How Self-leadership is the Secret to Leveling Up Your Personal Brand for Career Opportunities with Selina Yankson

How well do you know the person behind your personal brand?  It's often ignored, but your inner thoughts and outer image play a critical role in your professional presence.

This concept of self-leadership is needed for a confident and aligned personal brand in your career and business. That's why this week's episode features Selina Yankson, an Executive Self-leadership Coach at Mid-Career Mentor, who brilliantly shares how to start your self-leadership journey to personal and professional success.

LEARN

Exploring the 'Three Yous': Understand the concept of the 'Three Yous' – how your public persona, private life, and inner desires shape your personal brand.

How to Address Internal Challenges: Learn strategies for overcoming self-doubt and societal pressures that impact your career trajectory.

The 'You Review' Method: Discover the 'You Review' method for self-assessment, a practical tool for setting and achieving personal goals.

LINKS

Connect with Selena Yankson on LinkedIn
Subscribe to The You Review Newsletter

Michelle B Griffin is a thought leadership-focused personal brand and PR strategist and founder of Standout Women Media who positions established women experts and authors into visible industry authorities.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey, there, it's the brand therapist, michelle B Griffin, and welcome to your weekly personal brand therapy session as a certified personal brand and PR strategist speaker and author. I'm here to empower you to put yourself out there so you can find clarity, build visibility and grow your industry authority. I'm super excited you're here. Now let's get going with today's session. Welcome everybody to this week's personal brand therapy session. I'm the brand therapist, michelle B Griffin. I'm thrilled to have someone all the way from the UK. Welcome to the show, selena Yankson.

Speaker 2: 0:38

Thank you for having me, michelle. It's an all let's be here.

Speaker 1: 0:41

It's thrilling to have you here because I've loved and admired your work here in my community. But all the stuff you put out there about self-leadership it just speaks so highly to what we do on the show and to help personal brands really get out there in a bigger way. But before we jump into the topic, I'm going to introduce you. Your executive self-leadership coach all the way in the UK and your company is Mid Career Mentor, where you really work with corporate leaders to help them have flow and ease and all the things I'm sure you're going to help us and explain to us today. But the concept is self-leadership. I equate personal branding with personal development and that can be in your career, your business. But we need to be self-advocates for ourselves and I think that really ties in.

Speaker 2: 1:25

Self-leadership is not a new concept Concepts been around for quite a while, but from a guy called Andrew Bryant and basically it's about knowing yourself so that you can actually lead yourself and make better decisions and I've added on the better decisions, because if you don't know yourself, you won't be able to make those decisions. And what I've seen time and time again, and also in my own life, is that what happens is we get into a pattern. So really I think there's three of us inside every person. So there's the outer you, and that is the personal, branding side of yourself, so that's what you want to project to the world. And there's the world, the inner you, where you are with your friends and your family, and there's what I call the secret you, but the things that you don't tell anybody and you keep those quiet.

Speaker 2: 2:13

And really self-leadership cuts across to help to align those things. Because often we are so concerned about the outer ring. What do people think of us? How are we projecting ourselves? And this is necessary if we want to get into the world and move up, and often our whole work structure has been built on how you come across, how confident you are. But actually when you talk to people, you can find that actually they're quite introverted, they are struggling with their self-image or they've got impostor syndrome, and this is what the inner you. And then, of course, there's what our friends and family think that we should be doing. Sometimes we're not actually owning our own careers and our own decisions about what we really want to do, because it doesn't align with what our families think of us.

Speaker 2: 3:00

So for me, self-leadership cuts are to say, cuts across all three of those things, and I'm really helping people move these things into alignment just so they can make some better decisions for themselves. When you can make better decisions, you don't fall into the same old traps. You don't start working with the same people. But if you work with a micromanager, you'll notice the signs and you'll think you know what. I'm putting my boundaries in place. That will be one example. I'm not going to be doing I don't know 30 hours in a definitely kind of thing. I'm not going to be answering calls weekend. I'm going to be spending time in my family, because that's really what I like to do, or I'm not going to continue to do this work, even though I'm good at this work. I want to really do something that my heart desires.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Again, the interview that is key, that secret thing. I love how you say that secret. So we all have that secret things and we hold back, and I love the concept. This very much aligns with what I do in my work really knowing who you are and not just projecting what other people think. So it all really starts what I call internal clarity. I have this brain clarity trifecta framework, or internal clarity.

Speaker 1: 4:07

You have to know a hundred percent about you and it sounds like if we don't cut across it, we're just existing, doing the things that Everyone wants of us, and not leaning into what we were, who we really are and where we really want to go. And to me, that's the saddest thing in work life, business, and so you see this all the time. Okay, so we know what self leadership is. We're putting this in the context of personal brands because I really want people to pay attention. The self awareness part is huge and I've had, we've had a topic on the podcast before about self awareness and how to really get to know it. But in your context, where do you start?

Speaker 2: 4:44

again, it's about the clarity. It's about really being honest with yourself. You can really be clear about anything unless you're really been a bit. We're gonna be honest with yourself. And also, again, that means facing up to some of the secret self as well, the things that you really need to let go of.

