S1E8: Building Your Personal Brand as an Emerging Professional ft. Marelie Botha

Building Your Personal Brand as an Emerging Professional | The IOP Lens

In this episode of The IOP Lens, host Dexter Nyamutumbu is joined by Marelie Botha for an empowering conversation on personal branding in the early stages of a career.

Framed as Building Your Personal Brand, the discussion explores how emerging professionals can intentionally shape their professional identity, communicate their value, and stand out in a competitive world of work. Marelie shares practical strategies on visibility, authenticity, and leveraging opportunities to build a meaningful and credible presence.

This episode offers actionable guidance for anyone looking to grow their voice and influence as an IOP practitioner.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to the Iope Dance Podcast. This is a very exciting episode for me personally because I'm having a conversation with my friend. Are we getting cameras to watch us while we're speaking? But I'm joined today by Marili Biotta. She is a close friend of mine. She actually recruited me into EGIF. So part of the reason why I'm actually in the seat today is because of you. So shout out to you for that. But today we'll be discussing what it means to have a personal brand as an emerging industry psychologist. But before we get into the topic, so obviously I know your journey. We've discussed this, we've had late-night conversations at conference. But for those that don't know your journey, what has been your journey with an IOP?

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Oh my goodness. So I started with my regular degree. So I went from actually from high school, I went over to taking Gap Year and I worked in HR for a year first as an HR assistant, just to see how the field is. And obviously that's a very small portion of what we do as industrial psychologists, but I just wanted to get a feel of people decision making and how that looks like. So there weren't a lot of internships available, and no one actually even knew what the world of work were world of work would look like. Yeah, so even doing an unstructured internship at that stage was quite challenging. So after I finished my master's, I went back to my my family because they're also in the field at least. So I had that network to start off with, which is like a nice, you know, advantage point there. Um and I went back and said, well, it doesn't seem like there will be a lot of internships available. And I moved to Jobick at that stage, work part-time. Um and I went, well, I am looking for internships, I would need to ensure that I can pay my rent and my medical aid and all of those things. Um so I told them, This is my business plan. Let me take the consultancy from a project-based consultancy to um a recurring business. And that took about eight months to to build up, like with some projects being a little bit more feasible to go through for my internship. Um and yeah, so that's how I got into the field, and that's where where I was with my internship. After that, after challenging three years, because it's not a year, if you're doing unstructured or you know, if you have challenges that you that you face, you have to make sure that, you know, you just know that that's gonna happen and you just need to keep going. Um, but yeah, registered as an industrial psychologist, continued with the consultancy. It's called Inside Consulting, focuses on workplace counseling and training and development, those type of elements.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

From there on, um, we partnered with OMT Group, which Everlex is one of the business units there. Um, and they kind of just approached me saying, you know, you work well with our team, do you not want to come work for us in some form of, you know, manner? And then after they said, well, here's a new business that we'd like you to grow and run.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

And so then I started it via um video interview assessment.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Interesting, interesting journey you've been on. So I want to take you back to because, like you said, this journey is one of the most challenging journeys to become registered. What kept you on this journey, especially you know, when you face challenges for like searching for an internship where you had to move cities? Yeah. What kept you on this path of industrial psychology?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

You know what? During my grade 11 year, I I told you I um have a family in the business uh in industrial psychology. Um, and they asked me during that time, well, what do you want to go study? And I actually mentioned clinical psychology. My grandfather just immediately went, that's dumb. Don't do that. Because my mom questioned him during like during her years. I just went, okay, cool, cool, granddad. I'll I'll go find out why that's dumb. Um and while I was finding out, I I realized that there's so much more meaning in developing people than just the narrative of hearing those stories. And you know, there's some guidance with clinical psychology, and you're working a lot more with pathology than you do. And I'm not gonna get into that. Um, but while I was on this journey, you kind of go look for what your meaning is in in the world of work. And part of the meaning that I wanted to build and want to contribute to is making sure that not making sure, but contributing to ensuring employees have access to resources and knowledge and information to make better decisions. Um I feel like people can make so much more better decisions if they just have access to resources and information. And that never left. So I grew up in a in a small town where there was some form of sharing resources and knowledge, and didn't really like it probably depends on how you grew up and how you perceived that will to be. Um but I I came from, you know, where different people have different class groups and and there was some form of sharing knowledge, knowledge and resources, but it's not always like that in different areas and different towns and different cities and different provinces. Um But yeah, that kept me going. In short, it's the meaning um of what you want to contribute and what value you want to add to to the profession or to the industry or to South Africa or to if you want to go internationally, globally, what what do you actually want to contribute and what value do we want to add?

