A replay of my sold-out session from Adobe MAX 2017 that asked can you tell people why you are different and better than every other creative out there? This session will highlight the power, importance, and difficulties of creating your own personal brand, see why building your brand is critical for finding the perfect new job, standing out in your current job, or getting respect in the industry.
SHOW NOTES:
http://thecrazy1.com/episode-50-your-career-building-your-personal-brand-from-adobe-max-2017/
FOLLOW THE CRAZY ONE:
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A replay of my sold-out session from Adobe MAX 2017 that asked can you tell people why you are different and better than every other creative out there? This session will highlight the power, importance, and difficulties of creating your own personal brand, see why building your brand is critical for finding the perfect new job, standing out in your current job, or getting respect in the industry.
SHOW NOTES:
http://thecrazy1.com/episode-50-your-career-building-your-personal-brand-from-adobe-max-2017/
FOLLOW THE CRAZY ONE:
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook
What's going on everybody and welcome into the 50th episode of The Crazy One podcast. And you know what, before we go any further, can we just stop and acknowledge that the fact that we are at 50 episodes, that's crazy. To me, it feels like we just started this whole thing. And here we are at a half century. Anyway, as always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and a whole host of things that matter to creative people. Now, if you like the show, take a couple minutes, make sure you hit the subscribe button so that you're sure that you're getting the latest episodes whenever they come out. And also, if you do like the show, if you get anything out of it at all, do me a quick favor, go over to iTunes, go to your favorite podcast platform. Take a couple seconds and leave a review. Click on the stars write a couple of words whatever it is, you're feeling like it makes a big difference. It matters to me and thanks for doing it. Now this week, we're gonna go through and do the second session that I did at Adobe max in Las Vegas two weeks ago. This session focuses on Building your personal brand. This is something that I've spent a long time doing. And so I think had some experience I wanted to share from that, but also just for the fact that I literally see hundreds of resumes every single year. And the problem is, is that across all those hundreds of resumes, I see the same problems. I see the same mistakes. I see the same people who don't have the clarity, to really understand why are they different? Why do they stand out? What does their brand stand for? And most importantly, they don't understand that having clarity around that brand. Yes, it does the obvious thing, it helps you out whenever you want to go get a new job. It helps you be able to put your portfolio together and create a logo and all those other things. But it's the thinking underneath those executions. That thinking can help you get a new job. It can also help you in the job you're in today. Because what it can do is that it can help you have a better understanding of what you want, what you need, what you want to be happy and where is your career going. To make sure you're gonna get that out of the job you have today so this was that session so about an hour long for me actually doing the talking about 15 minutes of questions. It was a another session that I put a lot of time and energy into a lot of love into. And so hopefully, you'll find that just as beneficial as everybody who was actually there. How's everybody doing? Day One in Vegas, everybody's still awake, energetic, full of money. I was just joking with somebody that after like on Friday, I'm gonna go cruising pawn shops because I need a new MacBook. So we've got the next 75 minutes together to talk about how to build your personal brand and I will start off with what is always the most exciting slide for any presenter here at max. And that is the fact that you will be able to download this and I love that that's the only slide and this whole thing is going to get Cheers. You will be able to download the whole PDF of this From just go to my website, Stephen Gates comm slash max hole PDF there any of the stuff I'm going to talk about today, there's reference to all that try and make it as simple as I can for all that stuff. So, for those of you who don't know, my name is Steve gates. And as many of you probably imagine, if you want to hear about creativity, you want to hear about leadership, you want to hear about innovation. You want to hear from a guy who works at a bank. I'm used to the photographs in the applause. It's okay. I am literally a creative director by birth. And what that means is you always went over a crowd with child photos. So this is me at about four or five years old standing on the feed tray of the 700 pound cast iron letterpress that sat in my parents basement. So I literally learned typography in the oldest school way that you possibly can. My dad and I used to write our storybooks. Then we would go downstairs and print them, which basically meant that I was a hipster by the time I was in kindergarten. Because whenever I got to kindergarten, I had been self publishing for years. I didn't know about all these other kids who'd been buying their books. I didn't know about Brooklyn then. Over the years, I guess I've been successful by a lot of hard work of being able to win a lot of awards. I've been incredibly lucky. I've done a ton of work with Apple. I've been in like 10 keynotes quoted in there, a lot of their awards, all that sort of stuff. And then finally, the way that I was like to describe myself as a crazy one by choice, mostly because about a year and a half ago, I started this little podcast called the crazy one, which was basically my feeling that there is a lot of stuff in this industry that we don't talk about. There's or at least there's a lot of stuff we don't talk about, honestly. And so over the last 48 episodes and counting, it's kind of been a labor of love of mine, to be able to kind of put this whole podcast together. It also has to do with the fact that I also literally have here's the crazy ones tattooed on my right arm makes it much easier whenever you go into business meetings for people to know who they're dealing with. This session about personal branding, if I'm being honest, I would say probably actually started last year. So last year, I did a session called success as a choice. For those of you who know it, for those of you who don't, this is Episode 21 of my podcast, shameless self promotion. But also just to make a little bit easier, you can actually go and listen to this. But I'll tell you what the cliff notes version of this is that I very, very much believe that as a community, luck has nothing to do with success. That success for all of us is a choice. You can take the easy road or you can take the hard road. And that one of the things that always drives me more than a little bit crazy is when people come to me, Oh, you're so lucky. Because you're successful off, you're so lucky because you've got to work with Apple. Let me just skip to the end of this talk as well. Luck has nothing to do with success. Luck is the residue of skill. Luck is the residue of a hell of a lot of hard work and a hell of a lot of preparation, so that you are ready whenever an opportunity comes along. So this is really a continued Have that, because if we're going to talk about building your brand, I think that is an incredibly critical part of all of our careers that way too many of us ignore. And so we're going to get into a little bit of why today, and we're going to talk about what do you actually do about that? But let's actually start with kind of like the really basic question the place you should always start with. Why? Why should you build your brand? Why should you care about this? Obviously, enough of you are here that some there's some reason that you do. But the thing that I would argue is that it is probably the single most important thing you need to really be successful in your career. And I'll tell you why. Is because for the first part, I am amazed at how many people spend almost no time on this. When is the one time that we all spend time on it the week before a job interview? Because then all of a sudden, oh my god, I need a logo. I need a portfolio. I haven't touched this thing in six years. What am I gonna do? And then we wonder why the job interview doesn't go well. But the other problem is, and this is probably the bigger problem. So every year, I look at hundreds of resumes. I look at hundreds of portfolios. And the one thing that I will see time and time again, is that most personal brands are nothing but this generic, overused business speak cliches, it is the same thing, the same words and a slightly different order over and over and over again, if you really want to be successful. If you understand what your brand is, your brand is not only going to help you be successful in your current job, it will also help be successful in your next job. Because here's the reason why. Here's the most common scenario in the world. You sit down to this job interview, and every job interview in the world since the Roman times has started with the exact same question. Say it with me So tell me about yourself. This is where it all starts to fall apart. Most people can't articulate what their brand is. They can't articulate why are they different than everybody else. Because in this day and age, in the place where we are in an era where creativity is in demand, I would argue, in demand that we have not seen since the