Build Your Platform

What is your “platform”? It’s the foundation of your online presence, where you share your expertise, connect with others, and build a community around your work. You’ve been working quietly, behind closed doors, which results in nothing publicly to show your skills, knowledge, and capabilities.

The good news is, you’ve already done the hard part: lived a life of learning, growing, making mistakes, and gaining experience. The idea of your “platform”, or your “personal brand” is simply sharing some of that publicly. You can not only help other people, this can be a path to monetize your skills.

You might have an underinflated ego and have imposter syndrome, or you might be a bit of a narcissist. Either way, here’s a perspective about this concept of a “personal brand” that I think is worth considering.

Your Expertise

Your personal brand is the sum of your reputation, credibility, and visibility in your field. To put this in perspective, they say you need to invest 10,000 hours to become an “expert” in something. There are 2,080 hours in a year, so that’s about 5 years of full-time work - to be considered an “expert” in a field. Have you been working in your field for at least 5 years? If so, you are objectively an expert.

The good part is, that means you’ve already done the hard part. In that time, you’ve learned lessons, made mistakes, had successes, and built a network. This idea of a “personal brand” is simply using that expertise that you already have, and sharing it more publicly, with intention.

Give Back

Building a personal brand is not just about self-promotion; it’s about giving back to the community that helped you grow. Throughout your career, how often have you consumed content, read articles, or watched videos that helped you learn something new? Well, by building your personal brand, you can give back to the community that has shared so much with you.

Share your knowledge generously, and you’ll find that it comes back to you in unexpected ways.

But at MY age?

You might be thinking “I’m too young for this, I’m still learning” - or “I’m too old for this”. The truth is, there will always be someone ahead of you, and always someone behind you. There will always be people more advanced or who have more knowledge than you, but there is also a never-ending supply of people who don’t know as much as you do, who haven’t learned all of those hard lessons yet. Whether you’re 22 or 62, there are people, and a LOT of people, who would benefit from your knowledge and experience. There’s no human on the planet who has your unique combination of skills, experiences, and insights.

Why Your Personal Brand Matters

Beyond altruism, your personal brand is a powerful asset that can open doors and create opportunities. In fact, it’s one of the most valuable assets you can build in your career. Here’s why:

• Streams of Income: Lead to job offers, consulting gigs, speaking invites
• Opportunities: Build trust with users for your products
• Longevity: Let your projects outlive any single employer
• Resilience: Protects you from layoffs and market downturns
• Visibility: Helps you stand out in a crowded job market

If you have a brand outside of your day job, this is not only a safety net with unbounded upside, but it can be a pathway to new opportunities and passion-projects, and potentially to multiple streams of income.