McDonalds, KFC, Pepsi, and Nike. To most people they’re companies that retail products-but to those that see the bigger picture they're brands. Just because you can cook a hamburger doesn’t mean you’re a chef. But if you can create a name for your burger (good or bad), and whenever that burger is mentioned, you become the visualization attached-then you’re a brand.

Sounds silly right? Well look at your feet, you didn’t buy those sneakers because they’re the best sneakers out-you purchased them for the statement and power of the brand. The truth is you could probably make a better, and more comfortable pair, if you had the resources.

Ed Hardy for example thought of himself only as a tattoo artist. But Christian Audiger saw the bigger picture, and thought of him as a brand. My goal for the past 10 years has been to get Corporate America to look at young visionaries as brands, and more importantly to get the young visionaries to think of themselves as such.

You’re not a singer, you’re an entertainment brand. You’re not a barber, you’re a lifestyle brand. You don’t just clean restrooms, you’re an industrial brand! Stop thinking that you just work at Foot Locker, and realize that you lend your retail expertise to their brand for an hourly fee-while you quietly build your brand. And to take it to another level they're paying you to get an on the job education.

I don’t know exactly when I started viewing myself as a brand, it probably was in 1996 when I sold 100 copies of my demo tape outside an apartment in the Projects. Kill that: in the box, traditional, no risk, no guts way of thinking. Figure out your brand and build it.