Industrial Revolution. Creativity is needed more than ever. And you are sitting next to all of your competition. You are online with all of your competition. And if you don't think about it, that way, you're missing the point. But here's the thing is that your brand honestly, needs to do five really important things. The first thing is what we've already kind of hit on a little bit. It needs to really help you clarify, why are you different from everybody else? Because that's the thing. There are two questions that I will ask in almost every interview that inevitably will trip people up. The first one is Tell me why you're different. Knowing sketch, knowing Photoshop, being able to do these or those do not make you different. Those make you a commodity. What about you makes you different? The other one, which oddly will trip people up as well as I will also ask them if they can tell me what do they need to be happy? I've had people come back three days later, completely freaked out. They're like, Oh, my God. I don't know why I don't know the answer to that. Is that your personal brand is what is going to separate you from everybody else. Because what's the reality today? That's your brand. going on? behance is your brand going on? The internet is your brand. That's your brand, a stack of resumes. Why and how do you stand out from everybody else? Your brand is literally your chance to make a first impression. And then people spend so little time with on it and they give it so little importance is kind of mind boggling to me. The other thing that building your brand does that is incredibly important is that it builds self awareness. The best creatives that I've ever worked with have an incredible self awareness. They understand some really important things. Like do you understand your creative process? Do you understand your leadership style? Do you understand what your strengths were? If I sat down one of you and asked you to describe to me in detail, what is your process of how you have an idea? Could you do it? This is a lot of the stuff that we are a generation that grew up without the leadership to teach us this stuff. This was the generation that just simply allowed creativity to happen through happenstance. And that's not the way that this can work. But to start to build this self awareness to start hopefully today for a lot of you just start to notice why you do things to notice what works to notice what makes you different. To start to build a self awareness of what is it that you're really about, because a lot of what we're going to talk about has to be based on that. Because if your brand isn't authentic, we're back to the business speak and the cliches and a lot of stuff like that. The other thing that it gets you is that it will get you recognition and validation. One of the most interesting things that I ever found out, it's a little bit disappointing, a little bit frustrating. But how much as an industry we will put on people being validated. One of the most interesting stories and one of the things that actually made me realize this more than anything, was this water bottle. Now, the funny thing about this water bottle was that I and my team had been at Starwood for about four years. We've been doing great work. We've been working really hard. We've been trying to push the envelope. But then one day, Apple called the exact same people just as smart. Went out there. did a little bit of work. visited the Apple Store. Got a water bottle. All of a sudden when you come back the fact that we had suddenly been validated, because we did this work with Apple. Now we were invited to every single meeting now we were the smartest people that were there. Now we were these people who were like, we had to be a part of everything. Exact same people, then getting smarter, didn't get any dumber. But the ability of just simply kind of putting our brand out there and be able to work with somebody to let them an outside source say, hey, that's a really good thing. That validation is something that is unfortunately important. But I think the other biggest thing that it does, is that it gives you power over your career. You know, I don't want to see this industry be filled with creatives who just simply will take the job that they can get. I want it to be filled with people who get the job that they want. We all want the best job that lets us earn the best money that lets us do the best work. But the challenge is, is that most companies don't understand or properly value. What creativity is, creativity freaks out pretty much any company you work with. Because as an industry, we're used to it right like we're used to jumping off a cliff building our wings on the way down and assuming we're not going to like wily coyote on to the bottom whenever we get there, all your bosses, all the support all of everybody else around that is not used to that at all. They're used to going from A to B and they know what B is before they leave a. This is why things like design thinking and agile methodologies and a lot of these other things if you try to bring them into companies will freak people out. They aren't used to that risk. They're not comfortable being uncomfortable. And I think that's what all of us do incredibly well. But we also have a model that tends to fight against that because if you work at an ad agency, I spent half my career working at agencies. creative teams are the heart of the house. They are the star they are the reason for being right like they are the the fuel that drives the engine. But the challenge here is that clients come in, and you work with them. But then clients go. So it's hard to build up the strategy side, it's hard to build up that expertise, it's hard to be able to actually be able to demonstrate value in what is a transient industry that constantly is under the threat of the fact that if you aren't making that client happy, you're gonna get fired. Even if your work is fantastic, that may not even matter. So again, understanding the value is going to be a problem. But if you work at an in house group, now you have a different problem. Because now creative is at the heart of the house. Creative is one of many teams that are fighting for headcount, that are fighting for resources, the client is always there. So you get an advantage from that. But this is the challenge is that now my role the my relationship to my work is very different. So here again, it becomes much harder for a company to see what is the actual value of what a creative does, but the last thing is The thing that we all really wrestle with, is that the one thing that we all have to do is to walk this line, the company that you work for now. They want a team player, they want somebody who's gonna go along with what it is they're doing. They want somebody who is a contributor, but not so much that they become the diva, the evil egomaniac the one who's better than the team, the one who's going to become a problem. They need somebody who contributes as a whole, the trap here is that your next company, your next job, once somebody who is a fantastic individual contributor, who is a strong individual. And so we're trapped between these two worlds, of how do you work as a part of a team? How do you contribute it that because the problem is, is that when you start to build your own brand, you have to start to do a little bit carefully. Because if all of a sudden you start to build that brand, people go like, Oh, they think they're better than the team. Oh, he's doing his own thing, and they almost shun you doing that. So There's this push and pull that we're all getting caught in. And so again, I think so at the end of every section, I try to just kind of like keep simple, make them read, sort of takeaways for here. But I think the thing to think about is this is that it's going to be up to all of you to find, invest and promote your value. If you've ever seen me talk before, you'll know I'm not this, I'm not the magic bullet guy, right? Like, I'm not the Pat everybody on the head and say, Hey, this is gonna be easy. But each one of us has to find the value. We have to find the reason why we think we need to build our brand and we need to be able to stand out. But the other thing is that look, invest in your current team. you absolutely want to be able to do that. But also make sure that you're investing in yourself, invest in your brand, invest in doing these things. Because the other thing that I've learned the hard way, with my career with whatever small amount of success you guys you think, I think I've had, I've been laid off from two of my last three jobs. That was the time I needed a brand. And after being laid off from the first job, I swore that I would never be unprepared again, that at any point, if some company was stupid enough to think that they didn't need me, the day after that, I could immediately pick up and start looking again. Because that's the thing is, this is a business. And this is why you need to be able to protect yourself. So let's talk a little bit about how do you understand what is your brand? Right? We said, you need one you need to do all this stuff. Let's start to actually get into the nuts and bolts of how can you actually start to do this. And the reality is, like I said, most people have no idea what their brand stands for. I interview so many people and try to get them to tell me why are they different? Not what applications they know not where they work, not what clients have they done. What do you bring to my team that is different from everybody else? And this is the thing is ask yourself this? Does your brand open up new opportunities for you and your work? work. We talked about this in the past, there's your brand and what you want to stand