Top 3 Reasons Why Workplace Rock Stars Need a Personal Brand

This past week I had the great fortune to be interviewed by the co-hosts of KSRO’s Ask the Expert: Career Conversations talk show here in Santa Rosa, CA. For those of you who don’t know, Sarah Scudder, Chief Growth Officer at The Sourcing Group, and Nicole Smartt, Co-Owner of Star Staffing and Bestselling author, co-host a weekly talk show where they addresses topics such as taking your career in a new direction, turning a passion or hobby into a business, starting out in the workforce, and becoming more engaged in your current job.

When they sent me the list of questions for the show, I could feel a fire burning inside of me—no not that kind of burning, ha ha! But I got very excited because the questions got me thinking a lot about the past few years, and how much I’ve progressed in achieving some really significant goals.

One of the items on their list we didn’t get to touch on while recording, but that I’m incredibly passionate about, is building your personal brand. Some people wonder why in the world you would spend time building a personal brand when you work for a company, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to give you my pitch.

Now, before I go down this rabbit hole, I must put in a brief disclaimer that if you are looking to build your brand while working at a company, take a moment to examine your professional reputation in your current role and organization. If you aren't pulling your weight, or getting your job done, and view personal branding as a way to potentially attract new employers, then I would recommend evaluating your current situation before pursuing external endeavors. However, if you are crushing it at work every day and would like to find ways to share the good word, then please continue on.

Back to the pitch. So, I could probably come up with a list of 30 reasons why you should have a personal brand, but I'll spare you the extras, cut to the chase, and offer my top 3 reasons why rock stars need a personal brand.

Reason #1: Fun

You can draw nerd glasses on me for this one, but the first thing you will find about building a personal brand is that you get to learn a lot about yourself, what you’re good at, and you get to share that knowledge with other people. Let’s say you’ve been in your career even 5 years—you have tons more knowledge than anyone else entering the profession for the first time. Don’t you think someone straight out of college would love to know what they could do to be successful in the first 5 years of their new job? I would! If you've been in your career even longer, then you will not only have lots of great advice for getting started, but richer wisdom on handling tricky situations you've faced throughout your career.

Reason #2: Opportunity

By building my brand, I’ve created a lot of great content (my blog, my book, LinkedIn posts like the one you’re reading now) that has led to opening doors for other cool, fun things. This past quarter, I taught a class on Training and Performance at Sonoma State University, which is something that would have not come my way if I hadn’t established myself as someone who wants more than a day-job out of life.

Writing and publishing my book has connected me to professionals, students, and even old friends who have reached out to reconnect or even ask for advice.

And of course, I know this is the one you have been waiting for... yes, my personal brand has helped me make more money,

Reason #3: You Never Know…

In 2007 I was working in the mortgage industry: one day I had a job, and the next day I had nothing. At the time I was working and going to school and had been putting some money aside for savings, but had not yet accumulated the recommended 6 months rainy day fund that so many financial experts recommend. I had to move to a cheaper apartment, take jobs catering, and hustle my can off while time seemingly stood still. Like the rest of Americans who lost their jobs in the Great Recession, I then understood what it meant to struggle, and it was my first real lesson on why it’s always good to have something to fall back on.

While my first book has not made me a millionaire, yet, it has taught me to think like an entrepreneur, and the revenue I’ve generated from it could certainly fund promo ads on Facebook that would bring in some additional cash. Additionally, my blog, High Gear Career, easily contains enough content I could convert into podcast topics to promote my book. Also, since writing my book, I know exactly how to go through the publishing process, and could easily repeat it again for a sequel.

So, if you’re sitting at your desk and wondering how to kindle your own fire and passion for your work, start building your own brand. Starting small is totally fine. If you have a gmail account, you can easily pop-up a blog on blogger in minutes, which is how I got started. You don’t have to spend money to get started- you just have to get going and start building content around the topic that gets you going.

If you have any additional questions about how to get started on your own brand-building journey please email me at wendy.burbridge@gmail.com and check out my appearance on Ask The Experts, which goes live Friday, November 4th.

You: CEO

This article is all about being a CEO. That's right: Chief Executive Officer. If you are reading this, you may already be one, or you may want to be one someday soon. In this article, I am going to show you exactly how. Are you excited? I am!

The reason I am excited is because I am going to tell how you becoming a CEO of yourself is going to kick your gear into high. While you may want to be the next Mark Zuckerberg or Sundar Pichai, I can tell you that you may be well on your way to leading Facebook or Google, but first you are going to have to be the CEO of the person staring back at you in the mirror.

WAIT! Before you click away because you thought I was going to give you REAL advice about how to become a REAL CEO, let me just ask you one question. Are you showing up as the CEO of your own life today, or are you showing up as the Intern? You see, a lot of people like the idea of greatness, or a title, or being perceived as being important, but when you show up as the CEO in your own life things start to change.

