{"id":4073,"date":"2018-10-05T10:55:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T15:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/?p=4073"},"modified":"2018-09-14T11:14:22","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T16:14:22","slug":"make-your-passion-part-of-your-personal-branding-effort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/2018\/10\/make-your-passion-part-of-your-personal-branding-effort\/","title":{"rendered":"Make Your Passion Part of Your Personal Branding Effort"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, I was chatting with a new public relations client, and hearing his remarkable story reminded me of how we often separate our professional branding efforts from our true passions. And that may not be the best way to go.<\/p>\n<p>This man spent much of his career working with a famous athlete. That might be interesting on its own merits, but what he learned about himself along the way is that he had knowledge and experience he could share with young people to inspire them and affect their lives in a positive way.<\/p>\n<p>Now he\u2019s focused on that. I think what he discovered is true for many of us. We have careers we work at every day \u2013 and with any luck we are passionate about those careers \u2013 but we also have passions outside work that help shape who we are.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it\u2019s helping disadvantaged young people. Maybe it\u2019s volunteering with an animal-rescue group. Maybe it\u2019s traveling on mission trips.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes we don\u2019t get to focus on those passions as much as we would like. As another client notes, we tend to put the things we consider really important on the back burner while we get caught up in day-to-day living.<\/p>\n<p>Or, as John Lennon wrote in one of his songs, \u201cLife is what happens to you while you\u2019re busy making other plans.\u201d But I don\u2019t think it has to be that way. Both your profession and your passion can be part of your everyday living and part of your brand. The two aren\u2019t\u00a0necessarily mutually exclusive, even though we often separate them. Let me offer a few things to consider and maybe you\u2019ll be inspired to put both your profession and your passion to work to help build your personal brand:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Recognize you don\u2019t have to wait.<\/strong> You can integrate your passion into your brand building right now. Let me give you an example of how simply it can work. I spoke at an event once where I was preceded by a financial professional who discussed her philanthropic work. She clearly saw her professional career and her philanthropic efforts as distinct parts of her identity, with one having nothing to do with the other. After her speech, I suggested that her philanthropic work would be interesting to the local press and at the same time, elevate her and her company in the eyes of the community and in the eyes of her clients and prospective clients.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Share that passion widely.<\/strong> Just like that financial professional, you might not recognize it, but this other dimension of you is worth letting people know about \u2013 although you may need to overcome your modesty. Don\u2019t be shy about making use of social media to share what you\u2019re doing and letting the press know. Let your clients know, too. You may be surprised at their interest in helping with your cause. This isn\u2019t about bragging. This is about an aspect of your life and personality that is a legitimate part of who you are.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Be authentic.<\/strong> Let me add this slight caveat. You should be passionate about something because you truly are passionate about it, not because it provides public relations potential. Let the PR flow from your passion and not vice versa.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When people learn more about you on this personal level, they are more likely to be attracted to you and want to do business with you. And the great thing is you accomplish that simply by revealing the true and more complex \u201cyou\u201d to the world at large.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Recently, I was chatting with a new public relations client, and hearing his remarkable story reminded me of how we often separate our professional branding efforts from our true passions. And that may not be <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/2018\/10\/make-your-passion-part-of-your-personal-branding-effort\/\" title=\"Make Your Passion Part of Your Personal Branding Effort\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":383,"featured_media":4077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[599],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-branding"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/383"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4073"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4078,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4073\/revisions\/4078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanbusinessmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}