Personal branding and becoming who you are
When I started my business in 2011, I had a lot of fear about it all.
I didn’t think I looked like other local business people in my town w/ my dyed hair and nose piercing, I felt out of place & like I was in the wrong room at a lot of the early networking events.
I wondered why I had chosen to go into a field that required so much human connection, when I was such an awkward human! Shit!!!
Yet I wanted to give this photography idea a go, & hoped it would be a way for me to have some control over my work life, so that I could save up for film school & leave the call centre job. I persevered.
I had an idea in my head of what it meant to be a ‘professional’ and tried it on. I went from being a fairly disorganised teenager w/ a deep floordrobe, to taking on more responsibility, using a diary & showing up despite the nerves to try & get this biz going.
I toned down & tamed my hair, lost the nose ring, wore ‘professional’ clothes, trying to find my way and be ‘successful’. I believed that was what it took for people take me seriously, & I needed to explore who I was.
I intellectually believed everything I heard about the importance of ‘being yourself’ in your biz & life, & wanted to stand for that, but had to really grow into embodying what it meant (and still do!) as I went into the niche of personal brand photography.
As I began to feel into what was true for me, I had to find a way to move through the terror of being myself & trust that it was the way to genuine connection (even though I still worried I wasn’t ‘getting it right’.)
Personal branding has brought THE most incredible people into my life, so many inspiring clients who radiate authenticity in biz, integrity and truth. My clients have shown me that there are as many ways to be a professional as there are professionals, it absolutely does not look any ‘one’ way & that success means something different to everyone. That’s something to celebrate.
I grow into what all this means for myself still. Yet I feel more & more secure in knowing that I can only be me, & if I had to pretend to be someone I’m not in order for my biz to work, it wouldn’t be worth it (or sustainable!)