My Personal Brand is My Professional Success Story!
This blog is the script of a talk I did internally at WSO2 in 2015 to inspire the team to build their personal brand. Found this today, buried in my Google Docs, and thought of sharing publicly (unedited), in case if someone finds it helpful!
Good Morning folks, thanks for joining in — it’s my great pleasure to do this session on ‘My Personal Brand is My Professional Success Story’.
First of all I must thank Asanka, Zai, Charitha, Usama and the entire marketing team for giving me the opportunity to present on this topic. In first sight, I thought, it’s tough to present on a topic — that I have not consciously focused on — or purposely wanted to achieve myself. Then again, thinking further on the title, I realized whether we like it or not each one of us has a personal brand.
The personal brand is the image of you, that you cultivate in others’ minds. In other words — that is how — others think about you. This raises a question in all ‘radical’ minds — why we have to care about what others think about us — we do our bit in the way we want, and should we care about personal branding? It is extremely important to find answers to this question, because if we are not convinced of something, we will never do it.
In my view there are no individuals — there is a bigger, greater team behind each individual. This bigger, greater team includes your parents, siblings, spouse, kids, relations, friends. colleagues and many more. You like it or not, more or less you are a reflection of this team behind you. As we grow up as human beings the team behind us — or the team which influences us, widens up. It would not just include well-wishers, but also haters, competitors and many more. But, still you as an individual is a reflection of this team. Sometimes — or even in most of the cases, the haters could motivate you more than well-wishers. This team also includes people you have never talked to — people you have never seen — people who never exist, like some characters in books. This is the team behind you — at the same time — you like it or not you become a member of a team behind another individual or set of individuals. In other words, you get influenced by a team and then again you influence another set of individuals.
Let me take a quick example. Everyone knows Mahatma Gandhi. In his own words, Ghandi once said — “Three moderns have left a deep impress on my life and captivated me. Raychandbhai by his living contact; Tolstoy by his book, “The Kingdom of God is within you”; and Ruskin by his “Unto This Last”. That was what influenced him — today there are countless number of individuals who are influenced by Gandhi.
Arguably, CNBC, in 2014, named Steve Jobs as the most influential person in last 25 years. Thousands of people are influenced by Steve Jobs, at the same time there are many other people who influenced Jobs — Edwin H. Land, who co-founded Polaroid and made a number of significant advancements in the field of photography, is one of them, Jobs used to talk about.
In short, whether you like it or not, more or less, you get influenced by others and then again you influence others. Now it is a question on how much an impact you want to make on the rest of the world before you die, to make this world a better place than it looks like today.
If you want to make a good/positive impact on others, you care about how they think about you. If you cannot build a positive image of you, in their minds, you will find it extremely hard to make a positive impact in their lives. The positive image of you is the reflection of your character. If you have a bad character, it is extremely hard to build a good image out of it, not quite impossible though. But, if your character is good, the positive image is the bonus what you get for it. Personal branding requires, little more than having a good image — you need to learn to express yourself — not to market yourself — but to express yourself. Everyone from the history, who has made a positive impact to the world, have expressed themselves. The way Gandhi took to express himself, is not the same which Steve Jobs picked.
The rest of the talk from here onwards, is about, how to build a good image and then how to express your character to the rest, to build a positive personal brand.
In my view, everyone of us, should have a vision for the life. Vision for the life is the one that drives you to the future. The vision for the life is the one that motivates us to wake up every morning. If you don’t have one — start thinking about it from today. Think about, what motivates you to do what you do everyday. Having a good vision is the core in building a great image.
The vision has to be inspirational — a great vision statement inspires and moves us. It is a motivational force that compels action. You recognize a great vision statement when you find it difficult not to be inspired.
The vision has to be challenging — the best vision statements challenge us to become better. In this way, a vision statement requires us to stretch ourselves in pursuit of the vision we seek to achieve. The vision is not an ‘easy target’; it is something that if achieved- would represent a sense of pride and fulfillment.
