Ep 106 Career: How to build a personal brand people will love to hate

In this must-listen episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates tackles the critical importance of building a standout personal brand in today’s competitive landscape. He explores why so many resumes, portfolios, and personal brands fail to make an impact, blending into the crowd instead of setting individuals apart. Stephen breaks down the key elements of a strong personal brand, the common pitfalls to avoid, and shares actionable steps to create a memorable, powerful brand that gets you noticed. Tune in to learn how to define, build, and elevate your personal brand to stand out and drive career success.

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Transcript

Steve Gates : 0:00

What's going on everybody, and welcome into the 100 and sixth episode of the crazy one podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and everything else that helps to empower creative people. Now remember, you can listen to the shows, get the show notes, and the links that I talked about or things like that, just head over to the crazy one.com. That's the crazy and the number one.com. And also make sure that whenever you're out there on your favorite podcast platform, there are two things that I would love for you to be able to do the first one, hit the subscribe button, so you get the latest episodes whenever those come out. And also, whenever you're there, take just a couple minutes and leave a review. Whether it's hitting the stars or writing a few words, it always makes a really big difference. Let me know people are listening that the content actually works, and it helps more people find the show. Also, in case you didn't know, the crazy one is now on YouTube, thanks to the pandemic and this weird thing that I've discovered called free time. I've created a whole New videos over there on things like career coaching, application tutorials, masterclasses, you can see past keynotes, the easy shortcut to that is just again, head over to the crazy one comm slash YouTube. And you can subscribe there too, to be able to get a bunch of new content. Now, I always like to be able to make this show as much of a conversation as we can. So if you want to keep up with my adventures, ask me any questions or do things like that, you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram. And if you want to ask those questions, the best place that I would say to be able to do it is whenever you follow the show, either on LinkedIn or Facebook, that's going to be the best place to do it, because those are the messages I'm going to see the most often. Now the last show whenever we did Episode 105 was to talk about negotiation. And I think a lot of people sort of this was something that they hadn't thought about. And what I want to be able to do today is sort of continue this career discussion because I've been having a lot of talks with a lot of people's lately. About just sort of the things that are going on. And today, what I want to be able to talk about specifically, is building your brand. Now, as people look to find more stability in their current job as either by their own choosing, or because of furloughs or layoffs, a lot of other people are also trying to figure out what to do with their career. I think this work on your personal brand, should be at the center of all of this, because for so many people that I'm coaching for so many people that I'm talking to all roads sort of lead back to here. In this episode, I think it's going to be important for us to take a minute to be able to define what a brand is to really understand why is this so critical? And I think this is more than anything, is where I because I've done past episodes that sort of went through the mechanics of it. But the thing that I missed was to really be able to talk about why is it so powerful and necessary, and then as we talk about that, I also want to talk about what are some of the common problems that I see far, far too often from too many of you and you build that brand? And then again, we'll quickly sort of recap what are some of the things to do, where you can really go through and look at how do you build a personal brand? So let's start with the basics of just how do we define that word? How do we define brand, because the thing that I see is that a lot of people, and this is true, even really big corporations define it differently. And in many cases, I'm not sure that they know what it means. But the reason why for you this is important, is your brand plays such a big part in defining your success. defining your success at work, defining your success in your career in your side projects. And I would even also argue that your ability to sit down and understand yourself and what makes you tick, what makes you happy. These are things that actually help in your personal life too, because the thing that I Seeing as it so often the issues that you struggle with and work in your personal brand, often very easily carry over to and are often the things that you struggle with in your personal life. But let's start with what a brand is not a brand is not your logo. It's not your typeface. It's not a color that you like to use. It's not the theme that you use on your WordPress, it's not any of these sort of visual expressions. And I think for too many people that whenever you say brand, this is what they think of. That is a visual language that is not a brand. A brand really for me, and especially when it comes to personal branding really is about your ability to understand and articulate three things. One is your brand is who you are. Your story. Where have you been? What have you done what you know, just that simple thing of like, getting to know who you are. Then your brand is what you stand for. This is your brand values. What are the things that you believe in? What are The things that you do, what's the expertise that you have? And ultimately, what