How to Update Your Personal Brand Without Losing Your Mind

Tikal, Guatemala

“We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You. ”

— Tom Peters, “The Brand Called You"

This post is about personal branding, but I take a different route to get there: from the academic’s perspective on publishing. Publishing is part of our job, and we’re expected to do it. And publishing is like sending out into the world a 30-page article or 300-page book full of SEO keywords—through the sources we use, the stories we tell, the analysis we do. Everything we publish essentially becomes a SEO list of who we are as researchers, teachers, and citizens. Our personal brands helps get us jobs, grants, speaking engagements, consulting gigs, and the like. 

So what happens when an academic (ahem, me) realizes that s/he has to re-evaluate her/his brand? And what happens when that realization is painful because maybe, just maybe, s/he doesn’t want to change? Well, that’s my story.

Early in the month of May, I met with a colleague, who I greatly respect and admire, to talk about my academic identity and career trajectory. After a long and productive conversation, he asked me if I wanted the truth. Of course I did. (Maybe?) Then I learned that, somehow, my publications and conference presentations might be marketing me as not-as-hip. From his perspective, if I wanted more career movement, I needed to explore the hot stuff. The popular stuff. 

Hip: technology, design, networks, systems, robots, ecosystems, objects (which I wasn’t excited about).

Not-as-hip: discourse communities, literacy, discourse analysis, genre theory (what I was excited about).

I won’t deny it: a part of me crumbled when I heard I wasn’t hip. I didn’t not want to be hip. It stung. But it stung me into action. 

As an early career Assistant Professor, I know that I have to shape my brand. And I also know that the personal brand that I have also impacts the job opportunities I’ll have. Sure, I am getting articles published that didn’t incorporate the hip theories—which means that people don’t necessarily have to be using hip theory to get published—but getting my colleague’s perspective gave me pause. It gave me another perspective of how I was viewed in academia. And that is really useful information.

Yes, I could have taken my colleague’s perspective with a grain of salt. And, yes, I could have written him off. But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to let his perspective inspire me to grow as a thinker, teacher, researcher, and writer. I used his perspective to pivot.

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sometimes the greatest moments of insight happen when other people tell us what we don’t want to hear about ourselves. And it might sting. 

we shouldn't get defensive and retreat.

Instead, we need to use that insight to move us into deeper inquiry and exploration.

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So here’s what I like to call the “Genesea 3.0” upgrade, which happened over the course of a few months:

Embrace Feeling Stuck
Yes, I shed a few tears of frustration. Yes, I felt stuck and overwhelmed. Yes, I felt conflicted about whether or not I should take my colleague’s advice. So I sat with those feelings and let them be. 

Explore the Hip Stuff
After I stopped feeling so sensitive, I read as many books and articles on the hip topics—postcomposition, post humanism, systems theory, Actor-Network Theory—to get a baseline understanding of what the excitement was all about. Sure, it was challenging. I was learning new content that had been off my radar completely. And it was mentally exhausting, illustrated in this Facebook update I made when I was in the thick of it: “I read three words by Bruno Latour and promptly had to take a nap.” (Which is true.)

Talk it out with People Who Know   
When I attended a Computers and Writing conference the end of May, I knew many of the attendees would be be able to fill the theoretical gaps for me. So during social events I mustered the gumption to ask fellow attendees (and mostly strangers) if they would explain to me the importance of the hip theory. Because I’m a questioner, I asked “why...?” a lot. And they were cool with that. Talking with friendly academics who were happy to help me through my confusion made all the difference. I don’t think I would have been  as willing to explore a different personal brand without their insight. 

Return to the Material
During the month of June, I picked up the books and articles again. They were easier to read at this point. And the concepts were starting to make sense—and even applicable to what I was already teaching in my classes and exploring in my research. But the crux of my shift was being able identify small nuggets of content that made sense—a word, a phrase, a sentence or two. My thought process went something like this: Okay…human agency, technology and objects, power, unstable and fragmented, beings being shared…these are things that make sense. I think I might get it. Eventually.

Look for Common Threads
While hashing this out with another colleague, he explained that my beloved concepts and frameworks weren’t dead, per se. But they have evolved to include how technology and humanity interact. Looking at it from that angle, it was easier to see the common threads between my not-so-hip theory and the hip theory: both are about relationships, communication situations, and audiences. But the hip theory includes technology a central part of the conversation, which makes sense given the technoworld that we live in. So, upon seeing the common threads, I knew that updating my personal brand was a smart move: I’ve learned new concepts that will positively impact my teaching and research, and I’ve embraced the personal brand pivot that comes with insight and inquiry. And that’s the kind of person I want to be.

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Thinking about re-branding your “Me, Inc.”? Here are four steps to get you started with process:  

1. Ask your yourself who you want to be and why.   

2. Does that new you require a brand pivot? 

3. Be open to change by looking for common threads between your existing self and what's hip. You might want to journal the connections or do a mind dump brainstorming activity. 

4. Be patient with yourself. You don’t have to change overnight. 

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Let’s talk! What’s been your experience pivoting your Me, Inc.? Or how do you know when it’s time to update your personal brand? Let’s connect on Twitter @GeneseaC and on Instagram @CattingWithAlice. 

