually he’d found himself unable to make payments on his corporate debentures. He then made the life-changing, monumentally horrible decision to not share the truth with his clients concerning their financial accounts and his ability to make payment. Desperation and pride can make a person do terribly misguided things that have lifelong consequences for so many.

Pride is the worst brand attribute.

Since Gordon was being charged with a financial crime, all of his accounts were frozen. There wasn’t any money for living expenses. We had no idea how we were going to pay for groceries or gas, and were forced to move in with my mother. A friend from our church offered Gordon a job digging ditches and doing odd home-building jobs while he awaited sentencing. Thank God for friends who get into the mud with you, even when you’ve created the mud yourself. Meanwhile, I was digging through old purses, the couch, my car, and every crevice of my office, hoping to find anything I could that would help.

Although we trusted and believed in Gordon’s big-time, hot-shot lawyer, he did not represent my husband well. Essentially, the lawyer shared nothing, and his case went straight to sentencing. The sentencing guidelines for a federal case like Gordon’s is generally six to eight years. His lawyer told him to expect one or two years, tops.

The judge gave him 120 months.

It took a minute to do the math in my head while sitting in the courtroom that day. Ten years. My husband was going to jail for the next decade. I put my head down and sobbed. I couldn’t walk. I had to pray to even breathe.

I was six months pregnant at the time. Even though we’d been trying to have a baby for quite a while with no luck, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Now I was facing birthing and raising our child—my firstborn—alone.

While we hoped Gordon might be sent to a prison camp, which are a little less restrictive than penitentiaries and don’t require living alone in a locked cell, we soon learned he was going to a federal penitentiary with a reputation for being nearly as bad as Alcatraz. Not only that, but he would have to stay in the main prison for a while to process before being sent to the federal prison camp. We drove to Atlanta the night before to ensure he was on time to begin his sentence. By the time we arrived back at the hotel after dinner, I couldn’t keep it together anymore.

I told him, I need God to show me that it’s not going to be ten years. I need Him to write something in the SKY. I would never ask anything like that under normal circumstances, as I don’t believe in signs or demanding anything from the Lord, but I was desperate. My husband said years later that in that moment he simply prayed for the Lord to give me a sense of peace, because I clearly needed it.

Our hotel was located in the Buckhead area of Atlanta. I opened the curtains and saw three telephone towers in the sky. Somehow, among all the tall buildings, that view was what greeted me. I took it as a sign and in that moment, I knew God hadn’t abandoned me. Three years was long, but far less than ten. God’s amazing grace and undeserved mercy.

The next morning, I dropped Gordon off at what looked like Castle Grayskull from the He-Man cartoon. It was dark, looming, and foreboding, and I drove up so fast I threw the car into park before it had even stopped. I barely remember the four-hour drive home.

Gordon’s impropriety was big news, especially since Bernie Madoff had just been sentenced. It appeared in the newspaper, on television, and even reached as far as a London newspaper. The entire world knew his sin, and I was guilty by association.

God bless my mother, who was the only person to remain standing by my side during that time. People stopped calling. Women I thought were my friends shunned me. Many in my church didn’t support me. Only a single family—who were clients at the time—wrote me a note, which I have to this day and still greatly appreciate. I felt more alone than I ever knew possible.

Although I’d been building my business for several years by this point, we’d certainly never had to rely on my income to survive. Now, I had been unceremoniously thrust into the role of sole breadwinner. The pressure to succeed was enormous, and I had to do it with a public scandal hanging over my head.

I was on a stage unlike any I had been on before. There were so many eyes on me. So many people waiting for me to fail. Some actually WANTING me to fail, as they told me years later through apologies. Funny how things come full circle. I became hyper-aware of everything everyone did, because I was always trying to read them. Did they know? If yes, how could I mitigate the damage?

Soon after the news hit, I had a meeting scheduled with a publisher who wanted to talk to me about writing a column on business image, personal branding, and fashion. Although he could not have been more gracious about it, he quickly rescinded his offer. I felt like I was damaged goods as far as the business community was concerned.

I dug in my heels and went to work. I had developed a close working relationship with Dillard’s, and even though the store manager knew what was going on in my life, he promoted and supported me anyhow. He let me take over the store for shows, where I would present about brand and image and invite hundreds of women. (Note: If you are ever in the position to aid others in need, please do. You never know how much you might change someone’s life with one small act of kindness. His changed mine and I will be grateful forever.)

Sometimes, Gordon would call when I was shopping for an executive. Inmates in federal prison have only ten minutes a day on the phone, so I would run to find an open dressing room, shut the door, and talk to my husband there. Because the pain was so raw, I had to pray to the Lord to pull me together afterward so I could continue my day. I needed His help to allow me to offer the best of myself to the client I’d been given the honor of serving.

I’m reminded of the scripture that says God grants us a peace that transcends all understanding. By any stretch, I should have been broken into pieces, but the strength He gave me in those moments was so incredibly powerful. The Bible came to life as God and I walked through that fire together. And on the days I couldn’t walk myself, the Holy Spirit pushed me forward.

The Lord gave me glimpses along the way of why and where my life would go because of the fire. As it turns out, the very thing that I’d been doing for an executive’s wardrobe was actually connected to helping people find their purpose, which in turn walked me into my own purpose. Once I realized my true gifting, I began communicating my shift in business model to others.

