Vulnerability, Hidden Value and the Human Side of Personal Brand

17 Experts, 40hrs real-life conversations on personal brand

I know your time is valuable. These show notes give you the gist of the episode, what is covered, any links or resources talked about in the show, and also gives you a few ways to listen, watch or digest this episode.

This episode’s topic, in a nutshell…

Almost two years ago, I started a series of conversations with subject matter experts from a wide variety of fields. I wanted to understand how they bring themselves into their work, communicate their value and express their personalities and talents to the outside world.

After 17 conversations and nearly 40 hours of talking to these smart, generous humans, I began to see some common themes which we can all relate to.

In this episode, I share what I learnt, how much work went into creating the series and why I came away even more interested in the humans behind the professional titles we give ourselves.

Highlights

In this episode I unpack:

• The behind-the-scenes process of creating the series (research, preparation, planning, execution, and episode production and promotion).
• The over-riding human themes I gleamed and learnt from, by doing the series:
  • Vulnerability: how sharing the difficult parts of our stories can help other people relate to and connect with us.
  • Authenticity alignment: why getting clearer about your values and what matters to you can help you decide where to show up, who to work with and how to communicate your value.
  • Unconscious value: the invisible talents and strengths that many professionals take for granted, even though these may be exactly what other people want to understand about them.
  • Jungle-gym careers: why a career can move sideways, backwards, upwards or diagonally, rather than following a neat ladder (and that’s OK!)
  • Cultural intelligence: why self-awareness is only part of the picture, and why curiosity, compassion and an interest in other people matter when working across cultures and different backgrounds.
  • Humanity versus artificial intelligence: why I wanted to hear how the people I spoke to were thinking about AI and its potential impact on their work and the humans within their fields.

What I hope you’ll get from this discussion:

I hope this episode encourages you to look at yourself and your professional reputation a little differently.

The conversations reminded me that a strong personal brand is not simply about promoting yourself. It is about understanding who you are, what you bring to your work and how to communicate that in a way other people can recognise and understand.

They also reminded me that we do not need to have a perfectly straight career path or a polished answer to every question. Curiosity, adaptability and a willingness to learn can be just as useful as having a carefully mapped-out plan.

Your value may be more visible to other people than it is to you. The trick is learning how to recognise it and put it into words. If you’d like some help doing that – then do get in touch with me and I’d love to support you with that. (Contact details: Email | Book a Call Now)

Quick links to sources mentioned in this episode:

I refer to a previous episode in where I reflected on the 8 working principles which I felt like all my 17 subject matter expert guests had in common. You can go and listen or watch that episode here:

Listen to: “8 Principles Remarkable Experts Live By”

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