You're probably wondering what I mean about being a life CEO, so let me explain. What I mean is, look at every area of your life as if you owned it, as if the livelihood of tens, or hundreds, or thousands, or millions of people depended on it. Take a second to think about all the areas of your life: health, relationships, finances, your job-- how are you showing up?

In my career I noticed a huge shift when I really started to look at my job like I owned the company. I started coming from a place of contribution and thinking how I could add value. I started to act like my role was my personal company, and I began wondering how I might approach my work differently if Wendy Burbridge was a business and not an employee.

So today, I ask you- what would you change if you owned your own role? How would you show up differently if you focused on your work like it was your product (Guess what? It is!) and your co-workers, supervisor and senior leadership as if they are your customers (Guess what? They are!)?

You may be thinking, Gee, that sounds like a lot of hard work??? Well, maybe it is, but if you want to be a REAL CEO someday, the work is not going to get easier. However, if you start being your own CEO today, I can assure you that the work you do will be a whole lot better.

Being a CEO if my role has allowed me the opportunity to increase my income, do more work that I am passionate about, and create a life that I am excited to live. That same passion is available for you, today, right now. So, if you are tired of being in the same job, doing the same thing, punching the same clock, then take a step back, and think about how things could be different.

If you are stuck, and not sure if you are even in the right job, then connect with me, and I'd be happy to share my own Goal-Setting Manifesto with you from my upcoming book 30 Reasons You Didn't Get Hired to help you get clear on your own direction.

Have a great day everyone- get out there and Crush It!

The Top 3 Things Keeping You From Achieving Your Goals This Year.

Since we are half way through this year, I thought I would ask the question, “How are those New  Years Resolutions coming along?” Remember that list you created on January 1^st, the one you pinned on your corkboard  underneath all of the “important stuff.” Or perhaps its buried so deep in your iphone notes that you’d have to scroll for days to even find it.

Like many people, I created a list of things I wanted to achieve this year: I wanted to publish my book (in progress), I wanted take a trip to France (scheduled for October), and I wanted to work on my “stuff” (ongoing, but I'm doing it).

Ah, stuff! We all have it, we all know it’s there, but for some reason, it always gets swept under the rug because there’s always something else to do. Fortunately, I have found a really cool way to deal with my stuff, and I wanted to introduce it to you in this way, because I think it is actually part of why you may not be achieving your goals, whether they are for New Years, yourself, or any other reason.

So, let’s break this down here. Honestly, if you haven’t achieved your goals then it’s probably because:

1.       You Didn’t Set Any Goals. If you live with the expectation that everything great idea that pops into your head will just manifest into reality without a plan, then I would love to talk to you because you are a total phenomenon!

2.       You Didn’t Create an Action Plan. Perhaps when you made your list you had several things you wanted to accomplish, and you thought that somehow you’d figure it out. Unfortunately, we don’t always have all the answers, and sometimes we may want things to happen and have no idea how to do it. So what happens? Naturally, we give up. Instead of finding someone who has achieved what we want and modeling their behavior, or doing research on how to accomplish your goal, you throw in the towel and call it quits. This concept actually leads right into the third thing keeping you from achieving your goals…

3.       You Can’t Get Our of Your Own Head! In my upcoming book, 30 Reasons You Didn't Get Hired, I go into specific detail on how this one thing keeps people from getting their dream jobs. One of the things I’ve been learning on my own journey is that our brain will strive to answer any question we think.  If you ask, “why can’t I lose weight?” Your brain will probably say “because your lazy!” Why? Probably because you’ve been telling yourself over and over again that you’re lazy. If you change the question , though to, “What can I do today to bring me closer to my goal of having a healthy lifestyle?” Your brain will probably think of 100 things you could do: go to the gym, make great food choices, stop eating when you’re full… see what I mean.

 

I’m going to deep dive into this one a little more because we all have automatic thoughts that are popping into our head all the time, and controlling them can seem akin to wrangling a toddler hyped up on sugar smacks. BUT, there is a tool I found that has been exceptionally effective in helping me manage my thoughts, called The Model, created by The Life Coach School founder, Brooke Castillo. I am inserting a photo of it here,

 

 

which is barely legible, I know, and is also messy (I KNOW) because one of my issues is getting over perfection, which is why I am comfortable sharing it with you here, instead of wasting 10 hours creating a beautiful one for just this article. But, I keep this at my desk as a handy resource for when the thoughts start taking up my energy.

 

Brooke has a great youtube video where she teaches the model, so please watch it if you’d like in-depth analysis on it, but here is the basic idea:

When you have a thought, consider the following:

 

C- Circumstance: What is the circumstance you are reacting to?

T-Thought: What is the thought I'm thinking about the circumstance?

F-Feeling: How do I feel when I think this thought?

A-Action: What is the action (or non-action) I take when I feel_____?

R-Result: What is the outcome I created with this (non) action?
 