I started blogging. I joined every networking group I could find. I went to chamber and rotary meetings. I spent a crazy amount of time with my feet on the pavement every day, doing the hard work of sharing who I was so people could begin to see what I had to offer.

Trials don’t define you—and neither do mistakes—so keep moving forward.

I became part of a group that builds women in the community at that time. I volunteered to head up PR for their biggest annual event, and when I called a woman I knew through an alumni group for my sorority to discuss it, she literally said to me, I wish you the best of luck, and hung up the phone. My only comfort in that moment was knowing who I was in God’s eyes. I was valuable. I was created for a purpose—and that purpose wasn’t to be shunned by judgmental fools.

Thankfully, not everyone was so disparaging and dismissive. Another prominent businesswoman who knew me from the work I had done with her nonprofit began to promote my brand. Her word was so strong that people would look past what they thought they knew about me to start giving me a chance. My brand grew exponentially through her and others. That is called co-branding—when you have a personal brand so strong that you are able to lift others.

When I thanked her for having faith in me in spite of all that had happened, she said, If I judged all my friends by what their husbands did, you can bet I wouldn’t have one friend left. Soon, people in the groups and organizations I’d joined began to rally around me versus against me, and those who had shunned me were reaching out.

THANK YOU, PAT SHEA!

The morning of my big keynote at that Fortune 500, right before I was about to walk through the doors of a giant, multinational corporation, I received a phone call from prison. I was told my husband was being transferred to a maximum-security facility full of murderers, gang members, and lifers—a place even worse than the Alcatraz rival he was already in.

Through God’s grace, I experienced a huge breakthrough in my career by mustering up the courage to be open, honest, and truly authentic that day during my keynote despite this grim news being front and center on my mind—and after a year, he secured a capable new lawyer who was eventually able to present his full case through an appeal. As a result, my business grew and my husband was released in a little over four years after his sentence began. Just when you think you’ve fallen too far to get back up, God Himself shows up.

If God could take me back twenty years and change the past, I’d grab a glass of whiskey and still say, Nah, let’s do it. I would never be the woman I am today or have the business or brand I’ve built if I hadn’t gone through that fire. As Charles Spurgeon once said, Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil and let us see what we are made of.

Don’t hide from your mistakes and never let anyone hold you to your past—ever. Nobody has that right and you are not alone. Those who have fallen the furthest can lead better than many who haven’t known a tough day in their entire lives.

The Heat: My Knowledge + Your Hard Work

So now you understand: the information I offer in this book is not only based on process, facts, data, and statistics, but on my life experience as well. I’ve lived this, and I’ve also worked with thousands of people to implement these same steps to build an unstoppable personal brand. It worked for me, it worked for them, and it will work for you, too.

Regardless of where you are in your life right now—whether you are starting out or at the peak of your career, want more money or already have financial stability, are looking to create a legacy or still trying to find a purpose at work—there is hope for you to get to where you want to go. It doesn’t matter how old you are, what industry you’re in, or where you are on the corporate ladder. If you want to get off the proverbial hamster wheel of working only to work, you are not alone. Even as a C-Suite leader, this book can help you grow as well as to see your teams differently and lead them differently.

People tend to worry that one moment, one disappointment, one terrible fire can dismantle and discredit them forever. But you are created for a purpose that is more than one client or colleague loving you or hating you, a few bad days at work, or a job that isn’t a good fit. Any trial that has come or is yet to come will pass. This chapter isn’t your last.

I also hope you take heart in the fact that EVERYONE is trying to reinvent themselves. We’re all trying to find purpose and meaning. I’ve had the privilege of helping many people who had settled for being where they thought they should be. Many had forgotten their dreams or never dared to dream at all. Some of you simply haven’t shared your story, either in person or online. It’s time.

The great news in all of this is that you, too, can live your life out in a different way. Maybe this book will inspire you to start a business, change industries, or live the dream you’ve pushed down for years.

UNLESS YOU’RE LYING ON YOUR DEATHBED, IT’S NEVER TOO LATE.

The Light: The Brand-New Brand YOU

This book is for you if:

You want to ensure you are marketing yourself and sharing your value

You have no idea how to be on LinkedIn

You lead a large company or firm

You are an entrepreneur or want to be one

You are in leadership and you want to ensure your workforce is representing themselves and your company brand

You need to learn one of the brand topics in this book

Grow your emotional intelligence

Communicate with truth and grace

Lead with wisdom

Create an authentic image

You have no idea how to share your value or your story (in person or online)

You are job hunting

You want to be on a board

You feel misunderstood at work

You are a new leader

You are trying to shift culture in your company

You want to grow as a leader

You can’t figure out why you are not being promoted

You want to hone your skills and learn to share your story

You want to become CEO of your company, start your own business, or move into the C-Suite

You are starting out and have no idea what to do

You have missed opportunities you were totally qualified for and wondered why

You have ever looked at yourself in the mirror and thought, Why am I going to work today? I don’t even know why I do this. I don’t really like the company. I don’t like the culture, and people aren’t like me. What am I doing with my life?

You think you don’t have the confidence to do any of this

You wonder if you still have purpose in life, regardless of work, or even if you ever did at all

You’re in the right place if you want to build your brand in a world that’s moving at the speed of light. If you’re ready to develop a plan to share who you are with the world. If you don’t want anything to get in the way of where you’d like to go, regardless of your goal.

Everything I’m asking you to do here already exists within you—nothing is made up or inauthentic. Together, let’s build your brand based on