for actually makes you happy. And here again, we've only got an hour together. And this is why I want to add some of this stuff in there. I did an episode 27 of my podcast is the entire episode is just about how do you understand how to be happy? It was very interesting, a little bit sad. To be honest, it's one of the top five most popular ones I ever did. Because it's a question most people can't really answer. Do you know how to set yourself apart from everybody else? And then lastly, I think the most important thing, do you have any idea where to start with any of this? Because the problem is, is to build a personal brand is incredibly hard. Because all of us and we'll talk about this again later, you all are your own biggest blind spot. It's why you can give advice to a friend like that so easily. You can look at it see exactly what's wrong, exactly what they can do. Do that to yourself. clueless. Trust me, I'm the biggest victim of that in the world. But what you really want to do is you want to start by crafting a brand vision. And the best way that I can try to tell you to do this is to take a step back and try to look at yourself, like your own product, like if you were your own client, to just be able to have an honest conversation about that. Because like I said, this is difficult because you are your own biggest blind spot. It's hard to see what are your strengths or weaknesses, it's hard to see how do other people perceive you, and what are the things that you should do with that. But see, this is the thing. Whether it's going out and talking to people, whether it's starting to do this on your own, your brand has got to be an authentic expression of your identity, your personality and your character. Because this is the problem is that most people are scared to be themselves. This is why you see so much business speak and so many cliches and all this other stuff, because being who you are the same way. If you've ever heard Talk about leadership means that you stand for something. And if you stand for something that means some people like it, but it also means that some people don't. And in a world where everybody is trying to be everything to everybody, that's really difficult. So we talked about let's start with just a brand vision. And what I want to try to do is actually actually walk you guys through what are the the literal steps you should do to start to build up this brand? What are the things that you should start to think about? That will help put you on this road? Now, a brand vision whenever I start to build this is usually based in four things. Now these are the four things I would just say you need to think about have an idea about about what do you want your brand to speak to? The first one is who is your target customer? Who is it that you want to actually consume your brand? Is it the entire world? Is it just creatives? Is it just digital? Is it just creative directors? Is it just print like who is it You really want to have an effect on who is it that you really want to speak to? I will tell you that out of everything I just listed, everybody should never be the answer. McDonald's and Coca Cola, their brand target their brand vision is not everybody. Because if you try to talk to everybody, you tend to talk to nobody. But just think about that, in its simplest terms, who does your brand want to connect with? Who are the people that you want to be able to influence connect with? Think of well about you, whatever that is. From there, you want to go through and actually do a market definition. And this is really just to think about? How is your brand then relevant to that audience? If I say just want to talk to creatives, how is it that what I'm going to do is going to be relevant to creatives? Is it because I want to be informative? Is it because I want to do great work? Is it just what are the what are the things that I feel like I want to communicate to them? And again, these can be very large, very loose sort of things. So okay, if I say I want to talk to creatives and I want to say I want to educate them. The next part of it is really to think about what is that brand promise. And a brand promise is an emotional, rational benefit of just honestly, why are you different than everybody else? What's the thing that you're going to promise these people? What What is the thing that you think that they're going to get out of it? Mine would be things like honesty, mine would be education, mine would be insight, to be able to do those things. Those that's what my brand promise would be. And then finally, what's the reason to believe? What's the most compelling thing that you can think of that would support any of this? Because the other part of all this, it's going to be the trap. You want your brand to be aspirational? You don't want to be science fiction. Because I get tons of people who come in huge resumes huge, all this stuff. I want to come in I want to be the world's greatest next digital designer. I want to do all this stuff. I'm going to revolutionize the world. And you're like great, what's your experience? How can you show me and they're like, oh, I've got like, two years where like, I studied a little bit of psychology. And then like, you know, I like fax some stuff for a while. Okay, there's, there's not a brand promise there. So there has to be something that backs all this up. But that's the thing is just just start to think about these basic things. Because the reason why you want to do this is because then you can start to get more specific. And these get into two very, very specific exercises that I've used with companies that I've used with other people to try to help define. What is your brand. Now, of these two exercises, the first one really is something that goes back a long time. This is like traditional brand strategy one on one, and it's a thing called archetypes. And what archetypes are is that this is really just a technique where what you want to do is you want to ground your brand in these very iconic personas. That honestly are part of all of our subconscious. archetypes go all the way back to Greek mythology, that if you go back and you're studying Greek mythology, there are certain characters or character types that are in all Greek mythology, there's a hero, there's a villain, there are all these different sort of things. I slightly more modern take on this would be the George Lucas based all of Star Wars on archetypes. And even a more recent one would be something like Stranger Things, that there are very set character types that you go through and do this. Now, this is where unfortunately, we get into the pie charts for a minute. So in general, there are four groups of archetypes. They're ones that are about structure, ones that are about journey, ones that are about connection and ones that are about impact. This will then tend to lead to a slightly bigger wheel as we start to break those out a little bit more, and that leads to this even bigger wheel. But the good news is, I'm not going to have you guys do anything with this because quite frankly, it just looks like hell. And isn't possible to use. So like everybody gets scared. I'm a little bit more nuanced about this. I've actually used 17 archetypes and this is going to sound slightly insane. But so what we're going to do is to quickly walk you through what are these 17 base archetypes and I'm going to tell you how to actually figure this out. So archetypes would be things like a defender. This would be a character that would be like john wayne, it's a knight, a superhero, a warrior, somebody like that. You can have an explorer, somebody like Jacques Cousteau that's about seeking and wandering. A thrill seeker, somebody who tends to be more of a gambler swashbuckler adventure, Richard Branson type, the achiever. Michael Jordan is the athlete, the strong man, different things like that. a traditionalist somebody that really just likes old school values and really kind of likes that conservative approach. A nurturer? Somebody like Jude cleaver, can be a healer that sort of Mother Earth sort of figure No, not everybody has one a car. A connector like Oprah that's all about networking and politics and different things like that. An artist who is about creative or being a craftsman, philosopher, a sage or a prophet, a dreamer, somebody like Tim Burton, if you've ever seen him in person, you definitely know he is operating on a different wavelength. Fascinating they're like he did the original Batman when he was 26 it was crazy. a motivator obviously somebody like Tony Robbins somebody that's really gonna be about a mentor, a preacher a promoter, different ones like Steve Jobs. Somebody who's a ruler more of a king a father figure somebody who's gonna do things really through force of will. A Maverick, a rebel and outlaw if you actually read about George Washington, you would see this everyone's personal favorite the every man. And this is just the average Joe the guy or girl next door. an entertainer who's a clown or adjuster, a villain because even in design Sometimes people like to be the bad boy. And finally the intellectual. So you have these 17 different archetypes. And now as you went through all of that there was probably one or two that resonated with you one or two that you probably maybe thought you know what that sounds like me, that feels like me. But so here's what I want you to do is that if this is an approach that appeals to you, what I want you to do is to figure out how do you choose this. And what you do, take the PDF, download it, print out those 17 slides. And what I want you to do is to take two of them at a time, put one in each hand, read both of them, and get rid of the one that you don't think fits. And then pick