If you are struggling to achieve your goals because of the thoughts you are telling yourself, then I absolutely encourage you to go through The Model with your thoughts to create a new result for yourself. If you're just starting then begin by getting clear on what you want, set a specific action plan, learn from others who've already achieved what you want, and keep your thoughts focused on the positive action that will propel you forward.

I hope that this content has given you some ideas on how to get back on track to achieving your goals. If so, I'd love to hear from you! Have a wonderful day everyone!

Before you pat Yourself on the Back...

 Before you pat yourself on the back, don’t forget this simple, but critical step.

You know those times in your career when things just seem to be going right? Maybe the project you worked so hard on is finally wrapped up, the presentation you spent weeks preparing for goes off without a hitch, the client you were wooing finally signs the contract, and the goals you set for your department are all achieved on the same day. You feel pride, you feel power, you feel like dancing on the ceiling, and in honor of your efforts everyone you know is going to give you a high-five and buy you a drink. Congratulations! But, before you go shooting off the top of a bottle of Cristal, do this one thing…

Write it down!

Before you eye roll and move onto the next article, just hear me out. Many people who are in the habit of setting and achieving goals are also in the habit of writing the goals down. Why? Because they understand that when you write something down, a lot of great things happen:

·         You acknowledge your desires,

·         You can break down large goals into achievable steps,

·         You motivate yourself to take action,

·         You generate ideas for other goals, and

·         You feel successful.

The list can go on and on, but the point is that there are a million reasons why you would want to write your goals down. Fewer people write about the aftermath, however, because once the goal has been achieved, then game over, right? Mission accomplished… sort of.

Following are a few (potentially) compelling reasons for why you will want to write down your goals after they are completed:

1.       It will remind you of your process.

 

Many times as we are going through the process of achieving goals we forget the challenges that have come along the way. For example, when a woman has a baby, the labor is difficult and painful, but as soon as they see their baby, they are overcome with so much joy that when they introduce their child to the world, they are beaming with pride, not complaining about all the sweating and pushing and screaming.

 

Or, think about a time when you lost weight and were finally able to zip up those pants that had been tucked away in the back of the closet. There were a lot of days that you said “no” to treats you wanted to eat because what you really wanted was the satisfaction of losing weight instead. When everyone compliments you on how fantastic you look, you don’t complain, “I gave up so many desserts… every day I skipped the whipped cream on my Pumpkin Spice latte...” No, people say “thank you” and move along.

But, you are probably wondering what giving birth and losing weight have to do with writing down your accomplishments? Well, sometimes when we make decisions, we neglect to write things down and forget some of the steps we took along the way. Sometimes it’s only after making the same mistake again that we are reminded of the error that could have been avoided had we documented the process.

This works for positive things as well. When looking at taking on a new task, if you look at the elements that contributed to your success, then you can also add those elements into the equation in the future.

2.       It will help to keep your accomplishments fresh in your mind.

 

While many people may think they can easily recall their accomplishments, consider for a moment if you have ever been in the following scenario. You get the notification that it is annual review time, and despite the fact that you’ve worked your tail off all year long, you sit at your desk, drumming your fingers, making a desperate attempt to recall what awesome projects you’ve worked on over the course of the year that would warrant recognition. Surely you’ve been busy. You work late all the time, you missed your kid’s soccer game (on more than one occasion), but for some reason you sit blankly, staring at the screen as if someone just asked you to write a dissertation on thermodynamics.

Or

You’re in an interview and the interviewer inquires, “Tell me about your major career accomplishments.” I have asked similar questions to interviewees and had candidates tell me they can’t think of any. I am typically looking at their resume, and can conceive a couple areas they could have achieved success, but the voice on the phone (or the face in person) is blank and offers nothing.

 

Being able to go back and review your accomplishments will also serve to provide you a bit of a boost in self esteem. Have you ever heard the phrase, “Success breeds success?” Its absolutely true, and when you take time to recall things that you’ve done well, then look over the list of things you have on your list of goals, the brain can actually use those positive recollections to fuel your desire for attacking the next task.

 

3.       It will set you apart from the competition.

 

If you think it’s hard for you to remember all of your projects, just think about your boss, who may have to sit down and do the exact same thing, only for every other person in your department as well. If you are able to articulate the specifics around each project your worked on, each success you achieve, each milestone accomplished, you will not only make your boss’s job easier, but you will be doing a lot more than your colleagues.  When it comes to annual review time, and you have a list of ways you’ve demonstrated you contribute, then you have taken another step in demonstrating that you are capable of high performance in other areas as well.

 

You don’t have to write a novel around each instance, but do something simple like write a page in your journal, write a blog about your experience, or even just forward yourself emails that you place in a recognition file. In my work email folders, I have one I call Success, and every time someone emails me a message related to my own exceptional performance, I file it in my Success folder. If I’m in a hurry, I will sometimes email it to myself with notes and then slide it into the folder. The point is that it doesn’t matter what format you use to keep track of your successes, just do it! You may be surprised how this small action can put your career into high gear.