How Creating a Personal Brand Unexpectedly Changed My Life and Career

And how you can manifest similar opportunities for yourself too!

Author: Cynthia Phan

Have you heard of a personal brand? If you haven’t, TLDR; think of personal branding as a fusion of your skills, experience, values, and personality that sets you apart from others. It encompasses how you present yourself on/offline. And no, this is not only for influencers or influential people. If you’re looking to grow professionally, personally, or socially, you need to start crafting your personal brand (it’s a lot easier than you think).

How I’m Crafting My Personal Brand as a “Regular” Person

A few weeks ago I wrote this Medium article about my 3 career changes at 26 and what I’ve learned along the way. I shared the article on LinkedIn (never really posted before that), and to my surprise it resonated with a lot of people — so much so that people I haven’t talked to in years reached out to me expressing their appreciation! Not long after, a podcast invite from Maggie Zheng landed in my inbox. Maggie is Director of Fundraising at Wefunder, a content creator (@maggizine on TikTok), and a former Gen She Pod guest. I admire Maggie so much and never got the chance to meet or talk to her, so I was thrilled to come on her new podcast to talk about the huge leaps of faith and risks I took in my career.

As someone who considers themselves a regular person (i.e. I have no desire to be a founder nor do I care about being in the limelight, I just wanna live my quiet, happy life), being open to sharing who I am and what I’m about with the world has always positively impacted my life in ways I could never predict — it’s how I’ve met the lifelong friends I have now, how I’m on texting terms with some of the biggest career TikTokers, how I got invited to that podcast, and even how I got my current job.

The best thing about this and the reason why I feel it’s so effective is because I’ve never once expected anything to come out of this. Even now, I say “personal brand” just to have a singular term to easily reference. I write these articles, posts, etc. simply because I have thoughts I want to share with the world and hopefully it helps someone along the way.

How You Can Create Opportunities for Yourself Too

That being said, I want to encourage you to take a leap of faith and start sharing who you are with the world. There are so many platforms available nowadays to do that, so start small if that’s more comfortable for you. Personally, I’ve done a stint of TikTok content creation and nowadays that feels way too exhausting for me so I stick to my element, which is written content. Just like with networking, don’t do it when you need something (like a job), start early and play the long game. Don’t worry about dumb stuff like going viral either because that will just distract you from being authentic. Pick a platform you like, find a cadence that’s sustainable for you, keep an open mind, and just have fun with it! You’ll be surprised how much your life can change just by putting yourself out there. Good luck, I’m rooting for you! ??

P.S. When I say “share who you are”, I don’t mean just talking about yourself or your career. You should also share your thoughts on topics you care about, things you’re curious about, etc. If you have any kind of fear causing you to hesitate, know that it’s purely self-inflicted. Just because you may not already be super successful or accomplished doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to share your voice.