SPEAKER_00 6:51

And I've seen that in you actually, because when I stepped into Ego, the all these documented information resources that you had ready in a folder in a drive that I didn't know was available. You know, so I've seen that knowledge sharing and resource sharing within you already. So that's part of your, I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

And post-internship, or especially with the internship journey. So I don't want to make this chat about EU and your journey because they're gonna get to the actual topic at hand. Yeah. I just want to figure out what helped you, especially during that transition, searching for internship, navigating that whole internship space, unstructured internship. You think it's gonna be 12 months, it never is 12 months, including the HPC and all of that. So, how did you navigate all of that?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Oh my goodness, I wouldn't have been able to do it without EUWP. Um during 2020, we actually started the group because we realized there was such a need to share knowledge and resources because it was almost all over the place. Um, you didn't get a response, um, the same response from different people. And we needed some form of standard and processes to follow, right? Um, so we understand every IP journey is different, and there needs to be exceptions to that, and you kind of need to navigate the gray area in that sense. Um But I think it's the the group that allows you to access knowledge and resources to to be able to move. Um, so number one was my support group from EGWP and my colleagues, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Shout out EGUW. And outside of EGO space, is there anything else that helped you on your journey to make your journey smoother?

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Definitely. I think you can you can obviously say, like, oh the the clear-cut route of making sure that your physical well-being is looked at, your financial well-being is looked at, your personal well-being, like all of those things. Um, and sure they need to be in place, but your number one way of navigating through life is your support system. So it's whether it is at home or your colleagues or you know, networking groups that you belong to. I think that's a key resource of making sure that you keep moving and that you are able to make decisions and find information. Um, and then obviously you need to go and look for it. So you need to initiate, you need to go and make the effort of doing it. It's not an easy route. It's not, I've tried once or twice or three times contacting um of our regulating body or um a networking body or whatever, you know, professional body. It's persistently going and doing it. So constantly trying and trying over and failing and trying new ways of new approaches of doing it. Um, you are going to fail and you're gonna fail a lot, and you need to be okay with that.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Yes. Like that's a massive learning for me. I think all of us, I remember I was chatting to AMU as well, and this field is made up of overachievers because you're used to doing so uh throughout your career, throughout your journey, and then when you get to the IOP journey, it's like, what is going on here? And it's very difficult to navigate that failure because you have these goals, you have all these timelines, but now you're not meeting them because of all those challenges. So I think resilience is one of the biggest things that we learned on this journey, and like you're saying, that support system, taking care of yourself. I'm not you a tennis game, we're gonna get to that one day. But that all taking care of yourself holistically is very important because you are still an individual. Before you were an IOP or an emerging IOP, you're still an individual with you know your own needs internally and you know externally, physically as well, you know. Yeah, um, okay, now we're gonna talk about why we're here today. Okay, so off-air, you told me that there's a difference between personal and professional branding. Okay, you didn't tell me, but you you mentioned it. So, what is the difference between the two?