that culminates that in is what makes you different from everybody else. These are your brand differentiators. And I think that in many cases this way is where so many people get trapped because our brain plays a trick on us what we think, and it's an understandable thing, there is a thing built into all of us. It's like a herd mentality, right? We want to be like everybody else, we want to be accepted. We want to be somebody who, again, is doing things and acting in a certain way that feels acceptable, if not celebrated by everybody else. And again, I think that's understandable, potentially in society or in other things. The problem is that whenever it comes to you, your career, your position in the industry and the job market, that sort of being generic, doesn't do you any favors, and we're going to talk about that a little bit more in a minute. But I think in many cases, this is the one part of this where people struggle because we feel like Oh, if I appeal to everyone, oh, if I'm doing the things that I think people should want me to do, again, like this is very much about what Episode 100 was about was, we chase these invisible scripts of the way we think we're supposed to be the things that people are gonna get rewarded. Well, the reality is, if you take a step back and look at it, we don't reward people that fit in, and we don't reward people who are generic. And we're gonna get into that a little bit more in a minute. But the thing that I think really is the part that I want to explain and I think that this is the part in those past episodes that I didn't do a good enough job about going in depth into, is to let's really talk about what's going on behind the scenes. And that there is an upside and a downside to building your personal brand. Because I think having your personal brand and the way that I've the way that I've done it, the reason why I've gone about it is because Because what it has allowed me to do is to reshape the need economy. And for me, we started to touch on the need economy a little bit in that last episode, because what I said was the reason why I want people to negotiate the reason why I want people to be able to show up at that table as equals to the company that they work with, is because partially, I want them to see themselves as equal, not as lesser. I want them to be able to be on equal footing, I want them to be able to negotiate, I want them to understand their power. And this is really continuation because you know, what I think, honestly, is that what we want to be able to do is to really show up as equals. And it's really as an industry in a way that a lot of things are stacked that make that hard, or try to convince us that the way things are is the way they should be whenever in many cases, the way those things are actually don't benefit us. And the neat economy is really looking at how often do we feel like we need People, companies, different things like that. And let me give you some examples of this. So I think it is one of these things where, you know, if you we show up as equals in a negotiation, it's about reshaping How much do I need my company to give me a job? How much do I need them to dictate the terms of that job? How much do I need them to be able to dictate so many of those sorts of things? And I think in too many cases, this is what we fall into, is we think, oh, they need to do that. No, they actually don't. What we need is to show up as equals, I think other things is that it's about having a brand so that you have a voice and a presence that allows you to need your company less. Because I think in many cases this is the thing is if we show up if we have a brand if if we do these sort of things, then it shifts that we don't need them. quite much in that sort of way. Because for me, that's what I've been able to see is that if I go to and I'm hired by a company means something, if I leave a company means something nice ability to be there attracts talent. And so that, again, it is that I have a presence and a voice. I'm actually far less afraid of even being fired. Because I don't need them in that same way. And I think because it's about creating a brand and creating a network so that you can control your future. And I think that it's one of those things where it's just about you don't need even things like recruiters. I haven't worked with a recruiter, I think in probably decades, because I don't need them. It's not that I don't see their value. But in many cases, because I put a brand out there companies are attracted to me because I do these sort of things. I don't go to them and say, Oh, I need you to get me a job. No, I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself. And quite candidly, in many cases, I have a network and the access to jobs that are usually better and more interesting than what they have. But I think if we were going to step back and sort of reframe this, the need economy is almost because we have created this truly what I think is almost a codependent and unhealthy relationship with our companies with our jobs, and with a big part of the industry because we feel like we need them to do these things. Whatever the reality is, is that with some of this investment and with taking control of your image of your voice of your future, and of your power makes you less CO dependent on them. This is why for so many of us, I think we feel helpless or lost or unsure of what to do, because we've given in too much into this neat economy. Where we don't show up as equals we don't understand the power. We don't understand the role and the voice that we can have, because we've been lulled into this sense that all of these people and all these things will do these things for us. And I guess that's the part where I feel like I haven't done a good enough job in explaining that because I think, because of my path because of being laid off because of being around a lot of bad bosses and doing things like that, and I think also