up another one. And do this again and again and again, until you only have one that remains. And that's going to be your archetype. You can even do it two or three times if you just want to make sure But again, it's just this thoughtful comparison of one versus another. And to go through and do that. It's just a basic card. Short exercise. And so you just have one of these archetypes that remain. Now that technique isn't for everybody. Some people like to be a bit more introspective. Some people like to be a little bit more thoughtful. There's a second technique, and this is the one that I personally use, which I always call I am. And this one is just a little bit more grounded, honestly, in what are your passions? And what are your ideal traits, and that a lot of this really is just determining the parts of your life or your career that have been rewarding? What are the things that you feel like you really stand for? If you feel like you do have somewhat of a grasp on the things that you feel like really matter to you, then you can go through and do this. But here again, I think the important part is to ask yourself, why have these things been rewarding? Why have those been things that I really liked? And it's a really simple way of doing things. You start by just simply writing these I am statements. And what these statements should do is that they should actually capture who and what You're about what really matters to you? What are these sorts of things. And here again, I'll give you an examples. You know what it is? This is actually the entire list of mine. I know you can't read them from the back of the room. So I'll pull out two of them. Just so you know. Like one just said, I am a creative director who, who knows how to build and lead world class creative teams. Again, very simple statement, but it's about something that really matters to me, a slightly more complicated one. I am someone who understands and excels at the creative political and business challenges that are a part of effecting change in the culture and thinking of a company. That is a very dense sentence that took a lot of revisions to get right. But this is the thing is that take time to do this. Like for me, it usually is about a two or three month period of revisiting these statements and figuring out what matters to me. I'm actually watching in my day to day, what are the things that I think are actually important to me, and then writing those down and thinking about that. But here again, if that if you just don't feel like you're the writer, you don't feel like you want to do something complicated. You can also shorten it down to it slightly differently. Instead of doing whole sentences, start with just three words. What are the three words that you think would sum you up? If you had to just like any branding exercise, come back and people describe and say these are the three things that matter what would they be? So for me, leader, creative teacher, but just start with that, and start to figure out what are these things that matter to me. That's like I said, In either case, take some time to think about this. And then I want you to do something that's going to be a little scary and maybe a little bit strange. If you did the archetype exercise, what I want you to do is that then I want you to actually give that deck to someone else. Give it to your wife, give it to people who you work with, and have them do the exact same exercise if you did the I am exercise. Ask somebody else who you know to do it too. Because here's the interesting thing because when we talk about how your your biggest blind spot The only way that you're ever going to get over that is to actually go out and seek out and understand how do people actually see you. I always describe this as the fact like whenever I hear my voice on a voicemail, I have heard my voice in my head 365 days a year for every day that I've been alive. Every time I hear it on a voicemail, I think I can't sound like that big of a tool. But you do, because the problem is that the way that it rattles around in your head is different. This is why like, I have a really hard time editing my podcasts because like I have certain things that I just hate the way I sound. But that's the way it is. But that's why in your brand, this is important, but it's uncomfortable. It is something that may actually reveal stuff that you might not like, it may actually reveal things that you're not so crazy about with your brand, but it's something that you're going to actually need to do if you want to build an honest brand Foundation. The other question that I get a ton is what about copying? What about going out and Asking people who you admire. At least once a week, I get this email from somebody, see if Can you tell me what did you do to be successful? What did you do to build your brand? My answer is always the same that if I told you what I did, I always feel like it's giving you yesterday's lottery numbers. It worked for me, it is not going to work for you. So the thing that I think that is really important is is good to have those people it is good to have people who are aspirational like that. But the reality is, is that you need to look for the traits that made them successful, not the steps where somebody weren't the applications that they learned the things that they did work for them in a situation in a moment. The traits their approach, their thinking, is what matters. This is why in most everything that you do, and especially in any creative field, if you want to lead people if you want to be successful, it really comes down to looking at the way people think and not the way they behave. Because the thinking is where the real real interesting stuff is that that behavior is just simply an expression that behavior can hide a lot of that stuff. So here's the thing. And the reason why I want to spend so much time on this, which is not sexy. I haven't talked about a logo yet. I haven't talked about a typeface yet. I haven't talked about any of that stuff. And that's the thing is we have an entire industry that wants to run to the execution. But here's the thing is that before you do anything, if you aren't clear, if you don't understand what your brand is, your story is going to be a mess. Because that's the thing here again, I see tons of people, beautiful logos, beautiful resumes, all sorts of other stuff. I will not hire them. Because the reality is, is that the world is full of people that can make pretty pictures. It is full of people that can write pretty words. And that is not a differentiator. We are a generation that has got caught up on internet famous, trust me, I would love to be like some of the people who are on dribble and Pinterest and all these other Other ones who can go out and design something that looks fantastic that has no budget that has no tech constraint that has no client, that would be fantastic. But what I need are people who can think I need people who understand who they are and what their perspective is. Because the other thing that I would tell you is you don't want to work for somebody who just wants you to be a sheep. You're not gonna go anywhere, you're not gonna grow. You want somebody who wants people who understands what their creative process is, you want somebody who is going to grow that and value it and understand it. Because of all they want you to do is to come in and do what you're told two years tops, you're going to burn out and go someplace else. You're not going to learn anything, you're not going to grow. And so that's why this becomes so incredibly important. So once you start to understand this foundation, because the reality is, is that in many ways, the archetypes and things like that are a very generic Foundation, you're going to have to start to build upon But that's the thing is that once you find that intro, once you find that starting point, you're gonna have to start your story, you're gonna have to build on that, and you're gonna have to make it your own. And this is the case where if you did the archetypes exercise, you're gonna have to start to personalize it, you have to start to really make it unique. Because it is a starting point. It is a positioning. It is a place that defines an area. But you can't leave it that generic. How does your story come to life? How does what you've done, really come to life and come into play here. And now the other part of it, if you did the I am exercise. These are inherently already going to start out being incredibly personal. But the thing here is that you have to make them clear. You have to make them simple, and you have to make them something that people can relate to. Because I've also seen some of these they get a little bit too personal. Maybe they get a little bit too dark. Maybe they start to show a little bit too much emotional baggage. We're creatives, we all know how this goes. But here's the thing, right? And this is the part where I wish I had more slides for you. I wish I had some magical way of telling you how to do this transformation. But what I can tell you is that no matter what technique you do, think about what are the tangible proof points, like I said, that start to support this, what are the things that actually make this real, even if it's just a glimmer, you know, it's just potential, but it's some way that you can actually start to show the way this comes to life. And this is the biggest thing is to honestly, make sure that it is who you really are. Because the worst thing that you can do for yourself in your career, is to build a brand on who you want to be not who you are. There are so many people who I have seen in this world who are so afraid to be who they are. The honest story is that the reason why I started