On Being a Questioner; Or, How Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies Helped Me Better Understand Myself and Others

Caye Caulker, Belize

My mom used to tell us kids when we were growing up “if you are unsure about something, you need to ask.” It was a statement she repeated to us quite a bit, as I’m sure she wanted us to check in with her before doing something we didn’t really know how to do—like use the blender or fry an egg—but I’m equally sure that her statement intended to save her time from cleaning up our messes and mishaps. As a compliant firstborn who took all instruction to heart, I was always comfortable asking a lot of questions even when I didn’t need to simply because I didn’t want to get it wrong. Questioning myself (and others) has it downfalls, in that either (a) I can come across as challenging others’ judgements if I ask too many questions, and (b) I need to make sure that by asking questions, I’m not undermining my own authority and experience.

I didn’t really realize that being Questioner was part of my make-up, and not something that my mom taught me to do, until reading Gretchen Rubin’s book Better Than Before, a book about habits. I picked up Rubin’s book after listening to her on Diane Sanfilippo and Liz Wolfe’s podcast Balanced Bites. What’s key here is that understanding how we develop habits has a lot to do with how we respond to inner and outer expectations. Rubin writes, "When we try to form a new habit, we set an expectation for ourselves. Therefore, it’s crucial to understand how we respond to expectations."

Are you one of those people who loves setting New Year’s Resolutions—either because you like to start the new year with a goal, or because you feel like you should? I don’t. I scoff at New Year's Resolution making, actually.  Because it’s an expectation that doesn’t make sense to me. Sure, maybe that expectation is either implicit or explicit depending on what kinds of circles you run in, but I realized a few years ago that I don’t really care about setting habits during the beginning of the year. And I certainly don’t care that “everyone else” is doing it or because it might be a tradition or yada yada yada. I want to be able to set habits whenever I want to. Not when it’s the popular thing to do. (And this is where Rubin’s point about expectations affecting habits made a lot of sense to me.)

In Rubin’s research on habits and expectations, she realized that there are four tendencies to how people respond to expectations. People are either Upholders, Obligers, Questioners, or Rebels, according to Rubin:

• "Upholders respond readily to both outer expectations and inner expectations."
• "Questioners question all expectations, and will meet an expectation only if they believe it’s justified."
• "Obligers respond readily to outer expectations but struggle to meet inner expectations."
• "Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike."

As a Questioner, I question expectations (asking “why”—a lot). I don’t mind meeting expectations if they make sense to me. So, if you knew me as a kid, or you’re wondering why I tagged myself as a “compliant firstborn,” it’s because, as a kid and young adult, it made sense to me to follow my parents’ expectations. It made sense to me to listen to my mom because—as I told myself—(a) she’s in charge, (b) she’s mom, so she must know better, and (c) I don’t want to get into trouble.

Rubin explains that Questioners are “motivated by reason, logic, and fairness. They wake up and think, “What needs to get done today, and why?” And this is what I do. I think about what needs to be done each day (or by month or semester), and then I decide what I want/need to accomplish and why. Again, it’s always “why?” So, if there’s a deadline, that’s a perfect reason why to meet an expectation. Or if I want to send out an article by the end of the summer, that’s also an excellent reason why. So, if upholding others’ expectations makes sense to me (which it usually does because I don’t like disappointing others), I’ll do it. 

What resonated the most with me about Rubin’s tendencies is that understanding people’s tendencies is freeing. When I realized that I, as a Questioner, questioned people’s expectations because it was a part of me and not just an annoying habit I had, I better understand the other people in my life. So, how does this impact the world around us? For one, the Rebel student won’t (always) ruffle my feathers when s/he is rebelling against my expectations. Or the colleague who is an Obliger? Well, now I better understand why s/he goes above and beyond to keep people happy when I could care less. Realizing that people’s tendencies has less to do with me and more to do with them has helped me understand and respond to discussions, disagreements, and arguments in a different way.

People’s tendencies are just that—parts of people. When people question my questions, or when people get annoyed with my questions, they are questioning and pushing against my tendency. I’m not trying to be annoying. And I’m certainly not purposely challenging authority. But I want to make sense of it all, so I can decide if and how I want to respond to expectations.

Now, this isn’t to say that Rebels won’t question or Obligers won’t rebel. And it’s also not to say that Rebels should be given free-reign to rebel, or that Obligers should be given free-reign to oblige. These tendencies have their downsides, too, if they are allowed to get out-of-control. In fact, on Rubin’s podcast, Happier, she discusses at length the four tendencies and how to get along with people who have different tendencies. I encourage you to check it out episode 013 (for an intro on the Four Tendencies) and episodes 035-038 (the Four Tendencies explained in detail).  

My greatest takeaway is that we don’t need to be offended, affronted, or annoyed by other people’s tendencies. It is what it is. Working and living with Upholders, Obligers, Questioners, and Rebels just means that we each have a natural way of responding to expectations that are different. And the sooner we realize that it’s not always about us, the better relationships we’ll have with those around us.

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Are you a Questioner, Rebel, Upholder, or Obliger? Take Rubin’s Four Tendencies Quiz let me know what you think! Let’s connect on Twitter @GeneseaC or on Instagram @CattingWithAlice.