That’s a recent strip from Being Five, which is an awesome, funny comic. If you’re looking for a bit of daily entertainment, go check it out.

But more than just entertainment, he makes good observations. This strip, for one, demonstrates an important principle about communication – that what matters is not our intention, but the response.

Lodewijk, from How to be an Original, wrote about it a couple of months ago, telling us that “the meaning of the communication is the response you get“. It’s a really good point. And we all know communication goes beyond just the words we say, don’t we? Almost everything we do, every interaction with people is communication. Our personal brand, what we are all about, is communicated in everything we do.

Scott Ginsberg asks the question of “what’s your resume?” And it’s a similar point. Your resume isn’t what you say about yourself. It’s what others say about you – their response to what you’ve done.

When you talk about building your personal brand, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Other people’s response to you. After all, that means so much more than just what you say about yourself. As Mitch Joel Chris Anderson (thanks, Mitch, for correcting me) put it, “Your personal brand isn’t what you say it is. It’s what Google says it is.”

So, today my question for you is this. What do others say about you? And how does that compare to what you think of yourself or how you want others to view you? And finally, how can you bring the two together – such that others can clearly see and know what you stand for?

After all, it’s no use just being yourself when you’re alone. The true test is whether you can be yourself with others.