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Okay. I'm gonna start off with the basics of um personal branding, right? You mentioned to me, um, oh, I saw when I joined Egg-Web, there's like this massive file of resources to access. And you probably at some point connected my telling my story over and over that okay, I would like to provide access to resources. But you become known for what you contribute, right? That's your personal brand. It it's your values, it's attributes of yourself, it's characteristics, it's things that you grew up with that shaped your thought processes, your beliefs, the customs that you have. Um and your professional brand, I always get the question is how do you bring your personal brand to your profession? And what's the difference between the two then? And your professional brand is those characteristics and the qualities and your key strengths and even your development areas that you bring to a team, to an organization. It does have the values and the beliefs that you grew up with and what you believe in. You do bring that to the table. That's almost bringing the other side a little bit higher and filtering those beliefs a little bit lower. So dimming it. It's not necessarily um it's your values that you contribute, you as a person to the team. Um, but it's not necessarily as intense or as it shouldn't overcast your strengths as a as a teammate to to your profession. So typically, maybe now the stuff that I bring personally to to the field is you know, making sure that people have access to resources and knowledge and information. But I think what I stand out for professionally is also taking initiative, getting things started, trying new things, failing or succeeding, or whatever the case might be. But that's my professional brand. So it's still my personal brand is still coming through there and shining because I do want to, I need to move, I need to initiate, I need to go find stuff out in order to make my meaning happen. So the two are interlinked and and you know, they play together, they're not separate.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Because that's exactly what I'm hearing. In terms, it sounds to me like your personal brand also kind of feeds into your professional brand. Because all of us, before we are professionals, we have we are a person, there's a person behind the Dexter, the person behind Marilee. Yes. And like you said, that's your values, your beliefs, what's is important to you as an individual. And I'm just and I have a question. So, in as much as my personal brand feeds into my professional brand, what if I'm in a space where my professional brand or the professional space I'm in is actually not aligned to my personal brand? So let's say, for example, one of my highest values is being honest. I really want to be honest, whether it hurts or whether it doesn't hurt, I want to be honest. But then within the space I'm operating in, it's like, no, you can suppress the truth just a little bit. You can tell a white light here and there. How do I then navigate that space where there seems to be some misalignment between my prof personal brand and what is required of me professionally?

SPEAKER_01 13:58

It seems like then there would be some form of conflict, right, between your professional brand and your personal brand and the environment that you're operating in. So it's not necessarily that you you would want your professional brand to be, you know, making white lies and um maybe to some degree being dishonest and not transparent. Um I think that's a that's a form of navigating conflict, right? And you have five, four or five. You need to go look at the theory. It's Thomas Um Kielman's theory on conflict management styles. Um but I'm not now.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Very sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Oh wait, I'm just a moment. Yeah. Um but essentially you have competing. It's a conflict management style. So I want something, you want something. But I'm very competitive, so I'm most probably gonna take it then. Accommodating. I want something, you want something. I accommodate your ones and needs because it probably makes more sense, or I would want you to go and get what you want. Then you have um uh uh collaborating. So we collaborate on something together because you want something, I want something, it's not gonna work. Let's just collaborate on a new goal together, or trying to meet both our goals. Um, and then you have avoiding. So I'm like pushing it aside, not getting into it at all, and I'm avoiding it because either the timing is not right, or you know, I'm not comfortable yet approaching it, or I haven't formed my thoughts yet, or whatever the case might be, I'm avoiding it. And so with any conflict, you have to navigate what is the message that you want. And it's the same with your personal and professional brand. If you're in an environment like that, is that something that you want? What is the message that you want to leave behind? And it's not about, okay, cool, I'm dropping my job because of this. Because employment is very very real and you would want it. Yes. So you can't always have what you want. That's navigating it. It's making sure that you don't lose sight of who you are as a person and what you want to contribute and what value you want to add. Um it's navigating those spaces. So sometimes it's a here and there let's, you know, let something go or take something or you know, accommodate or collaborate or you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

So it's navigating and understanding what does the situation require of me. So there will be times where I need to collaborate, other times where I need to accommodate as well. Interesting. Okay. So now back to the conversation about that personal brand. How do I figure out what my personal brand is? So, like you say, we've spoken of how to values, beliefs, but like what if I've never thought of that? If someone's asked me what is my personal brand, how do I come up with the answer for that?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

So it is sitting and and doing some work on it, right? And I always start off with small exercises going, okay, but what values do I grow up with and what are important? What beliefs do I have? Um, what are my key strengths? Um and if I can choose anything to do, what value do I actually want to contribute in that area? Um, and so it's sitting and and first analyzing that piece of information, knowing, you know, what makes you you, what makes you tick, what are your strengths, what are your development areas. Someone asked me if I need to go and be, you know, um be authentically me in the workplace, they wouldn't hire me because I'm a bit spicy.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

You do get those.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

And and so it is true, you can't really um just go and and do whatever you want. You need to make sure it links back to your meaning and you need to consider other people in those relationships as well. Um, so really going to go sit there and think, what makes me me? What value do I want to contribute? And if I have all of this information, how do I make sure it's concise? So that when someone asks me, What do I want to contribute or why am I here? What do I do at you know my company? You you're able to answer that within two or three lines. Keep giving it thought. Yeah. So it's a bit of reflection first.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

So would the same process be applicable within the professional branding conversation as well?

