My personal brand (and yours too) is being complicated.
Over the last 100 years, I’ve been trying to define what my personal brand is. Through this process, I’ve spoken to many people who know me well about how to define what it is I do and want to be known for. And truthfully, that’s complicated.
This isn’t news because a personal brand IS complicated for anyone, that’s why there are professionals out there who sort this all out for you. Now, this article isn’t a personal reflection on me, me, me. But I felt the desire to write it because I know a lot of people who are going through the same thing. And I am going to write this in possibly the most offensive way I can, and the purpose may be clear at the end.
I am bipolar (and you probably are too).
None of us have this one side that is both professional and personal (and we are not all Geminis). And as we have seen recently these two personas are being combined in ways that were not even allowed before. We are being encouraged to bring our whole self to work. This duality of being able to express interests at work has a lot of benefits by bringing adjacent or just different views period.
I personally love the corporate world. I love how decisions are made, what makes up a foresight strategy, etc. But I also love simple things like farmers markets and try to support those whenever I can regardless of the client I may be working for.
I’ve held back on coming out (and you probably have too)
Listen, stigmas in the workplace are real. No matter how much we include these BS DEI protocols into the workplace so many factors like neurodiversity are often completely forgotten about (in fact, medium thinks that neurodiversity is not a real word). And these workplaces are our livelihoods, none of us are THAT passionate about. We like our jobs, our work, and our teams, but the reality is that we live in a capitalistic society and we do have bills to pay, most of us don’t work for the pure pleasure of it. And this clearly makes us hide a bit of who we are for fear of being punished in some way.
Most people know that I am a runner, and that I can say openly because it is socially acceptable and even encouraged as long as it isn’t on company time. But I also have this wild desire to make women's sexual health better. And this I do believe is stigmatized and often a large blocker if I were to ever speak the truth about this. Because employees are now looking for employers that are politically aligned, it makes me wonder, what are some of the NSFW interests that people have that are actually SFW but so often taken out of context and put into a political agenda that usually shouldn't be political?
I’m scared of who I am (and you might be too)
Speaking of neurodiversity, I am an INTJ and that’s like a crazy personality to be for a woman. This world is built for the extrovert ideal, and truthfully I am not that type of person even if I can kill it at facilitating an event. We’re meant to be a certain way at work, and sure this can change but the boarders of white supremacy and this format of thinking still exists.
Last month, I had a discussion about people being able to take time off work because of trauma that has been happening in and outside of their lives. This was a risky move of me to do, even if I did it in a safe closed space because it made me vulnerable to expressing my political views.
I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had in my past life as a Producer where people have come to me about things that they want to say but feel they can’t or were not safe to say for fear of their reputation or even sometimes losing their jobs.
Lastly,
People are not their personal brand, we all have these variances that we are allowed to be in difference spaces because each of these spaces have different social norms, again nothing new. But we have to move forward beyond what we see, and see humans not brands.