my podcast Because I was in Austria and I spoke at a conference, and I had this little kind of like 16 year old kid who'd been hovering around for like hours. And it was at an after party, and he had started to drink. And he came up to me and he said, you know, whenever he heard me talk, that it was the first time in his life that he felt like he could really be honest about who he was that he had sold everything that he had in his world. And that after he came to this conference, because he was so afraid that he kept building this lie, that he was either going to kill himself or he was going to make peace with who he was. And he was going to actually go out and do that. That's the way this can get. And pretty soon, that little thing that you think of who you want to be that little thing of where you know, you want to start to go can snowball into this and then 20 years down the line, you find yourself sitting there going, I don't know who the hell I am. I don't know why the hell it is. I'm doing this. And then you buy a sports car and all the horrible things after that happen. But this is the thing, right? I wish that there was an easier part to this. But there are no magic bullets. And there are no secrets to this. Because there are certain realities in this industry. Everybody in here your creative process is different. Your brand is different. Your life experiences, your strengths, your weaknesses and everything else in between make you who you are. There is no shortcut that I can give you to figuring that stuff out. But except for you to spend the time to look at this stuff and try to figure out what is that and embrace it. It took me way too long to be able to get to that place. You know, trust me that here's this crazy ones tattoo. This is not some apple fanboy tattoo. This was me being 39 years old, realizing that I'd spent way too much time in way too much of my career, self loathing about the way that I treated my work that I thought that I was too critical that I felt like I wasn't doing it right that I didn't like the fact that leadership was looking lonely. And there was a lot of that sort of stuff. So I went so far as to get that tattooed. On my arm some days as an affirmation some days as a reminder, but it was one of those things where you know what, every single day, I'm gonna be crazy. And if it gets me fired, fine, I'll find somebody else who wants it. You don't have to go so far as to get a tattoo, not a bad town to do it if you feel like it. But that's the thing, we all struggle with it. It is hard to be able to stand out from the crowd and be able to do that. Because that's the thing is that everything we do, everything we do is personal. If you give us a white piece of paper, if you give us a blank screen, whatever is put onto that is personal. It comes from us because it comes from our experiences and it comes from the things that we have done. So and the brand that you build represents your work and that is all personal and don't hide from that. It means something and it damn well should because that is the one thing that drives me crazy, is whenever I get emails from people after they listen to my podcasts, they'll say, you know what, Steve? Talk about creativity the way that I wish it was. It is up to every single person to make sure that creativity is that way that they build a brand. That is who they are that they are clear about what it is that they want to do. I'll get off my soapbox now. But here's the other part of this is that as you go through and build your brand, this is not a one and done sort of thing. Because here's the reality of all this is that we all change who you are today, who you are in six months, one year, five years, 10 years is going to be different. It's going to be affected by technology. It's going to be affected by society. It's going to be affected by clients. It's going to be affected by you getting older and growing and being interested in different things. Your brand has to grow and evolve past that. The good thing is though, is that your brand can hopefully become also much more nuanced. One of the brands that I give a huge amount of credit for for this actually is IKEA This is the way IKEA thinks about their brand, that they have one dominant archetype, but they also embrace that there are lots of other facets to that, that they can also embrace. So this is the thing is while while you may start off with just one part of this one dominant, I am one dominant archetype, that that's something that you can then start to nuance. The other thing that I'm going to tell you is that you cannot get discouraged by negative or ambivalent feedback. Because not everybody is going to love your brand and you need to be fine with that. Not everybody's gonna get it. But this is the thing is that it takes time to grow and perfect your brand. And in the takeaway, this is this is the thing that I've come to really learn embrace. I've built a lot of big brands over the years. And that the thing that I always think about whenever I build my brand, whenever I'm trying to build another brand, is that the end of the day, this is what I want. I want to build a brand that people hate. That sounds so screwed up. Does in it. Here's why I think this is because if I build a brand that somebody hates, I have built a brand that stands for something that is clearly enough defined that they know that it is not for them. That's the thing is that there are tons of companies who do not want to hire me. They don't want to come near me. That is awesome. I'm not for everybody, and that's fine. But that's the way that I in my head, I'm thinking about this stuff is that if I can build something that is strong enough that you can have an emotional reaction to it? Yes, that is for me. No, that is not for me. That means that I my definition, my archetype my is my that foundation that I've put together is strong enough that you'll have a reaction to it because that's what branding is. Is it as an emotional connection to something it's not a logo, it's not a color swatch. It's not that's a visual expression of a brand, but it's emotional positioning is what really is going to matter for that. So finally, we can talk about design 40 minutes in. I'm never the guy that takes a drink of water, but damn, this desert is killing me. Okay, so it will come as no surprise to anyone that the expression of your brand then becomes just as important as the thinking behind it. We're all creative people, which means that the way that you will actually express your brand matters. That's why I do little things. Like if you send me a resume and word, I'm not even looking at it. God help you. If you send it to me in PowerPoint, then I send you like a nasty note. But that's the thing is that again, if this is your first impersonation, this is your first impression. This is your first time that you're going to interact with something and that's how little you care. Is that all it's worth is air is 12 point Arial in a Word document. What chance does my team have? What chances my work have if that's how little you care about yourself. Because that's the thing is that everything here is going to communicate. And so the thing to think about no matter what you do, whenever you think about how you express your brand, make it do four things. Make it consistent, make it credible. For the love of God, please make it creative. And the last one is make it memorable. Because that's what any brand needs to do. And again at a time and a place when everybody else just seems to be so happy putting up a website where they slap up a bunch of screenshots and call it a day. That is none of those things. So let's talk about the basics just a little bit. The first one, the biggest one is that whenever you think about your brand, how about if you actually go out and secure all the social media names, the URLs and all those things that go with your brand. I will give you an email credible example why from last week, I was in New York City and I was attending a panel. It was about branding. There were about this many people here, there were three people on the panel. Above, each of the people was their name. And there were three of them. And then underneath each one of those names were their Twitter handle. The It was like john smith, and it was like designer 102 and Bob Smith and designer 103. And the third one said at Hot dad who needs a date. I get it. But I'm thinking maybe that's not the best place to be the expression of your brand. And so again, like, it's great, if you're a Star Wars fan, it's great. If you've done this sort of stuff, maybe think about a consistent naming structure, maybe think about a consistent way of doing these things. Because again, if you're gonna step back and treat yourself like any other client, you're not going to go to your client and say, Hey, you know, it'd be really awesome for your social media can Pain, hot dad needs a date. I wish I was making this stuff up. Okay, so the biggest expressions of this right are your resume in your portfolio. So what I would tell you to do is that we live in a day and age to please just use a platform for your portfolio. Look, it is great, you maybe get a few extra points if you want to hand coded. If you want to be that guy, go ahead and do that. But look, we live in a world where there is more than enough different options. There's behance, there is WordPress, you have all sorts of like new ones that are coming up. There's the moon fruits, the verbs, the IM creators, the carbon mates, the coral plots, all these people who clearly are just buying whatever URLs are leftover. But here's the thing, right? None of us have this huge amount of free time where we're sitting around going, gee, I wish I had something