just maybe because of my nature in the way that I am, I've started to really look at rejecting that codependency. And I think that whenever I did that, I found great power, I found the ability to reshape and to have just a fundamentally different conversation than what I saw a lot of other people having. But I think at the same point to be responsible and have a balanced conversation here. The reality is, is that a lot of people aren't going to like it when you aren't dependent on them. Because I think obviously, if you're in a codependent relationship, the person with the power likes having the power they like having the other person in a lesser and weaker position. And so I think it will be And I think in many cases, you know, there have been a lot of companies who get uncomfortable, because they know I have a voice because they know that I don't have this strong dependency on them and that they don't have all the power. Recruiters don't like that. I don't need that, you know, again, for me that I think one they just never know what to do with me because of the way that I work. But they don't like that. And in many cases, that's a problem. It's not that again, I think there's anything wrong with them. I think there's definitely some ways we can improve that system. But I think the other thing that you start to see, which I think been frustrating for me, I think it's been telling is that you will also start to watch a lot of the people who who are bought into that need economy start to make some really interesting assumptions and statements about you. One of the things that I find fascinating is the number of people who have said, or have come up to me after they've seen a talk or done something like that and said, I'm not I'm not who they thought I would be. And whenever I would press them on that and ask them to explain what it what does that mean like, why does that now he said, Oh, I assume because I see your site or you have a podcast or, you know, do all this speaking, you must be really egotistical. I've even had people high respect, have said, Oh, well, the way I do things isn't like the way you do it because you make it all about you. Because you know, you've got your own brand. And you you talk about this stuff. It's it's honestly, like in that moment, it's hard not to be offended by it. I think I think while it's understandable, I think you do start to realize that what you are doing is different. And then in many cases, I think that's what happens is whenever people don't understand it, they make those assumptions because they say these things without ever having taken the time to listen to one of my talks or a podcast or honestly even talking to me because i think i think i try to actively dissuade that. I'm not one of these people who runs rounds like me, me I'm so great. Like I don't even like talking about my work in my talks. I haven't done it for years. I rarely even talk about it here. I think if I talk about my experience It's trying to explain where something came from. And so it's just sort of like, I think one is, on the one hand, there's a real demonstration of the way people sort of form opinions and do things like that without really basing it in fact, but I do think that that's the thing is when you do stand up for yourself, people don't understand it, or they label it because it's something that they haven't done. And and whenever they see that they aren't quite sure how to make of it. They don't understand why you're doing it. And so then they like to label it. But I think here it really is about understanding a balance, because there are two things that that I think in building your brand and building a healthy brand and building a successful brand, whenever it comes to you is about balancing two things. It's about balancing recognition, and self doubt. The recognition is the part where I think we often this is what we don't do. We don't take the time to understand what we want. We don't take the time to understand our value. We don't take that time to be able to Say, Hey, look, I'm good at this. This is what I'm different. This is the mark and the dent that I make in the universe, and to be able to be okay, taking credit for that, right. And I think in the same way that we also like to have those things recognize this is what is driven by our ego. We like to be able to do things that people like that makes a difference. But it's about keeping that in balance. Because if that goes too far, then you're right then your personal brand does become it being all about you. It does become egotistical. It does become about what your agenda is over everybody else's. And that's out of balance. And that doesn't work. But the counterbalance to that is then that self doubt of whenever it's in a healthy position, it's about staying open and humble, and always learning and to be able to say, look, even though I know I'm good at these things, I know that I'm not perfect. I know that there's still work to do. I know that there's still more than I can do to be better to think about other people and just because I think about other people it doesn't diminish my skills. But the problem is here again, whenever we tip too far to that side, the self doubt goes into imposter syndrome and goes into a lot of other things, where then we sort of sell ourselves out so much that we lose sight of what our value actually is. But I think that ability to sort of find the tipping point between the two, to understand what our value is to understand the power that this brings to understand and show up and see ourselves as an equal in the work that we do, to our peers, to our team, to our company, to our industry, that we have value, and we have a voice to be able to do that. But to do it in a way where again, that does not override all those other things that humility, the learning and the things that we need to do to continue to stay open because whenever you're able to do both, that is what I found is