By now you probably know that I am Kristin Noel; the heart behind The Tiny Red Tornado. If you don’t, well, welcome! My name is Kristin Noel & this is my personal space. Recently I was asked by my close friend, and photographer, what I considered my brand to be. She asked me what came to mind when I thought of TRT & myself.
You know when you go on an interview for a new job & they always ask you about yourself. They ask you to describe yourself, talk about your hobbies, & who you are. You hear the same question a million times throughout your life; Who are you? You have probably thought about it a couple times, rehearsed an answer for interviews, & maybe you genuinely even know the answer! (shout out to those people; you are rare)
I had absolutely ZERO idea the real answer to that question. I kept thinking, I know who I really am, obviously, it’s me. No one knows me better than I know myself, right? I know my own likes and dislikes. I know what my favorites are and I have always known how I wanted my life to turn out. Although all of that is true, I realized I wasn’t entirely sure what my brand was. I hadn’t thought about that in any real capacity. I just knew what I wanted the name to be, that I wanted to write & be super authentic, & I wanted to make a difference.
Which leads me ultimately to the point of what this post was supposed to be about! My brand! I have stalked, yes genuinely stalked, multiple instagrams of multiple bloggers. I love all of their personal brands, but none of them felt right, or even close to what I am like. Thats when I realized I wasn’t being authentic! Here I am looking at all of these other pages trying to get ideas & feel some type of connection. I cannot form a connection because I am looking at someone else to tell me who I am. Someone who doesn’t even know I exist! How silly is that!?
I got off social media, sat down, and started writing down everything that felt like me! I am someone who completely obsesses over everything that is girly. I love lace details, bows, glitter & sparkles, and pastel colors, BUT I am also someone who completely obsesses over all black, studs, leather everything. tattoos, and deep jewel tones. So, the question I had to ask myself was; How do I combine those two & still stay authentically myself? The answer was pretty simple.
Simply put, that is just my personal style! I am a girly girl with an edge. I will wear tulle skirts, a leather jacket, & my shoes will have studs. I have tattoos in a couple different places, but my earrings are always sparkly, pretty colors, & large. I am someone who obsesses over two extremely different styles & I mix them into one! What can I say? When you can’t pick one thing you combine them both! That is why my favorite fast food meal is Wendy’s chicken nuggets with Mcdonald’s french fries. It is the best of both worlds and it just works! Which is why my brand is definitely girly with darker & edgy accents!
This entire process also brought me to deeply knowing myself more too. Spending a few days trying to figure out your personal, authentic, and totally you as a brand will really bring out some serious questions about yourself. I found that the name of my brand is insanely accurate. I am a tornado. I am everywhere all the time, I am a glamorous hot mess, I am wild & free, I am anxious & a perfectionist, I am smart & funny, I am sensitive & a bad ass. I am so many different things rolled into one. Who are you?
So, to wrap this long rant up, this post went from being about my brand, to discovering who you are as a person. That is the beauty of who I am; a Tiny Red Tornado. Whoosh Whoosh.