What is branding?

So many people ask me what branding is. My best answer is that branding is YOU. Whatever you do, whoever you work for, whatever product you are pushing is all related to a connection. People are always looking, talking, and watching and whatever you portray is what people connect to when it comes to your brand or what you see in a brand. Whether you have been working for the same company for 20 years or are just starting, when consumers or clients think of a brand, views a logo, or hears a commercial, they immediately start to think of a connection or relation. In a lot of cases that relation is connected to a person, feeling, memory. It's how people work. So when I say McDonald's the first thing you may think of is the first time you got a happy meal. If I say Nike, you may think of the first pair of shoes you wore with the swoosh on them.