a powerful, powerful combination. And it's something that again, a lot of people don't necessarily understand how to do. But To that end, I think that for me, there's really two problems and that in all the people I I talk to all the people, I coach all the resumes in the portfolios and whether it's through the amazing design people list or people just to reach out to me. I have been looking at a ton of this over the past few months because of those who've been affected by the layoffs and the furloughs because of COVID. Because of those who are unhappy in the places that they are, where they suddenly want to reach out, to be able to say, look, I need to find something different. This isn't the team that I thought it was. Two problems really come to the surface. And the number one one is that as a person, as a brand, as a product as whatever it is, they are painfully generic. And it's gotten to a point for me where the thing that I realized about how much of an epidemic This is for everyone is that whenever resumes come in and portfolios come in, I very quickly realized how often I was writing the same feedback time after time after time after a time, so much so that I just I honestly have created a cheat sheet So that it's like, okay, I just give this same feedback. So often I went in and wrote it eloquently. And that's what I start with is whenever I look at it, I'll copy and paste these in now it doesn't mean that it stays in that generic form. Again, like I go through I try to give a specific feedback. But this issue comes up so often, that I was just getting burnt out on like lip synching the same thing. Because I think that you know, for me, whenever we talk about in the title of the show, building a brand somebody will love to hate. I'll acknowledge that that is a click Beatty sort of way of looking at things. But here's the reason why I say that is because for years and years ago, in through all the brands that I built, what I started to realize is that any successful brand be had commercial or personal, create some level of emotion, because being generic, doesn't create an emotion being generic, doesn't get you remembered. So my goal always was when I would talk to my Whatever I set out to do this work was I would say what I want to do is to create a brand that somebody hates. And like I said, it sounds a little bit click Beatty, but it's memorable. Because what that actually means is that I want to create a brand that is strong enough, that is clear enough. That stands for something that people can identify with enough that those who identify with it, love it. And those who don't realize it's not for them, and in realizing that are perfectly fine hating it. But either way, there's a clear position and a strong emotion that has been created. Because here's the thing with everything that's going on. And this has always been true, but especially lately, now is not the time to be generic. It is not the time to be like everybody else. It is not the time to blend in. It is not the time to while I know it can be comforting to try to act and look and be like everybody else because here's the thing generic People don't become successful, generic brands don't get a following. It's just that simple. Think about the brands that you love. And I do mean love. Think about the artists, the musicians, the actors, the whatever it is, again, that you love and that you are drawn to. I guarantee you on that list, none of them are generic. None of them do it like everybody else. And that again, for them, they have gone through and tried to define something specific. But this is that problem that we struggle with is that in that need to be accepted in that way that we want to be able to have people think well of us or do whatever it is, we reach for generic. And this for me, comes to life in the resume that only has where you worked and where you went to school, and nothing about you the portfolio that suffers from the exact same thing. And this is the thing I am not hiring where you went to school and where are you You worked. I'm hiring you as a person. So if you give me nothing about who that person is, if there is not a clear statement about who you are, and you are doing it in the moment where this is your introduction to the world, do not Never assume that you're going to get to talk to somebody. This is your introduction, and you think so little of yourself or that you want to be generic so badly, that either there is nothing on there about you or candidly but also is there is that there's two or three sentences filled with this corporate buzzword babble bullshit. That's a lot of words to say nothing, not a brand, not interested. Moving on. Right? That is not the reaction that you want. You need to be able to stand out you need to be able to help people understand who you are. Give them some sense of that. Get them to the conversation where they can meet you where you can talk about this, but this is the other part of this and understanding why generic is a problem, even in the job you're in today. You're not going to get promoted or do well being generic, or you will to a point whenever the promotions are execution based, you turn in your work, you hit your deadlines, you do things like that. But as you go on in your career, and that execution piece becomes less important, and it becomes more about what do you think and what do you stand for? And how do you work, the promotions will slow down, or they're going to stop. And that's why is because at that point, generic isn't going to get you any place. But I think in linked with that generic problem is that in many cases, people only think about their brand. And in many cases, it's not even their brand. They just think about things like their resume or their portfolios only whenever they need them. Meaning that Oh, hey, I want a new job, meaning I've gotten laid off meaning something has happened. And now suddenly, I need that brand. The problem is in that