Speaker 2: 5:01

And often self leadership actually is about Minimising things, simplifying things, shredding them right back, because as we get more successful, we're older, we accumulate more things. We have an image to portray. Particularly when you've been working in the workplace maybe 10 years minimum, you start to accumulate a certain way of doing things and what I do with my clients, I really start to strip things back. So we have a big clarity piece that I go through. We do some personality stuff, but no, we don't. I don't rely on that. That's really just to help people to get an indication of where they are.

Speaker 2: 5:37

But I think there's a lot of things that we can do when we face up to our secret cells and sometimes that's quite painful because we're letting go of the story that we've written about ourselves, and we all write those stories about ourselves. I know for me in particular. I've done that over the years. I thought so I could only do this one thing because for other people expected me to do, and then there came a point in my career why I literally have to rewrite all of that and I literally Throughout the things that I was really good at and I wanted to do some of the things that I really loved, and I think sometimes you are fighting Not only yourself, but you're fighting the, the perceptions of other people. I think you just always have to be aware of that.

Speaker 1: 6:14

What's the tipping point? Where is the breaking point? Where you're like I can't live like this anymore. I've got to take the secret self out. If someone's just walking around to me just miserable, and this Outward thing that everything looks good on paper but inside it's not, how do we turn it around? I?

Speaker 2: 6:30

think for some people. I think it's about the circular thing. I think it's literally I can't do another day Doing what I'm doing, for whatever reason I think they're come however that manifests for somebody. I think it's really that I think people just wake up one day and think One more conversation with that ridiculous boss, they've got doing something really they don't believe in Got having the same conversations and that same conversation Sometimes follows you around. That comes a point either it comes with your health or your mental health, so you either burn out or literal mental health, or you just can't go and do this thing anymore because you're just tired and you have no enthusiasm for the role and you just think somehow then the money doesn't matter, somehow then the prestige doesn't matter to the local having prestige if you hate your job, or you think I need another pathway. And that's when people Really find themselves going back and thinking what is it that I really want?

Speaker 1: 7:26

the problem is we don't want people to suffer it that long, right? Because look at what happens. It leads to health burn out, stress and that. So that's why today's topic is so important. We're talking about hey, you need to get start being aware of this and real clarity. I like assessments in the personal branding space. I'd use them as clues. I don't think everything on them because, like when I did the Clifton strengths test, it was really revealing to me. Oh, that's why I think and do and act that way. It was a little bit of a puzzle piece, if you will, but I have my own assessments to really help people start thinking in a different way, asking questions that they haven't been asked in a while, or they're scared to answer, or it's not a right time, and so it has to be the right time, and it sounds like you almost can't read a book and do this on your own. Do you recommend someone needs to seek someone like yourself or something to get these answers out and then get on their way?

Speaker 2: 8:23

I think so. I think we just lose time. Like everything else, there's a long, painful way of doing things that sometimes never gets done any kind of personal development work. There is a timing. There is a timing involved. There's always the why now? Question, which I always ask why now? What has brought you to this point, right now to reach out and ask for help? Some people are really good and they'll do it in advance and they know they can see the patterns Forming. So when they see the patterns for me, the thinking I know what's going to happen, and before that wave crashes onto the beach, I want to someone to hold a container for me and help me to not have the same results, and I think that's really important. So I put people through what I call the you review, and I'll be talking about that again in the next few weeks, because this is a time when I do it and I stopped making. For example, I stopped doing new year's resolutions literally about seven years ago, because it just wasn't working.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Tell us more, because we're two months away from the end of the year.

Speaker 2: 9:17

So I do what I call the you review and I basically do a review on myself because a lot of people are in their works and they're expecting that kind of that whole kind of performance review and they base their whole year on what a manager has said about them in a five or 10 minute talk or a form fitting exercise. And then they take that one and they think, oh my God, this is what my worth is, when actually your worth is so much bigger than that. So it's really important to do a you review on yourself in certain areas of your life and then decide what you're gonna concentrate on going forward. And I do mine around the time of my birthday and then I do all my planning around that year.

Speaker 2: 9:55

So I can see where I am in my you review. What am I concentrating on and what is my intent, or whatever it is gonna be, for the year?

Speaker 1: 10:05

The you review, and it has a rhyme in our literations Love that we get so caught up in that. Like you said, the work performance reviews, the New Year's resolutions and yours is so lucky because it's the end of the year that your birthday is practically, so I you can start it at any time.

Speaker 2: 10:22

You can do it at any time. Everyone's got something in their mind as a marker as to progress or something that's gonna happen, and that's why I say do it then, because then it feels more real to you.

Speaker 1: 10:33

I call it your brand's in our store. When you know why you're showing up in the personal brand context, why am I showing up? Why am I standing out? Who am I here for? You gotta be for yourself, but also in the personal branding space, just like at work and stuff. You're here to help others. So you have to just align all that. But if you don't address that, if we don't know where we're going, we just muddle through life and it just leads backwards. So self-leadership is knowing who you are and where you wanna go. And then how do you sustain that? We find clarity. We have to simplify it. We do that. You review what's the next step?