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Yeah, I think you would just extend it a little bit more. Really looking at if I am in a team and this is my values and this is what I want to contribute. If I'm in a team, what are the strengths that I contribute to the team or to the organization? Um, what are my development areas? What are the key characteristics that that make me uh add value, even if it's not necessarily a strength? And this team specifically, what value do I contribute here?

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Interesting. And then to what extent can other people get involved in this conversation? So we are speaking that there's a lot of internal dialogue that has to go on, but then to what extent do I involve other people? Maybe parents, family regarding the personal brand, and also maybe colleagues regarding a professional brand. Do I involve them actually also?

SPEAKER_01 19:02

I think you do definitely. I think it's a good good way to um compare what you think of yourself and what others think of you. But ultimately I think it's about getting that information from people and and looking at what are you gonna do with this information. So if I have this information, to what extent do I believe that it's true and w to what extent do I see it play out? And if I don't see it play out, think about ways where it could play out, where it could be true, um, where this person could have seen it happen or you know, it couldn't surely it shouldn't be that far off. But if it is new information to you, you should consider it for sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

So it's looking at okay, this person is saying this, I haven't seen it, but to what extent are they actually accurate? Because they obviously have seen something for them to be saying this, um, and that applies both personally and professionally. Yeah. Okay. And then my next question or the conversation now, I want to turn it to within the professional space. So I've done the internal work, I've spoken to myself, I've spoken to my team. Now, what do I do with that information about professional branding?

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Okay, you've done the self-work, you've gone and spoken to your team, taken the advice from your bosses, and you've now reflected on the work. From there on, it's looking at where do you apply it, right? And it's probably in your everyday interactions with your with your people, whether that's personally or professionally, or the person at the gym or the cashier checkers. You know, make sure that your personal brand um shines through always. It's and that's why you shouldn't create something that's not necessarily you. It has to be authentically you. It has to come naturally. Um, there are other ways of promoting yourself and branding yourself. Um, and I always say where we are in the world of work, it's not I think in the 1950s or or earlier, it's a little bit more about what knowledge you have, what are you known for in terms of theory and um innovation and you know, probably experience as well. Um, but from I think the 1980s, it's more about what knowledge do you have and who knows you. And where we are in the world of work right now, it's what knowledge you have, who knows you, who do you know, and what do you not know.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

And it's very difficult to navigate because we're I think the competition has is so high and uh overall, um, because we're much more interconnected with one another, right? So looking at what spaces do you add value, and if there's no value to add, then don't don't necessarily voice it. Um find what value you want to add in what community. Um because that's where you want to spend your time, not just going all over the place and and saying stuff, uh posting on the LinkedIn, a lot of things that don't necessarily add value. You wanna if you want to say something, it should be something valuable to say and to add. It's the same with going to communities. You can't just go and connect with any community. I mean, you can realistically, but what value are you gonna add and what's yeah, time time-wise. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

You've touched on quite a lot. Um take back to your first point. Because what I heard from that, um, you know, it's speaking about how I engage with different people. To me, it sounds like in as much as this personal brand, identifying a personal brand and professional brand, that could be a once-off engagement initially, but then for me to actually make sure that I'm showing up in those spaces, like you're saying, that's a continuous reflection exercise that I need to do. So I can't just uh draft my personal brand and say, okay, this is why I'm as a person, this is why I'm as a professional, and then just leave it at that. Now I just actually track, okay, this is how I've identified myself, how other people identify me. It's just the way I actually show up in those spaces, and that is continuous reflection, continuous analysis. Because I think the other thing that we sometimes tend to forget is that we change as people. The texture you see now is not a texture from 2020. I know COVID changed a lot of us. I'm one of them. So my values before 2020 and my personal brand before then is different to who they are now or what they are now. So it's that continuous reflection and just realigning and refocusing on what is important to you at different stations of life because in the most little professionals, in our personal spaces, we also take up different stations of life. At some point, you're a student, you're an intern, you had your own company at some point as well, you are now a part of a different team, so there's all these different stations, and there could be slight tweaks to both your personal and professional branding within those various spaces as well. So, yeah, I think that reflection key is very important. And then you jumped on a head to LinkedIn. So I'm just gonna touch on that since you already spoke of it. Ruining my flow. Okay, but how do I now show that personal brand on other space? So we're gonna touch on the communities now, but let's start with LinkedIn. How do I show up and make sure that the way I show up on professional platforms, on LinkedIn, on social media, Instagram as well? Some people do use their social media such as Instagram and Facebook for professional work as well. But how do I ensure that what I show up and what I post is firstly valuable? I'm not just posting for the sake of posting, but it also speaks to what I wanted to speak to.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Yeah. I had a master's class earlier this year. We're in February.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