to do. So what I would tell you and the reason why I do this is because I would rather concentrate on the storytelling, I would rather concentrate on building my brand, and let the technology and things that sit behind it be up to somebody else. Like in my particular case, I do everything on WordPress. And then what I'll then go out and do is to buy a customizable theme. Now there is a trick to this, what I will tell you to do is you can go on any one of these site marketplaces. And what I'm actually going to want to do is to go and look for this thing at the bottom that says Live Preview. And because what I want to do is to actually go and look at the site. So this is actually the one that I use. And what I want to find are things like this, that are components that are key elements that are typography, because what I do want is I want a start, what I don't want is a cookie cutter site that looks like everybody else. So the ones that give me the ability to get components to customize typography to do all this other stuff is a fantastic and very easy way to get a start. But it says something I can actually put my brand on top of the other one that I'm a huge believer of I get paid for none of this. By the way, this is just like honest recommendations. So you know, is there is this, which is one that's called slider revolution, which is basically it's sort of like an after effects and flash had a kid in a web browser. So it is a fantastic, very complicated, not very nuanced tool for doing really high end animation that you can use anywhere. And it is a fantastic tool. But beyond the execution of it, a few tips from somebody who has seen more than a few portfolios to point out maybe a few of the mistakes that I would highly encourage you to change. This is one of those times where I actually wished I'd like looked at all your portfolio's before this, and I go back and look after to see how many people are about to start panicking. The first one, please, for the love of whoever don't quote, other people. I see this all the time on somebody whose resume on their portfolio site you go in and there's some big like in this case like Albert Khumbu quote, here's what it is that I see. It is the fact that I don't think that my brand or my work is strong enough to stand on its own. So I need to quote somebody else. Because this is the thing that I don't understand. Okay, this is your portfolio. This is your resume. This is your first introduction to me. This is supposed to be all about your creativity, how fantastic you are, how creative you are, how much I want to hire you. So you are doing that and introducing your creative your creativity with someone else's. That makes no sense. So please don't quote anybody. The second one, don't lead with your education. There is no way of telling anything better than either one, somebody who just got out of school or two whenever I see something like this, that it is quite clearly that everybody thinks that there is nothing that is in their portfolio that they feel is anywhere near as impressive as where they Went to school. That's the thing for me the last time I checked, nobody checks grades. Whenever you're actually getting into a creative industry, they check your book, they check your work. Lucky for me, I didn't finish college. So this is a good thing. Keep your site up to date. Check on it every once in a while, see what's going on. Because here's the funny thing you never know when an opportunity might come along. There's nothing better than somebody sends me in their portfolio does all this stuff, and you pull this up. That's awesome. I want to work with this person. They are detail oriented. They know what their brand is, and they don't even begin to know. So what I see is I see this could be a toy. It could be a dinosaur, it could be a lot of different things. As we talk about confidence, as we talked about focus, don't show everything. You have ever done. Trust me, any good creative director will tell you, I would rather see three spectacular pieces than 20 mediocre ones. Show me three things that really sing three things that really have great ideas. That's something that I really want to get into. Because this is what you get all the time this wall of thumbnails. And what I see is it honestly, you've got no idea what you're good at. You have no idea what your brand is. So literally and this has happened, I had someone who literally had every piece of creative they did going back to kindergarten. I screenshot at it, it's real. I'm not gonna lie, I have a folder of the worst resumes and the worst sites that I keep just make myself feel better. The biggest one, the number one most important thing, if you're going to put together a resume if you're going to put together a portfolio, please Please explain what you did. Because there is nothing worse than calling somebody in for an interview and you go, Wow, you worked on such and such a site. I love that. That was genius. It was brilliant. It was fantastic. And next Oh yeah, no, it wasn't that cool. Yeah, I did the banner ad down in the corner. And because there is also the other reality, and again, a good creative director can sniff this out that there is tons of creative talent out there. That is only good because they have good leadership. And so this is why what you need to do is instead of going in and just putting this because this is what we see is that this project was impressive but my role in it wasn't actually take the time to explain what was the problem. What did you do about it? How did you come to solve it even if it was part of a team because again, this is what we care about. Again, the world is full of people who can do pretty pictures. It is full These sorts of things that can be very easily made, you know, to look nice. I need people who can solve problems. Another big part of it, places like this are perfect for it is again, to network. Because here's the thing is that once you build your brand, and you know what you stand for, go out and start to connect people with that. Because this is what I said before is that your network is probably something that you don't know you're going to need until you need it. Again, laid off from two of my last three jobs. I didn't see that those were coming. One of them was nice enough to lay me off. I was on vacation That was fun. classy. But that's the thing is that if these aren't people that I'm going out with and this is not, hey, I'm gonna go carpet bomb LinkedIn. Hey, this is not I'm just gonna go out and like follow a bunch of people on Twitter that what networking should be is a two way value exchange. Again, I would rather have a small net got people who I genuinely connect with who I genuinely have something in common with, then a whole bunch of people that are just like trading cards. Like that's the thing is, like, for me, it's great if there are people that have like 8000 followers on Twitter, but if you are following 1000 people, not very impressed. It's the same thing. It is about quality over quantity. It is the fact that too many of us have really come to accept that social media is social surrogacy. We think that oh, well, they you know, I hit connect with them and they hit connect back we have a connection. No, you don't. Most of them would know if they fell over you walking down the street. Write them an email, reach out to them, but make sure that you're very clear about why you're doing that. What is it the conversation you want to have? What's the thing that both of you can get out of this? Because this for me is an incredibly hard thing. I get tons of people reach out, hey, even invention places like this. Hey, can we have coffee? That's great. But for me, it's hard because I can't see Say yes to 200 people. What's the conversation you want to have? What can I help you with? What are the ways that we can have an exchange for this, I can help you. And maybe I can learn something about solving the problem that you're up against. So again, help me understand what this different value exchange is going to be. And so we've mentioned this before social media, the easiest thing that I would tell you how to do this is just figure out how do you want to use your social media channels. Because again, if you were a brand, you would have a marketing plan. If you were a brand, you would have an approach to how it is that you do this, and to separate them into personal and professional channels. So these will say are most of the most popular ones. This is how I divide mine up. I'm fairly certain I'm the only man in North America who will openly admit in a public forum that he uses Pinterest. But for me, this is what it is. Facebook has to be the place where it's the walled garden. I need some place right? I can be myself. It is the place where I'm just friends with the people that I know. I'm sure you're all great, you're all fantastic. Don't send me a friend request on Facebook after this because it's not getting accepted. Sorry. There are things like Instagram that has nothing to do with my design work that has to do with like street art and a bunch of other stuff that I like there. But then there are tons of other channels where it really is about getting in there and having that value exchange for work. And for me, again, it is about going for, really for that quality, and really the ability to focus on something over just carpet bombing everybody. I've taken it to this very sort of strange place. I rarely will talk about this in public. Some of my friends get incredibly angry about this. I use this thing called the rule of 115. And the rule of 115 is that I really had figured out that if I want to get some value out of social media, if I want to get value out of Twitter, if I want to get