The vision has to be achievable — vision must not be so far-fetched that is outside of our reach. It must be conceivably possible, though not probable without additional effort.
When we start working for a company, we get used to spend most of our time working there. If your vision for life does not match with the vision of the company you work for — there could be many conflicts and you won’t be productive. If your vision for life, is to make this world a better place, you cannot work for a company which produces cigarettes or weapons.
The second most important thing in building a good image, is your integrity. Oprah Winfrey, who is a well-respected TV talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist, says “Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.”. I don’t think there is a better way of explaining, ‘integrity’ than this. It captures all what it needs to be.
I have visited and talked with many WSO2 customers over last eight years. We never talk to a customer with an intention of selling a product. First thing we do is listening to them and learn from them, then we all work towards the best solution to the problem they have. Finally we see how WSO2 could fit into the solution. If it is not a perfect fit — we never lie — we identify the gaps — and find a way to move forward by filling those gaps. Most of the time we win the customer at the second stage, when we build the solution for them and in many cases they agree to go ahead with us, even we are not the perfect match for their problem. That is mainly because, the level of integrity we demonstrate as a company.
No one is perfect — that also implies everyone makes mistakes. A guy with a high level of integrity would never hide mistakes, but rather would accept it, apologize for it and fix it. Never he would lie — never he would say something to one person and something else to another. Mark Twain once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
In short, vision for life will drive you to the future, while the integrity is the cornerstone of your personal brand.
The third most important thing you should do in building a positive image is, to raise yourself against negativity. Do not let negativity kill your productivity, enthusiasm, passion and spirit. People who spread negativity are the people who feel extremely insecure in their current state. They only have complaints — no suggestions. Their feedbacks are negative, not constructive. They see only bad — not a single bit of good. Identifying these type of people are not that hard — first you need to shield yourself from negativity — then you need to protect your team. Even just by keeping silent when hear something negative, you indirectly contributes to spread it over — fix it at that very point. If you are closely following the US presidential election campaign, you might have noticed, Donald Trump, who is the republican front runner at the moment, is being heavily criticized for being silent and not correcting a question raised by someone in his political campaign, where he said — ‘Muslims is a problem and Barack Obama is a Muslim’. Even though Trump is still the frontrunner, his popularity has gone down considerably after these dialogues.
The fourth most important thing you should do in building a positive image is, when you do something do it to a level where it can make an impact. If you believe something is right, go for it and make it happen. At the end of the day you may fail — but look back and see whether you have contributed to your best — if so, you will never frustrate — no regrets.
Expressing an idea is important — but representing an idea is much more important. When you represent something you own it. If you want to do something to make an impact, you must own it. You should not be a someone who talks the talk but does not walk the walk.
Tolerating criticism and accepting constructive feedback, is another key aspect in building a positive image. There are no better sources than criticisms to validate the direction we are heading and to learn. Bill Gates, once said ‘Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning’.
We discussed so far, the need to build a positive image and how to do it. Next we will focus on how to build a personal brand by expressing yourself. As we discussed before, personal branding requires, little more than having a good image — you need to learn to express yourself — not to market yourself. If you already have a positive image, being little expressive will build you a positive personal brand. If you already have a negative image, being little expressive will build you a negative personal brand. The image you build is a reflection of your character. That includes your role, as a father, son, brother, husband, colleague, friend, mentor, developer, architect and many more. You can build an image as a good father and a bad son — or as a good son and a bad brother — or as a good friend and a bad developer — likewise any combinations. But, more or less, ultimately your true image is how you do overall. You can be the best developer in the company, but then again if you do not understand the value of respecting each other’s religions and cultural values or — in a single word, if you are a racist — your top skills as a developer is worthless.
You need to pick how you want to impact the world — or how you want the world to see you. Thats your personal brand — and you build it on top of your character or the image. Your overall character is the shelter for your personal brand. If you do not build it right — if you find holes in it — you cannot protect your brand, even from a light shower. That’s why building the right character comes well before building a personal brand.