Speaker 2: 11:07

Well, there are quite a few stages, but the main stage is being true to you, and I say the secret self. This is where people really have to own up to who they are and that's where the empowerment piece comes in, because once you know who you are and what you do, your decisions are gonna be that much easier Because we make, as I say, bringing back. I talk about self-leadership in terms of making better decisions. If you're making decisions that are just to do with your family and not really gonna, they impact you more, but they're to do with your family, sometimes you can do that short-term because we all have to do that, but if you're doing that year in, year out, you're gonna start becoming resentful. You're not probably going to be the best person that you can be, because it's not something that's really resonating with you, because the three U's are out of alignment.

Speaker 2: 11:48

And then decisions. We're making decisions every day, but most decisions for ourselves are really hard to do because people think they're being selfish. You either get too campy the people who are all about themselves or they're all about other people and this person in the middle kind of gets lost. We think we always have to give more and give more. Actually, all that means is that we're training the people around us so that we are lost on our own list, and you should not be lost in your life.

Speaker 1: 12:16

You've lost all sight of self. And so yeah, personal meaning is a lot of nuances, a lot of things.

Speaker 1: 12:23

To me, it's a vehicle to get where you want. But I pay a lot of attention and do a lot of work and the self-identity, self-belief, self-advocacy, all these things, because it truly is you getting out there to be in service of others. You're broken and you're just not the full self. You're just never going to show up. And that leads into the clarity of who you are, out there talking to people, the confidence I'm sure you see that tremendously. It's like a crushed confidence. It just does not exude well out there. And so when you have inner confidence, you're alive and you can handle these things because you have a plan. It sounds like you really work in this review and your other frameworks. You really help them get the sustainable framework, like my brand, gps. So you're on your right lane and you're not going to go off course.

Speaker 2: 13:11

Now what is happening in the world? There's now another player in town, and that is technology, and that technology has really caught on, and so this now becomes more about the value piece and how you shock that value, which is probably where the more the personal branding now starts to come in, with the self-leadership so even though you know yourself is how do you project this identity out to the world as a value piece? It's all going to be about the value piece. If you cannot show your value, if you cannot show your impact, then unfortunately you get pushed aside.

Speaker 1: 13:48

Absolutely. This is the time now, especially with AI. It's almost the kick we need to realize hey, no more complacency here. This is exactly where the value proposition comes in and all the stuff that I work to get out there. And once you've given everyone that you have that clarity and confidence, then you can stop out on a whole new level and then feel good and be committed to staying out there and just exuding that value bring. And it's a give and take, but I absolutely think that's exactly where self-leadership bridges into personal branding and executive and career space as well. As we wrap, I always recommend one actionable thing you would suggest someone could start doing today to build their self-leadership.

Speaker 2: 14:31

Start a journal and write down the things that your secret self wants. Acknowledge that person.

Speaker 1: 14:38

Okay, I love that. It's so hard. Hey, I'm going to give another tip on that, because I was one of those people. I was always, as a kid, I would never write my diary because I was so petrified that anyone would see it or something like my little sister would find it. Years later I started journaling. Here's the tipcom it's a digital diary. You can, in secret every day write a passage. I have journaled on that and you can go back and look and search For me. I know some people have to write out to me. I let it all out there Whatever way you can. We have to get that out. You're so right, selena. We can't keep that bottled up.

Speaker 2: 15:14

Because that's the person inside who wants to come out. It doesn't matter, it's. That's not about money, that's not about anything. That's about acknowledging your inner self. If you're happy and you're joyful, then that's going to spill over back into your work because you're not thinking. Literally 100% of my time is in a job that doesn't bring me enough joy. Joy is contagious.

Speaker 1: 15:38

That was exactly the topic of last week's show on Do what you Love with the author of Do what you Love, Kate Bowlman. We talked exactly about that. I'll link to the show notes. I love that you are mid-career, because it sounds like a lot of times this is exactly when these things start popping up. I absolutely love that. Where can everyone find you and learn more? And especially about this U-review you're going to be posting about coming up?

Speaker 2: 16:02

Yeah, this is my new course that I'm bringing out. It's going to be a group course. I also have a couple of things. There's the leaders ID, which is my private group on LinkedIn. You can make a request to get it onto that. The best way to get hold of me is through my LinkedIn profile. Please contact me through there.

Speaker 1: 16:21

With that being said, we are going to be wrapping up today. Selena, thank you again for being such a fun.

Speaker 2: 16:25

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 16:25

I'm going to be a guest. Keep putting yourself out there. You have a brand to build, a message to share and people to impact. I'll catch you next week. Everyone, take care. That's a wrap for today's brand therapy session. Are you ready to get visible and build your personal brand? Then head on over to the brandtherapistio and grab my free resources to get unstuck and get going today. Until next time, thanks for listening.