value out of Instagram, any social media channel, it cannot be this just like open house. I have like 3000 followers because it just I miss too much. And I'm not really getting what I want out of it. So what I do is that in any social media channel, you'll see and these are as of yesterday, I do not follow more than 115 people, it leads to some really pissed off ring conversations, let me tell you, because what that means is that if I'm going to follow 116, somebody has to come out to keep it at 115. Because it really is about the quality of the content. That means that all of like sort of the pity friend likes, that means that like all of the like, guy, you went to high school where that means all those people come out. Because for me, it really is about in a professional channel, that it really is I just want to be able to make sure that I'm getting something of value out of this. I cannot tell you for the life of me Where the hell 115 came from. But that's the thing is that for me, it's putting this constraint on this so that it really allows me to be able to make sure that I'm playing Posting quality content. And I'm sure that I'm getting something back out of this. Because that's what all of this is about, is that your brand has to demonstrate your expertise, your creativity and your relevance. And that's the problem is that if all of a sudden your channel goes from being all about this great work you did to them, like giving your dog a bath, and then you know, like, you going out and running a tough mudder. And then oh, here's this great design that I'm working on. Again, it's really hard to follow that. So that's the thing is that you need to be able to be clear about this. But to make yourself visible and accessible, because that's so much of it, is that we have this incredible tool to be able to communicate. It's like I find it so funny at these events. Like there's so many people who I like the write on Twitter, they'll write me on social media. Whenever I come here, they're like, Oh, I was afraid to talk to you. It's like, Okay, this is what matters. This is like where we actually can interact with people. But the other thing I tell you to do is To think about how do you give back. Because that's what we all need is we need the people like this, we need the people who are coming, who are getting more educated, who are caring about these things, to take part in the community, to tutor these people to be going to be able to go out and do this. There's a study show that last year that for the first time in history, creativity is declining and children. And it's because we have an entire generation that has been raised on you don't go in the backyard with GI Joes anymore. You go out and you watch the DVD and you play the video game, you don't do a bunch of stuff that gives you the answer. This is why because we become an entire society, the technology has become about consumption, not about creation. This is the time for us to be able to go out and do something about that. So as we talk about just again, the sort of simple takeaways for this is it the execution of your brand is just as important as the thinking behind it. This concept that knowledge is power. I don't agree with anymore. For me, I really think that sharing what it is that you've learned? That's where there's power, the ability to be inclusive in design, because there is a rift in our industry right now that there is a big part of it that still believes that design is exclusive, that we understand things that other people don't that you tell us what the problem is, and then you go away. I'm somebody who believes in inclusive design, I believe that you give away the things that you understand because it keeps you moving forward. I believe that you can bring your clients into the process and make them part of that, that all of that is something that there is vastly more power in to affect companies and a lot of other things as opposed to just being exclusionary for that. But that's the thing is that at the end of the day, the work is the truth. The work that you put in building your brand, the work that you put in doing your work. That's the truth of what it is. That's what people see. That's what they understand. Because that's the thing is at the end of the day, the truth is when I get your resume the truth is whenever I get your portfolio that That's what I see it. And that's what I understand that as I don't understand all the compromises, I don't understand all the other stuff that you've done, or the reasons why you ended up doing something, there is a very cold reality at the end of this. And that that's the lens that you need to look at these things through, is how do you actually go through and make sure that your work is telling your story. And so as we come to the hour, I want to make sure that we leave time for questions. This is the thing that I would tell you. Don't be afraid to stand out. I know, trust me that it's hard. Because as you start to stand for something, you're risking something personal. As you start to stand for something and build your brand. It means that people can judge you on it. As you start to build your brand. It means that you're vulnerable. But there's a thing that my wife says that I just think is right for this moment, is that she will always tell me and everybody else to exist loudly. Because everybody in here has a story to tell everybody in here has a brand that can make a difference. Everybody in here has a brand that they need to be able to get out there and communicate to people And it's just really signing up for this to not be the ones because it is. It's safer. It's more comfortable, it's easier just to sit in the shadows. But if you want to be able to break out and push past that, you've got to be able to start to think about some of this stuff. So before we get to questions, a little really quick housekeeping. Once again, you can download the deck. That's what the page looks like. There's a whole bunch of stuff including like links to all the podcasts. The other one if you have any interest at all, I put together this thing called the essentials. This is every app, every book, every person, anything that I think as a creative person that is actually worth checking out. I have another session tomorrow called in house powerhouse talking about internal teams. My one pitch and ask would be whenever you actually get the Adobe app, please go in and fill out that survey. One is because I genuinely whether you loved it, whether you hated it really like to see what the feedback was for this session. I have to ask Part of this thing tell you that you have the chance to win one of four ebooks, or you also have the chance to win a Wakeham pro tablet. Every every entry into the survey gets you a chance to win. Sorry, somedays, my radio voice comes back, and I just want to kill myself. So with that, we've got about 1314 minutes left, type my name and any social media and it comes up. What I would ask is that if anybody has any questions, there aren't microphones. So if you can do me a favor, maybe just kind of coming somewhere down here so I can hear you yell at me. And then I'll repeat the question back. That's a great question. So the question was, whenever I say don't quote other people, does that include Customer Testimonials? No, it does not. Because again, I think a customer testimonial is a great proof point to the work that you did. I think it's more like the Steve Jobs Did you know that things like that if you want to kind of help position yourself by associating yourself with somebody else? Those are more of the quotes that are a little bit more I'd stay away from so it's how do you get past a lot of the the like automatic tracking systems a lot of the HR companies use This to me is like the one of my biggest struggles because I've openly said, I think that the way the recruiting system is done is wildly broken. Like I constantly laugh, where I'll meet some executives, they're like, Oh, we got this great job, you should apply for it. That's like, yes, I did three months ago. Like, the thing that I would tell you to do is just to try to keep all of those different assets in as many different forms as you can, like, I do help, you know, I do have a version of my resume that is in Word. So if I need to copy it and paste it into those ridiculous open text fields, I can do that. But I think that there is some part of trying to work inside of those antiquated systems. But, you know, again, if you know no site should be blocked by firewalls or things like that unless you're on some weird platform. But again, I would also just say fill in as much as you can and have them get in touch with you so you can kind of give them whatever the the assets are. Because, yeah, I don't always understand it's like great block pornography and terrorism, but I don't understand why you're blocking a designer site. So the question was about having a strong brand personality if you're targeting like a conservative in house agency, I so here's the thing that I would say is that I kind of feel like not every company is who you think they're going to be. I would much rather be myself and then try to see if they feel like it's a fit as opposed to me changing myself to try to be something I think that they want. Partially just because I think you chase that the tail of that dragon forever. Because it's like now in this person do you know tell me because I read that that advice from recruiters who were like change your cover letter, change all these other things, be who they want to be talk about what they are. I think that's a great way of again, just deluding yourself into the point where you're not quite sure who you are anymore. The gentleman way in the back room. I