We're in February, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

It was earlier this year, I just don't know when.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

It's in the long year for you, we get it.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

In a long year. Um and the ad was actually about professional and personal branding. And we did activities, go through the whole thing about LinkedIn as well. And one of the students had their hand up and and went, Okay, well, if I'm on uh I don't necessarily want to be on social media. I don't want to put myself out there. I don't I also don't feel like I have something to contribute. But how do I do that while still making sure that I'm seen and heard and that I'm brand myself as as we're mentioning here. And so I think a lot of people on LinkedIn or on social media platforms just post something to post to keep on being seen or visible. And yeah, sure, I think there's a space for that, and you can do that if you'd like. Um but it's about positioning yourself in a strategic manner that isn't fake, that isn't, you know, not real to you, but still allows you to contribute to what you want without necessarily hurting your own personal values or so it's a difficult space to navigate, right? So I'm gonna start off with it is complex to do. And and you're most probably gonna find your feed a year or two after, like really trying to do this. Um, but I told her there's so many profils out there that show you that you can still post and be seen without necessarily giving stuff away from yourself. So good, and it's just the example that I'm gonna point out here, and I'm hoping my lecturer is okay doing this. Um, uh, prof Leone von Fart and uh Prof. Marissa Browers both have very interesting LinkedIn uh profiles, right? So they share stuff that's valuable to their students and make sure that their IIP students are connected to societies and get the best information out there or post jobs. And I think that's part of the value that they want to contribute is you know their students and other probably colleagues as well, but they post research and latest articles and those type of things. So they're not posting stuff about themselves, they're posting stuff about things that they find interesting and they know that people will find value out of it. So you don't have to cross your personal brand or your personal values in order to be seen professionally. That's one way, and I'm hoping I answered that question to some degree. Um in terms of knowing what to post and when to post, it's really about posting when you know something's gonna add value to your personal mission, your professional mission, and to the community that you want to impact. If it doesn't, why are you posting it?

SPEAKER_00 27:25

That's a very important question. Why am I posting it? I was having a conversation with a friend just yesterday, uh, we're having lunch and we're having this exact conversation because she also owns her own company, right? But she's still in the starting out phase, and she's not a social media person, she's not someone who's gonna put herself out there on online platforms and things of that nature. But in order to get clients, you need to market yourself somehow. And because if you are the owner and sole proprietor, that's a word, right? Proprietor of your own company, your company is kind of attached to your name as well. So to get your company out there, you need to get yourself out there. And I remember mentioning to Aha on LinkedIn, I'm seeing this trend where people post selfies, especially certain young demographics will post pictures of themselves, um, looking very nice, looking very beautiful. Um, and then the caption has nothing to do with the post. I'm like, you're talking about talent management. Why are you posting a picture of yourself in the bathroom mirror? You know, because to me that that kind of conflicts my perception of you. Because on the one hand, it seems you are sharing knowledge regarding talent management, but then why also sharing yourself? Is that like a clickbait type of thing? What is going on in that space? And for me, as the receiver, I don't know if everyone thinks this way, but on my side, I'm like, I'm confused. Now I don't know how to engage with you. Do I engage with you based on the caption or do I engage with you based on the post um or on the picture that you shared as well? So it like speaks to exactly what you're saying, is what value do I want to give? How am I showing up with this post in particular? Um, so that's the LinkedIn space. So now let's take a step back from the online platforms and extend to communities, networks. How do I now we're speaking directly to emerging work psychologists? And I'm unashamedly going to plug Psyopsa again because the reason we are here is because of Sayopsa. But what communities and spaces and networks would you recommend our emerging psychologists to be a part of to be able to create those person to connect those professional and personal brands?