moment, it's too late. Because all the work you should have been doing all the stuff you should have been doing to invest in that to understand yourself to be able to help build those sort of things and build that network and build that place that was going to make you succeed. cessful again, this isn't something that you just flip a switch and it happens. And for me, then this really comes back to and I know that I've talked about this before. But I want to reiterate it here because I think that this is the thing that comes up too often, is understanding that this really is all about work ethic. That work ethic will define your success work ethic beats talent, every single time you are and always will be an evolving brand proposition. And you will always need to work on this. And I think that's the problem is that the best time to work on this stuff is when you don't need it. Because that's the time when you often have the time you have the clarity, you have the ability to work on these things, and especially lately, I'm sorry, I've just gotten too many emails from too many people who want me to somehow feel sorry for them, because things aren't going better. yet. Whenever I go in and I look at their resume, I look at their portfolio. I look at their Twitter, I look at the your LinkedIn behance or anything else, I see too many people who are putting in the minimum amount of work. I understand that you work in a bad company, I understand that you are working someplace that doesn't give you those opportunities. That is horrible. And we need to change that. But what that does not forgive in the tough love sort of way that I need to be about this is just because you work at a company that produces one star work does not excuse you having a two star portfolio that's on you. You need to put in the work, you need to be able to do that thing. Because if I work in a one star company and have a five star portfolio, I'm not going to be at the one star company for long. But there's that sort of thing where people want the success without putting in the work for so many years. Again, I've said this drives me crazy when people come and they say, oh, what's the secret? The secret is there's not a damn secret. The secret is work your ass off have a lot of really good ideas and never stop doing it. It's putting in that work. And again, we talked about this in the episode go back and listen to episode I did about making your own luck. Luck is the residue of skill. But it's in this moment about how you need to put in the work. You need to take the time to go look at what is your competition, look at what other resumes what other portfolios look like, what are other people doing. Because that's the other problem is often your palate is screwed up. What you think is good enough might not even be close to being good enough. But because you're not actively seeking that out, and you're just sort of taking comfort in what you think it is. That's not the way the world works. The world is one of these things where it really is about how do you stand out and how do you put in that work? Because I think the thing that also really comes out of this is in that competition, hated brands win. Because to be to stand out and to be successful, you need to create a brand that is strong enough that those who identify it will love it. And those who don't say look, this isn't for me. Now I know whenever it comes to your career and things like that, that the thought of like, Hey, I might pass on opportunities. Or people might look at this or look at me or look at my work and say, You know what, I don't think that's for us. Feels anxiety inducing at best. But the reality is that I actually love it. Because what that means is the people who come to me are really interested, they're really invested. This is somebody who's really serious about that conversation. And I just pass on a lot of the noise. The ones who just sort of come to me and they're just, you know, again, they have no idea what I am. So they're just sort of fishing around. For me, it creates clarity. For me, it creates focus for me, it means that, hey, those people who really identify with it, are the people I want to work with. So the opportunities and the things that come are right, a whole lot more. But I think here again, it's about balance. Because whenever you create your brand, it needs to be authentic to who you are. not who you want to be. Not who what you think your audience wants to Here, not creating a brand that sort of like, Oh, I think this is going to be appealing to xy and z, if that's not actually who you are. For me this is this is very relevant to the state of like American politics right now is a politics has turned into branding, where you watch these parties and these politicians run around and basically just tried to be and tell people, whatever it is they want to hear. We see how incredibly well this is working out. Universal dysfunction, inability to get anything done. Yet again, people don't get listened to the whole idea of that this should be in service of something disintegrating because they're just chasing and trying to be whoever it is they think everybody wants them to be. And you'll often watch policy only happens where again in a reaction to what they see in polling numbers or things like that, right? That's not what this can be. This has to be about what do you believe? What do you stand for again, if for this to work? Again, you can't take the shortcut. But that's also the thing is that hated When because look, history doesn't remember well behaved or generic people or brands. You know, for example, for me that was one of the things that when when I came in to work on w hotels, W had that problem they were trying to appeal to an own Cool, cool is too big. Cool is just not something that you can say, Oh, yes, we can own that. Or if you do, it takes too much money and too much time and too much effort for it to be a realistic thing. So for