have to ask that come down here because I'm not sure my ears are that good. Oh, man, I am loving you. My brother from another mother. I love you. That's it. Question. So I said don't lead with your education? What do I recommend that you lead with? What I do recommend that you lead with and that the thing that is on my resume and everything else, is that if I had to sum myself up in three sentences, what would that be? Because basically, I know that people don't read. And so again, whether it is a statement that could be shocking, whether it is a statement that I think really sums me up, it is something that again, if I want to deliver that brand, promise that brand statement in two or three sentences, because what I'll often do is I'll have those two or three sentences, and then again, almost treating it like advertising. I'll have four blocks that really call out what do I think are the four distinct things that I do differently? So that again, if you're just scanning it, I'm going to read three sentences, I'm going to go down, I'm going to hit the what those four blocks are, and then I can put my whole work history, I can put my whole education and all my awards and stuff like that, because I've got that first page, or that first part to really define Why am I different? Because for me again, if this was an ad campaign, that's the hook. What are the things that are I'm going to say they're going to be different to get you to dig into the rest. So how do you draw the line not to sound arrogant? I what I would say is that I think if it is the truth, it's not arrogance. I think that if it's one of those things, and that can sometimes be a fine line, right? Because on the one hand, I'm a believer that, you know, if you can do it, it's not bragging. But at the other point, have some humility, because I think even the best people understand that they can learn from other people that, you know, again, that you I tend to try to be very diligent about whenever I write things, it's about we're not I, and that there's a lot of those sort of things that I think are cues. Because none of us none of the work we've ever done was ever just I solely by myself. So I think of it as authentic, I think if it is based on things that you have done, and I think if it really talks about what are the things that you actually believe that you can bring to the team, that I don't think that that's arrogant, but like I said, there, there is that fine line and I've gotten a few of those where they kind of get into the egomaniac, and it's me, me me. III. So again, I think it's just it's thinking about it in those terms and if it's true, and if it is who you really are, because that's what I said, there are people who think they don't want that just because of the way I talk and how honest I am. They rubs them the wrong way. And they think that that's arrogance. I would argue that I think if it's honest, that's not necessarily arrogant, but again, and that's fine, then that means that that's not really the the interaction for me. For me, I tend to think that they they're trying a little bit hard. Because again, I think at the end of the day, there's a lot of people I know there's a phrase that you'll tend to use in sports where it's like game recognizes game. If it is somebody that the thinking is good, if it is somebody who does good work. I don't need to see a talking head video. I don't need to see somebody who's going to try to like put on this huge Wizard of Oz production to convince me how great they are. You give me you know, two really well written sentences and three really strong pieces of work. That should be a And again, I think that's the other thing is that anybody who is not gonna want to work with you because of an accent is somebody I would say you shouldn't work with, that I understand is not maybe a slightly arrogant like that. It's like the Oprah thing of like, do what you love. But the problem is like, what if what you love you suck at? So I'm very well aware of like, you know, grain of salt with all this stuff. This gentleman over here. So the question was one of the questions he gets asked a lot is like one of the challenges that he's had to overcome? And how does he actually use that in his portfolio? Have you still ever wants to work with that company? Again? The thing that I would say is, I think all of the case studies in my portfolio are very much about what was the challenge, because I think in any case, so much of what it is that we're asked to do these days is creativity, which is problem solving. Design is a byproduct of that design is then a visual expression of that problem solving. So the way that I usually will couch that is the fact that they came to us with a brief The brief inherently is a problem. There may have been more problems with that. But that was then your role was to be able to go through to help guide them through that. Because that's the thing is that if clients had all the answers, they wouldn't need us. So again, I think it's not putting the client down. It's not saying, you know, look, these idiots didn't know what it was they were doing. But that's the sort of thing that makes for a great portfolio item is the fact that there was this big challenge. Maybe we even discovered something else. This is how we came through it. And that this was then the resulting work, because then again, because all you show me is the resulting work. I missed the good part, which was the place where you did that work. And you did that thinking, because that's what I want is I want somebody who can do something like that. So I think as long as you position it that way of kind of like, here's the problem, here's the breakthrough. Here's the solution. You can usually get over that. Let's do two more. So the question was when you do the archetype x sighs Can you just be one? Or can you be a few? The reason why I have you do this sort exercise is because I think to start with, you need one dominant. You saw like in the example that I had up there for IKEA, I think you can have other ones that are on the edge of it. But the problem is that if I'm going to go through and I'm going to try to build a brand for the very first time, I can't build it on four archetypes because it just gets too scattered, right, and it's too unfocused. So that's why for me, I think you can start as one, but then again, you can have other ones that you can start to bring on eventually. The other thing that you may see is whenever you have your friends or your co workers do that, they may come back with one of those other ones. And so again, whenever you have that difference, it's how do you reconcile the two or find the overlap, but I really, really would recommend just starting with one so that you do have something very strong and very clear to focus on because again, I think down the road, you can nuance it, you can do all those other things, but but whenever I've done that, if it starts that diluted everything down from there just gets to washed out. One more for this gentleman right here. I'm loving you right now. Okay. So let's talk afterwards. Right. I think the question was, can I talk to other groups, if my time is not always of my own? So I think maybe I can I think there are other ways we can figure out how to be able to do that stuff. It's why I do the podcasts and other things like that. But no, I think you're like, literally this morning, the government of Egypt contacted me because two officials in Egypt are trying to figure out design thinking to change the government. so sure. And I'm happy to stick around answer any other questions, whatever anybody wants until they kick us out of the room. That was building your personal brand from Adobe Max 2017. Hopefully you found it useful, and hopefully it was something that There are a few things in there that maybe you can take away and you can start to work on for your brand. Now, if you like the show if you like what it is you're hearing, make sure you're going into your favorite podcast platform. Make sure you're hitting subscribe so you get the latest shows whenever those come out. Also, do me a quick favor, go into that platform while you're there, take a few seconds, click on the stars write a couple of words but leave a review. It lets other people know that what we're actually doing here actually has some value. And it lets me know that people are actually listening, both of which are good things. As always, you can find out more about the podcast related articles get all the show notes, including for this session at podcast Stephen Gates calm as always, that is Steven with STP pH en if you have any questions, things you want to hear more about things you won't hear less about. Head over to Facebook type in the crazy one, you'll find the podcast page there give the page like every week I'm going through I'm posting articles, doing all sorts of different things, answering questions, so you can be a part of that community. As always, the boys down illegal want me to remind you that all of us here are my own. They don't represent any of them. by current or former employers, these are just all my own opinions. And finally, I say it every time because I mean it every time. But thank you for your time. I know that time is truly the only real luxury that we have, especially on some of the longer episodes like this one. So I'm always incredibly humbled that you want to spend any of it with me. So we'll be back with new shows starting in Well, we'll see how my schedules go on one week, two weeks at the most. So I want to hit that subscribe button so you see whenever I have the free time to put it together. But from here on out, we'll be rolling back to our regularly scheduled programming, and Until then, stay crazy