The twenties are the epitome of youth. Let’s face it, you’re still perfectly young, and yet, old enough to do anything. Not to say 20-somethings don’t fall victim to the incessant need to call and ask parents for permission (faintly disguising the query as advice-seeking), but in truth, that is no longer required. At 20+ – you are ready to make the decisions, the experience, the education, should all be in place.

What brings on this age-reflection? Embarrassingly enough – jealousy. I hate it when I’m jealous. I’d rather be sick. I’d rather be angry. I’d rather laugh so hard I pee (it starts out good and ends badly, which in my book ruins things real fast).  I hate jealousy because not only I”m I inadequate – but I’m also petty. Con-gra-tu-la-tions Carly, you are a four year-old.

Who am I jealous of? The Burton girls. Burton released a for-females website this year and I have a love to hate it relationship with the new addition. I love it, because I love snowboarding. And I love Burton for being mainstream with prices I can afford, and yet still somehow holding onto a cool-factor which is usually lost with any measure of success. I find the need for a blog specifically for girls a tad demeaning – I mean really, are the snowboarding guys belching so loudly, farting to smell-ily, and telling such foul jokes we can’t even handle their blog? And yet, I want to read the article about an at-home skin care scrub, which I will absolutely never do because I get tired and grumpy of my beauty routine sometime around stepping into the shower.

I love snowboarding but will never be anything special – and I’m okay with that. However, when I see that you can become a Burton Girl by being whimsical enough to add rose petals to some salt and rub it on my old lady elbows, oh wound to the heart. (As a side, the author of this piece is absolutely amazing, I’m perfectly aware of this, I’m just making a point about jealousy and terrible pathetic it makes me). The thing that these girls have – besides utter awesomeness, hearts-of-gold (I imagine based on the black and white photography), and succulent hair (yeah, succulent, all of them), is a brand. They are their brand, every day. Do you have a hard core blogging friend? The one who stands in line at Whole Foods and grabs a tin of organic black pepper encrusted dark chocolate twigs and says “Oh, I should blog about this.” She has a brand. She’s a little crazy, and yet, hundreds of people love her and will be pepper encrusting candy canes for the holidays.

Whenever it comes to personal brand brainstorming, the marketing education in me perks up and suddenly I feel like I’m a commodity. And yet, a good brand can get you so far these days.

In a Mashable post about personal branding, the social media site points out the first step to a real brand is making this equation true:

the way you perceive yourself = the way other perceive you