us, what we said is, look, we're about design, music and fashion. We stood up for things like gay rights and participating in pride. And we're very open about that. There are a lot of these things where we were very clear about who we were, which meant that for a lot of people, they really identified with that that was a brand that they felt passionately and strongly about. It came through in the branding and the way the hotels were designed in a lot of those sort of things. But it also meant that for a lot of people, W was like Sodom and Gomorrah, we embrace things that they didn't understand. Like this wasn't clearly a place they did not want to be and we He said, we're fine with that. And we tried to do that with all of our brands to make them design lead lifestyle brands. Because if it was something that you identified with, if you're about wellness, you went to Western, if you really were about that high end, luxury and service, you went to St. Regis, again, that each one of these had that sort of core thing that you really tried to identify with. But for us, we were fine if people didn't like it, because those who did really identified it, and they influence their group and on and on. But in that moment, though, we're going to talk about building a brand that people don't like or even hate. I think you have to acknowledge it. The big challenge here for all of us, is having people not like something especially whenever it's personal, whenever it's you because that feels bad. It's something again, I've struggled with for a really long time and trying to figure out how to deal with that. And I've got troll accounts that are dedicated just to me, I've got, you know, again, especially with the whole share the mic now movement and things like that. People who openly hair are threatening other ones. You want to demean it or make fun of it or do whatever it is where they love, the anonymity of the Internet of sitting behind their keyboard about making themselves feel bigger by making everybody else feel smaller. It's going to not feel great when that happens. But I think the thing is that you know, that I've really come to understand and embrace is that whenever your voice, your brand, in whatever way that is, right, and again, this doesn't mean go start a podcast or whatever it is, because, you know, the more public it is, the more you're going to be exposed to this and if yours is wonder, you're saying, Look, I don't want it to be this sort of big and public thing, fine. Write in whatever way, but people at work or other ones are not always gonna love it. So the thing is, is that how do you think about this? How do you approach it? What do you do? And my mentality has always very much been that candidly, I don't give a shit about the people who were booing from the cheap seats when I'm on the field, giving Everything I've got, you want to sit on the sideline, not be a part of the discussion, not be a part of whatever it is and be able to make your little comments and do things like that. Because that's the funny part for me is that every time there's a troll or anybody who has some smartass comment, you know, if you ever write back to them and say, great, you name the time and place, let's have a discussion about this. Let me put my record against your record, let's actually talk about this. Most of the time, what they do is they tweet you back the finger, they block you or do stuff like that, because that's not what they're interested in. Right? They don't want a real conversation that they don't want to do anything. They just want to make them feel themselves feel better, because they could bully somebody. Fuck him. I don't care. And the best expression of this or the best way to control this that I've found didn't come from me. And I think a lot of you probably listened to or aware of the work that Bernie brown does. I think, you know, she's somebody who obviously is a huge influence. Somebody who I've definitely looked to and the work that she's done in the way that she sort of built her brand, a lot of things like that. And I've heard about more than once have a conversation. about dealing with this and hers is just the best way that I know. And so best I knew is to be able to share her technique where what she says that she did is that she'll sit down and make a one inch by one inch piece of paper. And she keeps it with her in her wallet. And the reason why it's such a small piece of paper is because what she does is on the piece of paper, she writes down the names of the people whose opinions matter who she cares about the most. I have one I know a lot of other people who I coach have one. And the reality is, is that because of the size of that piece of paper, you're not just going to be able to physically fit more than depending on your penmanship anywhere between four and eight names on there. And these are the ones that the people whose opinions count who know you the best, who matter. And the reason why is because I think it's a good forcing and focusing function that whenever you get those opinions whenever you aren't sure what's going on whenever you're looking to those things, you look to that piece of paper and if those names are not the people who are giving you those opinions, if those names are not the ones that are causing you that Pain, that it helps you focus for, you know, to be able to understand and prioritize how little weight you probably need to give them. Because I think if you're being true to yourself, if you're doing those sort of things, if you're creating a podcast, or you're creating a side project, a product, a YouTube channel, whatever that is, and you're being authentic, it will find an audience. If you're doing it at work and trying to create a change and something that you really believe in, it will find a way. But it needs to be authentic, it needs to be focused. But I think that those are sort of the pitfalls of doing it. And like I said, there is it's not