Your Personal Brand – It’s Important

Posted September 12th, 2013 at 11:54 pm by Matt

I had a good friend recently tell me that I should share my thoughts and try to be better about writing/blogging. He said it was important in itself – but also important it that it builds your personal brand. I kind of agreed – in that, “perfect world”/where-I-had-time sort of way. I could see it would be good for networking, for positioning myself for the future, etc. – but it seemed difficult to start doing. Plus, I was always busy with something else in the short-term. No time for long-term stuff. Every time I would try to sit down and write something, I would either develop an immediate onset case of writers block or I would come up with ideas that were not “good enough.”

He told me this didn’t matter – and I was setting the bar too high. My definition of “good enough” and someone else’s probably were not the same. And just because I didn’t find something interesting perhaps didn’t mean much – the mere fact I’ve done something could be of interest to someone, somewhere.

For example, recently I’ve been exploring SBA 7(a) loans for LaunchPlan. It’s been a learning opportunity – both in terms of the process and in terms of what bankers look for. For example – several bankers told me they like to see 2-3 dollars of existing operating capital for every dollar loaned. I did not know that – I learned something new that I had not previously read about in my online research. (I should write a post exclusively about this – noted.)

Anyway – this idea of sharing and removing my filter of what I deem “shareable” was on my mind. I didn’t quite know what to make of it – but I was thinking about it in the back of my mind.

Then I saw this video – a TED talk by George Monbiot about “rewilding.” I had never heard of this before. In fact, I had not heard the word used before. Turns out, it’ll about bringing animals back into ecosystems that they are no longer a part of.

Totally related – I know – that was my first thought too. But this was a really, really great talk.

A brief snippet: after Yellowstone National Park reintroduced wolves back into the ecosystem great things started happening. Predictable things including reduced deer populations – sure – but also seemingly unrelated things including firmer banks of rivers, taller trees, and more bald eagles. (You must watch the video – the connections here are very interesting.)

Another snippet: George asks, “What happens when you remove whales from the ocean?” More fish right? I thought so – the thinking goes something like this: Whales eat fish and krill, the Japanese (and others) hunt whales, the number of whales goes down, and as a result the number of fish and krill go up. However this is false. Turns out there is a relationship between whales surfacing to breathe/diving and increased fish/krill populations. It all has to do with the large whales stirring up the ocean as they surface/dive as well as bringing excrement with them as they surface that feeds the bottom of the food chain of the very fish they eat.

Just watch the video – it’s short and very cool.

But, to reel (pun!) my tangent in: Where am I going with all of this? When listening to this video I connected back to my friend’s thought about sharing. A thought emerged: unintended consequences. Who am I to think I could possibly predict the context through which someone will read about something I share? So why not share and put things out there. Build that brand around myself based upon things I think are important. Share what I’m working on. Share interesting learnings and things I think are great. Because who knows – perhaps tomorrow someone will read it and it will complete a thought for them. Or they’ll think – “I agree” or “Me too” or “No way – that’s wrong” or “I disagree.” It doesn’t matter – it could create dialogue or stir thoughts for that reader, or…who knows!

Building this personal brand could lead you to your next job, next client, next customer, or next business. Perhaps it will help you steer clear of people of other perspectives – and perhaps that’s good. Perhaps it will attract opposites? Again – who knows? But what’s the downside – why not do it? I’m always a fan of looking at decisions through the risk/reward lens. I think the rewards are clear. The risks? As long as you don’t share confidential or sensitive things – what’s the worst case scenario? Someone stops reading it? Someone never reads it (I’m not writing for the NYT after all)? Someone disagrees? Ok – so that’s no different than everyday life. I don’t see a big risk.

So here’s my plan moving forward: share more and share often. I will do my best to stick to this. This was, ironically, exactly what my friend told me to do. But I had to come to that conclusion myself. I suppose he incepted me. But If I have an interesting thought I will make a note of it or draft something. Because why not and who knows where it will lead. When that thought is then triggered by another thought – or a TED Talk – and the thought is completed – I will share it – probably right away. If later on I don’t think past ideas are good enough I will leave them alone. Maybe they’re not ready or maybe they’re just bad.

As my friend told me: he had (in just a couple of years of blogging) already seen some pretty significant and unintended side-effects from writing. Big stuff – like validating him as a new-hire for a company he really wanted to work for – because they connected with some of the things he had blogged about. Or in another case, gaining a client when seemingly trivial posts about things non-work related proved to be common ground – and started a conversation. Who saw that coming? Not him. I’m sure I won’t either.

Hopefully some time from now I can write part two of this post and share some unintended side-effects. Who knows?

Note: the friend in question here is Kyle Daigle. He’s got some great reads over at his blog at kyledaigle.com.