SPEAKER_01 29:28

100%, right? I absolutely, you know, I'm a hardcore SARPSA fan. So I always recommend SARPSA. Um so as a as an industrial psychologist or emerging industrial psychologist, it's very important to link yourself, obviously, to your own industry. So SARPSA is a good space to start, right? Because it's where you get support, it's where you get your fruitful knowledge. Um it provides you with resources and support that you wouldn't necessarily access outside of outside of our community. So it's a good space to be supported. Uh it's a good space for training and development, you know, learning and development, those type of spaces. Then you want to connect to groups that are part of contributing to your meaning. So look at communities that's gonna link you to growing further uh in your own professional mission. Um, in my case, and I'll name a few so that emerging IPs know where to go to. Um but for instance, SAGEA. SAGEA is um uh a graduate employer space. Uh it helps young graduates get um, it helps employers know what graduates want and where they are in in town management. Um it provides partnerships for graduates in order to navigate um certain industries, certain companies um to navigate their own career space. It's definitely where I found um wonderful support in in our mission to uh access the youth and South Africans. And yeah, because you want to access the people that's not obvious to access. You want to access those in rural communities that don't have the resources and support, right? Sagia is a beautiful community for that. Then you have um other spaces like ACSG, it's the assessment center study group, um, where you learn a lot more about techniques in our field. And it's almost like a space like SAPSA, but it's a much smaller community and you get a lot more richer content there for that specific thing that you want to study. SARPSA has interest groups that link you to that. So even if you're not if you don't want to connect to the broader SAPSA, which I don't know how you do, um, but you want to connect to the interest groups in a special area that you want to learn more about the technique or whatever the case might be. So those are the platforms that you can turn to and the people that you can turn to. There are other groups that aren't as easily seen, and you do that through talking to people, talking to colleagues. Um like OD Connect is one of them. Uh, then you have OD Academy. Um, I'm trying to think there's a lot more societies that you don't necessarily connect with if you don't talk to other colleagues about them. Um and that's just an R space. That's not even the broader human resource space and people development space. There's so much more out there.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