without its challenges. But to take the time to do that introspection to take the time to be able to figure out and do those things, is so important because it allows you to take stock into focus on what's actually going on. Now, we've covered this in episodes in the past and so this will just be a quick recap of you know, and we talked about sort of the nuts and bolts of building the brand, I would highly encourage you to go back and Listen to Episode 679 and 61, where I will go into more detail about this. But if you haven't listened to those just a little bit of a teaser about, this is all great. Where do I get started is I think like to solve this problem, you have to be able to step back and think about yourself, like a brand. You have to be able to define why you're different your core values, your voice, your image, your differentiators. Because again, if we were doing this as a business, what I would do is I would come to you and say, why did you get into this business instead of another one? What are the values that drive you? What is your personality? What is your personality and your style like and really, what makes you different? When in many cases, people can start to be able to think about those things. But in many cases, it feels like a little bit too much of a hodgepodge or there's not enough focus to be able to figure out okay, where's the foundation and how do I build on that? Now the exercise which again is not my own, I don't know where it came from. If somebody wants to Email me and I'll give him credit in the future. But for me is that I like to ground any brand, my own and somebody else's personal brand, any of the corporate brands that I build in these archetypes that are embedded in all of our subconsciousness. Right. So archetypes and brand archetypes in particular, go all the way back to Greek mythology, which is basically saying that there are just certain characters that exist in most stories of certain people who play certain roles who contribute certain things have certain attitudes in certain ways and tones of voice to be able to do things. Now, depending on you know, sort of which one you listen to it here again, there's somewhere between 12 and 16 of these. And what I want you to be able to do is to go through and figure out what archetype are you? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put a link in the show notes, where you can download a deck that I've created, and what it is, is that every archetype has the name of the archetype. So are you a defender? Are you an explorer, or you are rebel Are you a villain like these different things, and then there's an explanation of what that means. But then to help you a little bit more, I'll list some brands that would be similar to what these are. So again, a rebel would probably be something like if you think about like, you know, the virgin brands or Virgin Atlantic, there's a celebrity that would often embody that so that there's some way where you can start to identify and see it in the real world. And what I want you to be able to do is to you can download the deck and print it out. And I want you to do just a simple card sort, meaning taking two of these brands at a time and look at one then look at the other figure out which one do you feel like you connect with more, which is the stronger one where you think like, yeah, you know what I feel like that's me. Great. Hold on to that one. Discard the other one. And then the one that you hold on to set that off to the side and continue to do it, then you'll have two piles one that's like definitely not me one that is take the me pile. Take those cards two at a time. Do it again. And what you're going to be able to do is to keep going and this will get geometrically harder as you do it. But what you're going to be able to get down to is what is your primary key, which means at the very end, what is the one archetype that I think is the most me? And a secondary one? Meaning what's the one where I feel like, okay, there's a lot that resonates here. But what that's going to be able to do is then to give you the start of a brand strategy, because then you can say, Okay, great, this is my primary archetype. This is my secondary archetype, and it gives you a place to be able to start, but hold on one second. The other thing that I want you to be able to do is and depending on you know, if you want to have a significant other, do it your friends, your parents, people you work with, I want you to have other people do the same exercise, but do it about you. Because this is one of the other things I've talked about this so many times is that we our own biggest blind spot, meaning that in too many cases, the way we see ourselves is not necessarily the way the world sees So now able to work through that blind spot, especially when you're building a brand. The reason why I like other people to do that exercise on your behalf is to see what are the what's the primary and secondary archetype they come up with? How close is it to what you think? Because it's a necessary conversation for you to understand sort of what is the internal way that you view yourself? What is the external way that the world views you? I think that in many cases, that ability to be able to then compare the two often creates a whole lot of insight in conversation about why do I see myself this way, somebody else sees myself another way. And like I said, if you go into Episode 679, and 61, this goes into more detail about where do you go from here? We have those and I don't want to rehash that here, but start with that foundation. But I think more than anything, it gets back to as we talked about why we're on our own biggest blind spot. The other reason why I want to do this and to be able to push you for that level of clarity, is because I think the last mistake of the last challenge I see a lot of people struggle with is that we often build personal brands that we think are easily palatable to everybody