“Be Yourself:” Why Telling Stories and Being Vulnerable Are Crucial For Your Personal Brand
A personal brand is more than a buzzword, it’s the way other people perceive you. I offer some tips for managing the gap between how other’s perceive you and how you want to be perceived in online spaces.
We All Have A Personal Brand: Whether We’d like to Admit it or Not.
I used to think of “personal branding” a buzzword that amounted to little, but perception matters when social media is so integral to social life. With the click of an app of mobile phone, people can make initial judgements based on a social media profile. Those first seconds matter and can have consequences.
Cynthia Johnson writes in Platform: The Art of Science of Personal Branding that “having a personal brand is inescapable. If you don’t build and maintain your brand, the world around will do it for you, and you will be putting your future in the hands of others.”
Taking a more active approach in your personal brand should not be viewed as an exercise in vanity, it’s an exercise in expressing how you want to be viewed by others in the most authentic light. By authentic I am referring to how your own perception aligns with how most people see you.
When you are perceived as authentic, you are perceived as having the qualities you signal to others. In other words, your personal brand.
The old idiom goes, “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” but unfortunately people judge you by online by personal brand. Whether you are on the job hunt, a sales professional, or a anyone else participating in the online world, knowing how to portray yourself to others is crucial.
Articulate Your Own Personal Narrative: Tell Stories.
Our lives are all different and unique. We might not all see ourselves as storytellers, but we all have a story to tell. I view personal branding as storytelling because it’s not enough to have a picture on your social media profile. There needs to be some type of information that conveys what makes you…you.
It’s important to note that your personal brand is not your job or career, it’s you.
This point above can be somewhat difficult to address when your career aligns so closely to your identity. I was a PhD candidate (or a “professional student”) and I closely aligned by identity with my career, and it made it harder to express myself. I often use storytelling to talk about this specific point because it’s not something that can expressed in one or two sentences well.
Telling stories is one of the most powerful means that leaders have to influence, teach, and inspire. What makes storytelling so effective for learning? For starters, storytelling forges connections among people, and between people and ideas. Stories convey the culture, history, and values that unite people. When it comes to our countries, our communities, and our families, we understand intuitively that the stories we hold in common are an important part of the ties that bind. — Vanessa Boris in Harvard Business Publishing
Telling stories is not just for you, but it’s for others. As the quote above suggests, storytelling can be powerful way to connect to others. When you are trying to make a lasting impression with your audience, storytelling is a compelling way to establish long-lasting connections with people. In many ways they want to “keep reading” or following your journey since your story is still being told.
Nobody is Perfect: It’s Okay to Show Vulnerability
There’s a lot of anxiety that comes into this piece of advice, but being open and honest about your weaknesses can be seen a strength. No one is perfect, and acting like you are perfect comes across as unauthentic, which can be detrimental for job searching or making friends. Would you want to hang out or work with someone who thinks they know everything and can do anything? Probably not.
You can still be confident and talk about your shortcomings.
That’s what makes us human and unique.
When I think of my personal brand, I perceive myself as a father, husband, and an individual who whose on a journey to build his self-esteem. I talk more about my career journey in this video below, but more importantly, I talk about my personal life and how it affected my career journey — mainly the passing of my father when I was 5.
The purpose of the video was to tell my story, but also open up about my insecurities and my journey so that other graduate students and people uncertain about their career journey could relate.
I strongly encourage other’s to be creative with how you express yourself in online spaces. Video is an effective form of engaging with people and video goes beyond just text and images, it enables people to see more about who you are.
If you’re concerned that your career/job is too tied to your personality, email me at ryanwilliamcollins@yahoo.com. I’m always happy to chat and offer advice.
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Check out my website to see my research projects and data analysis projects.
