Personal Branding is Not What You Think
Lesson 1 from: FAST CLASS: Personal Branding for Creative ProfessionalsDorie Clark
Personal Branding is Not What You Think
Lesson 1 from: FAST CLASS: Personal Branding for Creative ProfessionalsDorie Clark
Lessons
Personal Branding is Not What You Think
06:28 2Telling the Branded Story
11:47 3Understanding Your Brand
05:02 4Discover Your Personal Narrative
04:28 5Brand Through Leadership
03:52 6The Wingman Strategy
04:07 7Be a Hub for Your Network
05:06 8Your Online Presence
06:22Lesson Info
Personal Branding is Not What You Think
personal branding, let's let's launch in here. It's not what you think, you know, maybe some of you guys are 100% on board already, but I wanted to start out because for a lot of people, even those who are excited about personal branding and people who say yes, yes, I really need this. There is sometimes, you know, some hesitation about whether it's really necessary to spend time on, whether it's a good idea, whether it means kind of selling out in some way and so let's take it head on. Right? So first of all, the reason that I think that this is so important, I mean personal branding is more important today than it ever has been in human history. That sounds like a really bold claim. But I will tell you what I mean by that I'm guessing that you guys probably all have, you know, tons, hundreds, even thousands of your super popular of facebook friends, right? Some of you may be on twitter, you're probably on linked in, you know, all these things we are now subjected to a stream of infor...
mation that is enormous. You may be familiar with a concept called the Dunbar number. This is something that the cool kids in sociology like to talk about and it became popular in Malcolm Gladwell's book the tipping point and basically what this says, There's a sociologist named Robin Dunbar and he wrote about the fact that historically in terms of human groups, how they, You know connect with each other and interact that 150 seems to be about the maximum number that we can process properly. You know that in ancient human societies, that was the size of a unit. And so there's this idea that okay, you know that's that's about all the brain can handle for friends. Well guess what I have a lot more than 150 Facebook friends. You probably do too. It is a lot going on. And so what it means is that our attention is diffused and those individuals are not necessarily paying, pardon me, really close attention to all the things that you're doing. But here's the kicker. Here's the really interesting part. It means they're overtaxed. But those people actually your extended network, what you know what technology has made possible. The fact that we can now still be friends with people that we worked with at a job like 10 years ago or went to summer camp with or whatever. They actually can be a really powerful resource for us. He's also somebody that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about. He's a good nose for finding the cool research in sociology and psychology. A gentleman named Mark Grant better in the 19 seventies did a really famous study and Gladwell termed this the strength of weak ties. And basically what it meant when they ask people where did you get your job where did you get your last job from Most people When you ask them, they say, oh friend of a friend referred me and I got the job makes sense, right? It turns out, however, that if you dig just a little bit below the surface, peel it back. It's not really a friend. It's not technically a friend. It's an acquaintance that helped them get the job. And the reason why that is significant is that your friends, like you're really tight friends that you see all the time. They're the ones that actually know basically the same people and have the same information as you acquaintances are even more valuable when it comes to professional opportunities because they're off here. They know different people, they know different things. They are more likely. They subscribe to different list serves, you know, and they're more likely to hear about stuff that you would not ever otherwise hear about. But really what we're talking about fundamentally when we, when I say personal brand, that means your reputation. That's what we're talking about. What is your professional reputation. What do people think about you when you leave the room? What do you say about you? Is it what you want? That's a really important question. And that's something that people have been dealing with for Millennia. But it is even more tricky and important today because the word spreads, you know, 30 years ago, it's, oh, well, what are your co workers think about you today? It's what is the world think about you because it's online. It's everywhere and there's a million opportunities because someone could hire you to photograph their horse in Australia across the world, right? Sally can hook you up with all her horse friends, but meanwhile it's uh, you know, good things can spread and bad things can spread and we just, we have to be mindful, we can't have this sort of ostrich head in the sand mentality of like, well, you know, you know, it's okay if I do good work, you know, magic things will happen. I mean, that's nice. That's important. That is a necessary prerequisite. But we, you know, we all know that we can't count on it to happen in America and in a moment I'm gonna talk a little bit more about this, you know, and I've done some research about it, but in America we are basically as a country, not necessarily every individual, but as a country, we are the most pro personal branding country in the world. And so if you want to succeed in America, you do kind of need to learn how to do it and how to get comfortable with it. Um, because, you know, sally said, it's being a tall poppy in America is actually really good, like standing out and being accomplished is pretty great. You know, everybody thinks like, oh, steve jobs that's amazing what a visionary, you know, and uh, so I think that's a key thing, but there are these strands, right? It could be your culture if you're from a different culture, it could be your region, it could be your family, maybe your parents always brought you up with a very strong, you know, don't brag, don't, you know, don't put yourself in front of other people. And I think it gets kind of muddled sometimes because when people are equating personal branding with bragging, you're never gonna want to do personal branding because it feels wrong. It literally, you know, feels like a terrible thing to do. I did research with a colleague, uh, we, you know, we did a couple of articles about this for a Harvard business review named Andy Molinski from BRANDEIS University. And he actually worked with a guy who is indian and he said, personal branding feels like a sin. Hopefully it's not, it's not as intense for you guys, but everybody has certain levels of, you know, of qualms about, you know, what does it mean to put yourself out there? How do you, how do you get comfortable doing it?
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Ratings and Reviews
Sandi K. Terry
I never thought I would watch a class on personal branding and end up wishing that I had watched the longer one instead. Wow! I watched this instead of a different one I looked at on another platform that struck me as the antithesis of this class. It gave me that yucky, using-people feeling that Dorie teaches you NOT to do. If you're like me and confused about how to create a personal brand (part of my new career as a UX designer) and you're put off by what you've seen elsewhere, take this class instead. I am so glad to have taken this class and only wish I had watched the longer one instead. Five stars; highly recommended!
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