In my view, the area you can make the most impact to the world, in its positive direction, is the area that you are most passionate about. If you are extremely worried and angry about child labour — you can be a thought leader in protesting against child labour. If you are extremely worried and angry about human rights violations — you can be a thought leader in protecting human rights. If you are extremely passionate about integration technologies, you can be a thought leader in integration space. If you are extremely passionate about machine learning, you can be a thought leader in machine learning space. If you are passionate about APIs — you can be a thought leader in API space. If you are passionate about Big Data, you can be a thought leader in Big Data space. If you are passionate about Identity and Access Management, you can be a thought leader in Identity and Access Management space. Opportunities are limitless — but remember our ground rules — if you do something — do it to a level where it can make a positive impact. You do not need to worry about being a thought leader, but when you make a good positive impact, you will become a thought leader automatically.
Once you decide the area where you want to make an impact — the rest depends on how good you as a communicator. Communication is critically important, because, that’s the only way you can reach to your audience. Content marketing is the best way to build a brand and reputation online; when people look for information, they tend to go back to sources that were helpful to them. If you can become a trusted source of information through your content, over time you’ll become collectively known as the expert of your specific field. It’s best to start your own blog and update it on a regular basis — at least weekly. If you do not update regularly you lose your audience. At the start it would be tough — but once you make it a practice, it will start to happen effortlessly. Another key principle I would like to highlight here is the difference between good and great. Most of the time the difference between good and great lies heavily on how you do tiny/little things better. You may spend hours in writing a blog — finding the content — validating the content and getting all in order. But — we are bit lazy to put another more five to ten minutes of effort, to format our blog post, publish it in DZone and other blog aggregators, share it in social media sites — and do little more. This additional ten minutes of effort could easily make your blog post from being a good one to a great one — and also would attract a larger audience.
Regularly participate in mailing lists related to the subject of your interest is another way of passing your message to the rest of the world. These mailing lists may be within WSO2 or even outside. Look for standard bodies like W3C, IETF, OASIS — and any other communities that share the same interest of yours, and eagerly participate in related discussions. Not just the mailing lists, look for interesting groups in Facebook, LinkedIn, StackOverFlow and wherever possible and make your mark.
Webinars at WSO2 is another key medium to pass your message to the audience of your interest. If you want to be a thought leader in your product space, then your responsibility does not end at the moment you release the product. You need to come up with a plan for evangelization — and webinars could be extremely helpful.
At WSO2 you get a massive number of opportunities to build your brand. Your personal brand is important to you as well as, to the company you serve. Few years back, we had a VP of Marketing called Katie Poplin — and I personally got motivated by some of the concepts she put forward. One thing she believed was, in the open source community, brand value of individuals are much higher and trustworthier than that of companies. People used to think, everything a company shares, is part of their marketing propaganda — which may not reflect the real value. But, what individuals share are their first hand experience. Also we had monthly awards for best blogger, best evangelist and the best article. If I remember correctly I won both the best blogger and best evangelist awards in couple of months and it was fun :-).
Then again don’t just get constrained by the the opportunities you get from WSO2. Always look for what is happening outside. Try to get your articles published in external portals. Also — look for writing books. Writing a book is not hard as it looks to be. First you need to come up with a proposal, with an attractive topic, in your domain of expertise, and then submit it to few publishers. Most of the publishers accept book proposals and if you go to their web sites, you will find everything you need to know, on writing books — go for it!.
Conferences and meetups are another way to establish yourself as a prominent speaker in the corresponding domain. Then again, getting a speaking opportunity will depend on how better you have done your homework.
These are only few techniques to build your brand, in the domain you are interested in, on top of your personal image or the character. Building your personal brand is a focused exercise, not just a piece of cake. It’s a journey, not a destination. Once you built it — maintaining it and protecting it is much harder. As we discussed before, your image or the character is the shelter or the shield of your personal brand. If you build your character consciously, that’ll help you in protecting your brand.
Finally to wrap up, in this session we discussed the importance of brand building, how to build your character and the image, how to build a personal brand under the shelter of your character. Thank you very much.
