- Fear, driven by imposter syndrome and perfectionism, often holds people back from building their personal brand in public. However, success comes when you embrace vulnerability, share your journey, and persist through external criticism and internal doubts.
- Sharing your process and involving your audience in decisions creates trust and authenticity. Being genuine and transparent about both your challenges and successes helps build stronger relationships and a more relatable brand.
- Personal branding within a company isn’t a threat but an opportunity. When C-Suite teams align their messaging and support each other’s growth, it strengthens both individual and collective goals. However, disjointed efforts caused by fear and insecurity can hinder success.
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Are you afraid to build in public? You’re not alone. I’ve noticed this as a common theme for many of my colleagues and clients. What has fueled this fear? Imposter Syndrome — the belief that all success is a product of luck and not truly earned, therefore making an individual appear “deceptive.” Another fear is that of perfectionism. I’ve had a few clients state that they sat on the opportunity to work together to build their personal brand for years because they were afraid. Afraid of what exactly? How others would perceive them.
This is a common phenomenon – another trick housed in the Theatre of the Mind. Constant overthinking, being overly critical of oneself, and feeling anxiety around negative perceptions.
What does it mean to build in public?
Building in public is common with startups. It’s the practice of sharing the process of creating a product or business openly, often through social media. This requires a lot of confidence paired with a fearless approach. Because the truth is, our deep fears that hold us back from getting started often do manifest. Haters will show up in the comments, loved ones will become unsupportive, and you will make mistakes. But the sooner you can come to terms with this, the sooner you’ll find success and embrace it all as part of the branding experience! Remember, it’s not what happens that matters, it’s how you respond and continue to persist.
Take a look at these aspects of building in public:
- Sharing your journey: Vulnerability is the gateway to a successful personal brand. This means shining a light on the good, the bad, and the ugly.
- Involve your audience: The point of personal branding is to create authentic connections. Including your audience in your decision-making process or asking for direct feedback is how you establish trust and genuine relationships.
- Learn: Take interest in what is being shared with you and adapt as you see fit to serve your community at the highest level possible.
- Be genuine: Storytelling that expresses your challenges and triumphs further builds relatability and trust. Don’t allow fear to hold back your authentic expression!
How to navigate group build?
There’s a misconception that employees building their own personal brands while still with a company is distracting or threatening. This couldn’t be further from the truth! It’s actually quite powerful when you can get the entire C-Suite team to synchronize messages and go to market together. This enhances the collective goal of increasing representation for the company and further standing out from a crowded market.
That being said, this can also take a turn in the other direction if all team members aren’t fully on board or are battling with their own fears and insecurities. This disjointed effort can look like:
- Threatened by peers
- Difficulty executing strategies
- Creating false narratives
- Blaming others
- Sabotaging success
- Resentment
A fear-driven mindset can lead to procrastination and avoidance, which will ultimately stunt the intended growth.
Case Story: Personal Branding vs. Corporate Comfort
One of my clients came to me as a VP of People from a well-known company. She had built an incredible personal brand that was rapidly growing and she wanted to scale it even further by converting her audience into revenue. As an established HR professional, she was conflicted with feelings about her messaging. She stated she was holding back because she feared not being trusted by her employees and also of being perceived as a threat by her employers. What she feared became reality and she started receiving pushback, as well as restrictive guidelines on what she was allowed to post.
My client used this as determination to get clear about her vision and continue creating her personal brand, using social media as a stage to speak up about what she believed strongly in.
Simply said: Staying true to her voice was more important than staying silent for corporate comfort.
Her intuition was spot on. Combined with her leadership abilities, she was able to navigate these challenges successfully and turn these potential conflicts into growth opportunities for herself and for the company.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, everyone is confronted with their own set of fears. Your courage can even trigger fear in others. What’s important is to get grounded in your own beliefs and curate a confident mindset so that all these outside circumstances don’t shake you.
How will you break your limiting beliefs and barriers? Getting clear and doing the work now will prevent potential disasters down the line that could destroy campaigns where hundreds to thousands of dollars are at stake. So do the work, be fearless, and stay committed to your vision!
For deeper introspection, consider these questions to enhance your personal branding confidence:
- How do you plan to stay motivated when faced with setbacks?
- How do you plan to balance building a personal brand with your personal life (or corporate life)?
- What mindset shifts are necessary to overcome your own fears, doubts, and insecurities around being seen?
- How do you plan to manage the fear of failure or rejection when putting yourself out there?
- If you are on a team, who else is involved and are they ready to do this? If not, how can you step up as a leader to mitigate these conflicts?
Want to learn more about this topic? Make sure to follow Melanie Borden and The Borden Group on LinkedIn™.
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