That's true. And you mentioned something so important in terms of you need to put yourself out there, you need to connect with people because even starting in my journey when I was still in undergrad, I thought I had no idea what nationality was about. Um, I had thought I'm going to the HR space. So in I think it was second year, then I got recruited to be part of the SA BPP Youth Council. And that's how I met some people there. That's how I started establishing connections. And funny enough, um I know the friend of a friend was part of that same team with me. We're part of the same HR Youth Council. And now we're both industrial psychologists, having walked the same journey, having started to get an HR Youth Council. And it's being in spaces like that that also opens up your mind to different space because we engage with HR professionals all the time. So being in a space like SABPP is very helpful to understand the professional space. And I remember I was also giving a talk late last year to just people who aren't unsure how to navigate the career space. So we spoke to things like personal branding, navigating career decisions. And as part of my portion, I was speaking of how you don't have to have it figured out. You don't have to have it figured out. So, inasmuch as you are in industrial psychology, it's a very broad field. You already mentioned some of the spaces, your OD, your assessment centers, your coaching, your counseling, there's so much we are doing and can do as an industrial psychologist. And stepping into that space as an emerging psychologist can be daunting because, like, there's so much, and I want to do everything, but you don't have to have it figured out. So you can start, like you're saying, join those small groups here and there, figure out what aligns your personal value. Because if you've done that exercise about personal and professional branding, then you can figure out okay, I think I want to help people, and I think the best space for me to step into that is the counseling psychology space, and to find out how can I be more involved in spaces like that. So it's exactly like you said, putting yourself out there, joining the societies, joining those communities. Um, and I think for me it's very important. I know some people who might be listening or watching this have already passed this space, but I think in your student era, it's very important to establish those connections, those um resources, because it was so valuable for me personally. I remember I was I was excited, 18-year-old, I think I was 17, back in first year, when back then the prisoner of cyber was Manukura Tala. So she came to our orientation class the first day and she gave a brief presentation about what the field is about, what the gym is about. But actually walking out the lecture hall, I ran after her. I'm like, hey, can you be my mentor? I had no idea what this field was about, but because I saw an opportunity, I put myself out there. And what you find is most people within our industry, they're more than welcome to bring you on board, put you under their way. And she was like, sure, let's meet up for coffee. What do you want to know? And I did the same things with my lecturers as well. So I think for me, that helped me greatly as a student to also be where I'm at now because my lecturers back then are my colleagues now. I remember working with Neo Matuba on a couple of projects, also the people that were teaching me and now people I'm working with. And it's very invaluable to be in those spaces. But we're here to speak about June.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Well, but it's very important. It's so and I'm so happy that you mention it on the podcast because it's like stories that young emerging IPs need to hear, you know, and how important those relationships are. Yeah, I you mentioned something and I I just remember, so I'm just gonna remember of what my thought was here. I don't know if my brain just jumped. Um but I love the story that you told, and but just to maybe backtracking a few sentences before that, is if you if you do have your established brand, don't be scared to re-evaluate it. You have to reflect on it and re-evaluate it almost every year to make sure it's still relevant to where you are in your growth journey. Um But that's what I wanted to say there, and back to your story. I I remember when you first approached me, it was at the it was also at the SARPSA conference. We were at a dinner, um, probably after the gala dinner or something, we were exhausted. I just remember we volunteered and we were exhausted, and we sat at the table. And you go, I don't even know if you knew my name, but I'm just gonna say you went, um, this and this and this. I won't change about EUR. Where do I do it and how do I start? And I go, please come. Please come, we need you. We need you. Um Yeah, and that's such a it's important to know that your colleagues stay with you in this industry going forward, you know. They're the ones that capture your brand and they help you grow and they help you access resources and they help you, you know, they're not just your lectures eventually like anymore, they're your colleagues now.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Exactly. Okay, so we've spoken to all of that. So let's say someone was switching on and off while listening to this, but as we're wrapping up now, what is the one thing you want people to take away from this episode?

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Don't be scared to try things, don't be scared to go and explore yourself at whatever stage you are in your career field. Your personal brand is very important, it's part of who you are as a person. You bring that to your professional brand and to your professional space. So it's important to re-evaluate where you are. Um, it's important to know who you are because it will help you unlock certain challenges that you have. Um it will help you access certain resources that you didn't have before. Yeah, so I think that's that's important. Just make sure that your authentic self is constantly there. It won't you won't always have the ability to do that because you are still in a professional setting, right? So you need to know when you dim it down a little bit and when you bring it back up higher.

unknown 38:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

And that's so valuable because when you're speaking off, no matter what stage you're at, you need to reevaluate your personal and professional brand. I think of all the stories I've heard within our journey where people have been established HR professionals for what, 10, 15 years, but they're like, you know what, I'm gonna go on this IOP journey. And we're speaking to them as well because they're in our you're also considered emerging work psychologists because now you're on this IOP journey to become an industry psychologist. So that self-reflection evaluation is important no matter what stage you're at, especially when you're pivoting a career or entering a new space like industry psychology that you are not 100% clear about because I don't think any of us 100% knew what we're getting into stepping into this journey, you know. Um, but okay, any last thoughts, any final words for our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Oh my gosh, just have fun while doing it. My word. Have fun while doing it. Don't be scared. I mean, be scared, but make sure it's a good feeling. Um, you can't move if you're so terrified of doing anything. That's the moment that you go, I have to do something, your energy flows negatively. But the moment that you go, I want to do something, you you'll flourish.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Sure. Have fun with it. And I remember one of my favorite quotes from 2020 was do it scared.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Thank you so much for joining, Maurice. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting to my friend. You guys are just an audience to our conversation. Um, thank you so much. Hopefully, you enjoyed yourself as well. And so, listeners, thank you for joining us on the IOP Lens podcast. This has been an episode on personal branding for emerging work psychologists. Follow us on our social media platforms, on all our LinkedIn, Instagram. I think there's TikTok on the way. I'm not sure about that, but wherever we are, follow us and look out for the next episode of the IOP Lens.