else. And again, we've talked about this in the past episode 100, and others hit on this theme hard about why how we focus on who we think we we are, as opposed to an often betray who we really are. Now, this is what I said about your personal brand about how you can build things that you think is acceptable, palatable, what other people will want. That is not what we need to do here doing that sort of a thing is not going to make that brand successful. It needs to be authentic to who you are to what you stand for. And this is the hardest, most anxiety inducing part of all of this, because it requires a level of honesty and vulnerability and courage and risk to stand up and say, This is who I am, because then it feels like you are stepping out away from everybody else. And you feel very exposed because of it. But the thing that I can tell you is that whenever you do that you are very quickly going define how many other people feel that same way how many people then support that how many people support that strength of voice? Because like I said, You're not where you work. You're not where you went to school, you're not the persona of what you think someone successful at your company or in the industry is you are who you are. This goes back to the very reason why this show was started four and a half years ago, was my fundamental belief that what makes you different, is what makes you strong. And this is that ability to try to be able to be able to lean into that, but it's also because I think, for so many of us, I continue to see this crisis of trust. And the most painful place for me is that that crisis of trust, is that we don't trust ourselves. We aren't happy with who we are. We don't feel like we can trust and express who that is. It is depressing. It is debilitating. It is difficult, especially the longer you do it, the more frustrating and the harder it becomes. And that's out of my journey. Again, as I've said, I've tattoos on both forums because of my personal struggle with this, that I've marked my body as a reminder of how I need to show up every day. But for me, it was a necessary step to never go back to that generic state to continue to work and to do these things. So my ask is for simple things, whenever you build your brand and you think about these things, because these are this is what's going to define your success. First off, be credible. Meaning that what it is you say you can do, you can really do that this is honest to who you really are that it is really again, it is about an expression of you to next to be creative. This is your chance to work with no clients, no customers to let who you really come on come who you really are, come out and celebrate that. Do it in a creative, unique, memorable way. Once again, this is not the moment to be generic. It is Never the moment to be generic. And you have to remember that because what you want to be is the third thing you want to be memorable. You want somebody to remember you for what you did for what you said for what you stood for. Even, you know, I've found myself lately, with some of the people that I coach whenever you know, they're doing interviews, or they're talking about things, or they're going in and being a part of a job process, and they'll tell me what they want to say. And I'll just turn it around. And I would say, is that the advice you'd want to hear? Is that the thing that you would find memorable? Is that the thing that you think is going to help somebody? And the answer is almost always No, because that's the thing is that what we're afraid of, is that vulnerability is that honesty. But whenever we don't have that then we're not memorable and we're not unique. But that's the part of it for me that that again is weird and as counterintuitive as that maze is it may sound. build a brand somebody is going to be hate is going to hate. build a brand that somebody's going to say you know what, look, that's not for me. And if hate is too strong of a word, then just say, Look, just have somebody look at it and go, you know what I don't think that's going to align with who I am. But your ability to be credible, to be creative, to be memorable, and to create something that is strong enough and clear enough that somebody is going to say, look, if this is for me, I love it, I will follow it to the end of the world. And everybody else is gonna go, you know what, that's not for me. This is going to be the heart of this, this is what's going to help you in your career is the ability to do this. And like I said, then the expressions of that, the colors, the logos, the typeface, all of that stuff, then can come back in the support that position but then it gives you the ability to say, do those things support my brand positioning? And so I think that's the thing for me that I think is so important, is to just never be generic. So, hopefully, as always, this is helpful. Like I said, I'm gonna put the link to that deck. I'll put all that This stuff in the show notes. You can just remember head over to the crazy one calm. It's the crazy the number one.com. I'll have if you're listening to this in real time the episode will be under latest episodes on the homepage. If not just go up hit episodes in the main nav go down to all episodes go down to 106 you can find it there. Hey, I'm trying to be more regular with the shows. I know it took a bit of a rocky turn there for a little bit. But look, if you hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform, not an issue. Do me a favor. The only payment I ever asked for do me a favor, leave a review for the show. And whatever platform wherever you are in the world makes a great difference. If you've got questions if there are things if you want me to take a look at your brand or your resume your portfolio look reach out you can find me on LinkedIn you can find me on probably LinkedIn or email is the best just because messaging on Instagram and especially on Twitter is horrible. I