The Missing Piece In Raising Human-Centered Brands

We thought personal brands and entrepreneurship were the solution to burnout culture. We were wrong. And to understand why, we need to ask the question:

What do toxic corporate brands and unsustainable personal brands have in common?

The Answer:

Weak Ego.

Wait what!?

Most people think Ego is the problem. The real issue, however, is weak Ego. Let's clarify…

Ego is not confidence. Ego is not inflated self-worth. Narcissism is actually a manifestation of weak Ego.

What then is Ego? And what does this have to do with branding?

Let's start at the beginning with a crash course in psychology.

Ego, Id, Superego, and Personas

Ego is the function of your personality that helps you stay grounded, make wise choices, and manage emotions.

It acts as a peacekeeper and synthesizer, balancing your instincts and desires (the Id) with your morals and conscience (the Superego).

In childhood, the Id is in full force. You've seen this—the unfiltered child who shows up raw in every moment.

As we grow, our cultural context—family, religion, school, society, workplace—contributes to the formation of our Superego.

In a healthy person with well-developed Ego strength, the Self can oscillate between the Id and Superego, choosing moment to moment between instincts and compliance, or desires and obligations, to best serve the Self.

Adults who lack Ego strength will struggle to thrive, consistently becoming the victims of their Id's impulsive behavior or overcorrecting by building an ironclad, oppressive Superego.

But here's the catch:

All of this is happening below the surface, masked by the resulting Personas.

No, I'm not talking about customer personas (though they do have their origin here).

I'm referring to the roles we assume and the parts we play.

The version of yourself that you know? That's Ego.

The version/s others know? Those are Personas.

Personas are a necessary function; everyone builds them. But not all Personas are created equal.

Some are adaptive—anchored in Ego strength, able to shuffle in and out of use without losing coherence.

Some are protective—built to obey or survive.

Some are performative, built to impress.

Stable ↔ Volatile

Expressive ↔ Oppressive

Embodied ↔ Performative

Where a Persona lands along these spectrums depends on its key influences, Ego, Id, or Superego.

When Ego is in charge, life is good. When a Persona is mainly driven by the Id, it will either be observably dysfunctional and deemed increasingly invaluable, or the person who adopts it will struggle to participate in society. To the contrary, people with Personas driven by Superego can get very far before things start to go sideways.

What does this have to do with raising brands?

Great question!

A personal brand is a Persona.

A company brand is a Persona too—a collective one, expected to be adopted to some degree or another by people at every level of the organization.

When Ego strength is on board, both personal brands and company brands can be forces for good. When Ego is weak, chances are the Superego is the organizing force and this can be very dangerous indeed.

Let's examine this claim in a cultural context.

The Cult of Professionalism

➜ The Cult of Professionalism believes that success comes from control, composure, and compliance.

For a long time, the majority of high-functioning professionals rose through the ranks by adopting Personas deemed appropriate by their employers.

These Personas were fueled by varying combinations of Ego and Superego, depending on who embodied them.

If the Ego of an individual was strong and allowed the person to code-switch—"at work” vs. “not at work"—all good.

But when the Ego is weak (which, truthfully, many people's are), the Superego is in charge too much of the time.

Your outward Self performs obedience.

The inner Self withers under the weight of perfection, professionalism, and “what will they think?"

➜ With the Cult of Professionalism, we're left feeling not good enough because we can't measure up.

This dynamic really came to a head in the 80s and 90s.

Millennial kids who saw the ruthless impact of parents stuck in Superego-dominant Persona decided:

“No. We won't do that again."

And we began to build something new, The Cult of Authenticity.

The Cult of Authenticity

➜ The Cult of Authenticity believes that success comes from full self-expression.

Over the past 20 years, this belief has reshaped the professional world, especially for founders.

Personal brands have become more than tools; they have become identities. Power shifted from polish to passion, from composure to confession.

This Persona isn't defined by conformity, but by visibility. You are expected to be transparent, emotional, open, and always "real." The more raw you are, the more trust you deserve.

If the Ego is strong, it can set boundaries, knowing when to reveal and when to restrain.

But when Ego is weak (and many are), the Superego begins to exploit the Self, stripping it of relational boundaries, personal privacy, thoughtful pause, emotional safety, and more, all in the name of complete undiluted brave authenticity.

Eventually, paradoxically, the Self still withers this time under the judgment of not being authentic enough. Or worse, being the wrong kind of authentic.

➜ With the Cult of Authenticity, if we can't measure up, we're left feeling that at our core, we're not enough.

Here's the problem:

The pendulum rarely lands in the middle before crossing into a nearby level of the matrix. No. It swings hard and fast in the other direction.

Instead of looking at the root cause of the burnout epidemic—Ego strength or lack thereof—we just changed our costumes and started performing a new play with the same story arc.

So, it's no surprise that we are hustling harder now than ever before, still burning out, and turning to technology to fill the void and claw our way to the top.

And in this world, Founders are sold two bits of expensive advice:

1. Focus on building an “authentic" personal brand

2. Then scale your business on the back of your authentic personal brand

I feel very deeply that this advice is not only wrong.

It's dangerous.

But in a subculture where we not only have to work, but want to work, how do we fix this? How do we raise brands that nourish instead of drain, heal instead of harm?

Raising An Anti-Cult Brand

You thought I was using this word lightly, but I wasn't. I was using it literally, because a cult is at its core a system of imposed ideals—rigid, absolute, moralizing. It offers belonging, but only through conformity to a Persona. You are accepted if you reflect the values of the group—professionalism vs. authenticity, no less and no more. It is structure, an identity, imposed from outside.

An anti-cult, on the other hand, is not rebellion for its own sake. It is integration. Here, the Ego leads—not by force, but by function. The Ego mediates tension. It knows when to express and when to contain. It holds opposites without collapsing: impulse and strategy, transparency and discretion. In the anti-cult, you are not fused with the Persona. It is structure, an identity, grown from within and engaged intentionally.

So I will prescribe a remedy that goes against most advice in your feed:

➜ Don't build an "authentic" personal brand. And don't try to scale your company on it.

Instead, raise a strategic human-centered personal brand if personal gain is your aim.

And raise a strategic human-centered company brand if scaling is your aim.

Since my clients are founders—not executive track professionals—at Humaniz we specialize in the latter. And to be fair, Founders do need to consider doing some deep work in both the personal brand and company brand camps.

And that's why I plan to unpack both issues in sequence in the following two issues of On Raising Brands.

But in the meantime, if you are a Founder who has read this far, you probably don't want to wait a whole month to take action, so I'll point you to our complimentary Brand IdQ™ tool, which is designed to shed light on your brand's inherent Id, Superego, and Ego and kickstart the process of creating that strategic human centered brand persona.

Ready to raise your brand up right?

Engage with Brand IdQ + Results Integration Call to start humanizing your brand.

And make sure to subscribe below so we can send the next two issues in the series directly to you inbox!

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Who We Are

"We don’t create brands, because we truly believe that every business already has a brand. Rather, our role is to help founders and their teams embody the brand fully, express it with more clarity, and expand its influence and impact with more confidence."

~ Charlie Birch, Author of On Raising Brands + Founder and Creative Director @ Humaniz Collective

Bringing a brand to market is just the beginning of your brand’s development and life story. 

And that’s where we come in!

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• Brand Strategy

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If you’re looking for a brand partner to walk beside you, ensuring your brand grows up healthy and strong, makes good life choices, and attracts the right people into its orbit, Humaniz Collective is the obvious choice.

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