Personal Branding for Chaotic People
Embracing duality doesn’t disqualify you from effective personal branding.
I grew up with Tumblr and Limewire. The internet was where I explored all the weird and wonderful facets of my identity. Now it’s also the place where I find partners and clients.
In-between then and now was a constant stream of adults telling me I needed to build a professional digital presence, and to scrub away everything else. Well-intentioned advice, but it felt like an ultimatum. Like I only had a few years to polish myself into an easy-to-label, employer-friendly persona and if I didn’t, I would be sabotaging my own career.
I spent years trying to fit into a number of classic archetypes — the artsy one, the prepster, the go-getter and so on. None of them weren’t me, but all of them tried to be the only me. Every time I’d “break character”, I felt like I had messed up. I kept hoping one day I’d wake up and my “incorrect” personality would be magically fixed. Of course, that never happened.
Eventually I realized that being a walking juxtaposition isn’t a flaw. It’s a strength. People who embrace their everchanging multitudes create an advantage. They can authentically connect with a wider range of people, adapt to change, influence culture, and tend to have a sense of curiosity that pushes them to never stop learning. I affectionately call us “chaotic”, because that’s what it may look and feel like, but make no mistake — it’s a superpower.
So how does someone tap into the power of personal branding without sacrificing their magic chaos?
1. Redefine professionalism
Start by getting rid of the unhelpful expectations. “Professionalism” isn’t about the absence of tattoos and swearwords, or adhering to ridged hierarches. It’s about mutual respect, accountability and integrity. With this new definition, allow yourself to lean into any form of self-expression that feels natural to you. You’ll be far more successful (however you define that) being the most complete version of you than you will be anything else. Unapologetic authenticity is magnetic (yes, even to employers).
2. Detach your purpose from the process of achieving it
Your dream job probably doesn’t exist yet, so don’t build your personal brand around one. What you do and how you do it should evolve and if Disney’s Soul taught us anything, it’s that passion isn’t what you do all day. It’s a state of being that can be driven by anything (or everything!). There’s a reason you get up in the morning, and it’s not your pay cheque. If nothing comes to mind immediately, try playing with these statements:
- I believe [_____] and I’m on a mission to help achieve this.
[Ex. the planet must come before profit / all people deserve dignity / adults should have more fun]
- I love [_____] and I’m building a life filled with it.
[Ex. community / joy / problem solving]
3. Consider making a separate entity
If the idea of personal branding feels inauthentic, it may be from the pressure to narrow your interests. This feeling is what led me to creating @MotherDeckerVic, a hyper-specific educational parody account about presentations and pitch decks. Through that account I also channeled my thoughts on digital marketing which segued into DECKER, the umbrella brand for all my side projects.
It’s all just me, but projecting my work through a curated separate entity freed me to do whatever I wanted on my personal accounts — which is great, because I’d hate to deprive the internet of my thoughts about Baby Yoda and vaccines.
Beyoncé has Sasha Fierce and I have a ridiculous PowerPoint Stan account. Who will you make?
4. Teach yourself the basics of photography and design so your brand can evolve with you
(If you’re already a pro in this area, skip to #5)
I like to think we’re done with overly planned Instagram feeds, but cohesive visuals can still make or break the credibility of any brand.
If marketing yourself is directly tied to your success (ie. public speakers, coaches, etc.) I highly recommend hiring a pro, at least to get you started. But learning the basics of mobile photography (emphasis on composition, angles and lighting), editing apps and graphic design will allow you transform content you collect from everywhere life takes you, without Frankenstein-ing your brand.
Ps. mastering colour is the best low-resource/high-impact place to start and Claire Kennedy shared how she built hers here.
5. You don’t “find” yourself, you create yourself
Social media has democratized the attention economy, which means the future belongs to anyone with the guts to put themselves out there.
It’s a self-sabotaging mindset to think you’ll wake up one day knowing exactly who you are, what your future holds and how to tell people about it (and wouldn’t life be boring if you did?). So, embrace this as an infinitely iterative process and get yourself out there.
“You’re under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago” — Alan Watts
If you’d like to hear more from my chaotic brain and everchanging personal brand, you can find me on Twitter (and everywhere else).
