Speaker 1: The ultimate weapon to landing that dream job, what is it? Is it a perfect GPA? Is it a college degree? Or is it a resume? Perhaps it is a personal brand. Although I can't guarantee you that a personal brand will solve all these problems, I can however promise that when done with intention and purpose, a personal brand will enable you to meet interesting people and unlock disruptive opportunities. Before I dig deeper into the what and how of a personal brand, I'd like to share with you the why and why personal branding matters so much to me. To help illustrate this point, I'd like to share with you a photo. That's me in the center. I was born in Vietnam where both my parents never attended high school. They were both hardworking street vendors who were selling a popular street snack in Vietnam called the hot buns. If I were to have stayed in Vietnam, I most likely would have followed their footstep in becoming a street vendor as well. Fortunately at the age of six, my parents decided to immigrate to the United States with nothing with them in hope of a better future for me and my brother. Despite the early challenges such as being a second language learner or assimilating to the American culture, I ultimately through perseverance and determination made it to college where I attended the number one public university in the world, UC Berkeley. Go Bears. At UC Berkeley, I quickly realized that hard work and staying up all night and a college degree were simply table stakes in today's competitive job market. What I realized is less about what you know, but more about who you know. During that time, I was enamored by the tech boom within Silicon Valley. I was interested in working for Facebook, Apple, and the Google, but I realized the question that I had to answer was that I had no connection to this world. I didn't have a family friend, a cousin, or an uncle, or a sibling in this industry. I knew nobody. And that's when I turned to personal branding. I realized through personal branding, I was able to position myself as someone who was an enthusiastic, a young millennial marketer who was invested in his development and success. And through that, I met many interesting mentors. Some of these mentors are here today. One of my mentors at Apple who gave me the opportunity to work for one of the world's most beloved brands. I met my mentor at Forbes who guided me through my marketing journey, ultimately leading me to becoming one of the youngest Forbes 30 and 30 at the age of 22. Finally, I met many interesting writers and editors at LinkedIn who believed in my story and share my narrative at scale to readership of over 100,000 people to millions as well. Now that I've talked to you a little bit more about the why behind the personal brand, let's talk about what is a personal brand. There's a lot of misconception when it comes to personal branding. A lot of people find it very fake. They don't believe that it's real, it's disingenuous, it's not authentic. And many people are afraid that it will do more harm than good. But what I tell you that a narrative or a personal brand that's not shaped by you will be formed and told by others, do you want to take that risk? Ultimately, when done with intention and purpose, a personal brand can do more benefits than harm. That being said, I'd like to share with you a concept to help better define what is a personal brand, sharing you with the concept of voice and tone. Many of us here have a very authentic and unique voice to us. This voice is recognized by our peers, parents, and managers. However, we also have many tones in our life. These tones are the way we interact with many people through different contexts and different purpose. For example, when I speak to my parents, I'm trying to demonstrate respect, while when I speak to my colleagues and manager, I'm trying to demonstrate leadership. Your voice will always stay true to you, but your tone will change over time based on your audience and context and purpose. That being said, what is a personal brand? A personal brand is the intersection of perception and reality, not just perception. For as a personal brand that is constructed purely on perception will tumble on its own weight. So what is a personal brand then, if it's not just perception? It's you. You are at the heart and epicenter of your personal brand. Your personal brand needs to be led by your voice, and ultimately be supported by an interconnected web of personality, passion, and interest. Here I'm humanizing this whole concept through emojis, because I want to let you know that this part is very humanizing. A personal brand doesn't have to be superficial, it doesn't have to be supported by a team of 10 people. It can be supported by you. One thing that you can do at home tonight is think about the seven emoji that represent you as a professional, but also a person as well. So now that I've covered the why and the what of a personal brand, so how can you incorporate personal branding to your life as well? We're all so different. So I will be lying up on the stage if I tell you that I have the perfect guide to building a personal brand. And I take that back, not even building. Building assumes that personal branding can be done with step one, step two, step three. But as a matter of fact, personal branding can be done through a designing approach. And today I want to share with you some of those building blocks to help you better design your personal brand. Embraced. Embrace your identity, embrace your adversity, embrace your diversity, embrace your whole self. Only then can people know who you are. Vulnerability is an opportunity. For example, as an immigrant and second language learner, I've always been shameful and fearful that my employers would only hire me if I was a native speaker. However, when I share this information with my manager, with my peers, with my colleagues, they found that I was going to bring a different perspective to the workplace. And so that liability turned into an opportunity. Ultimately, by sharing your backstory, this brief life to your personal brand, the motivation, the passion behind your career interests. Create. Create value for your audience. Create value for your network. In other words, consume and curate good content, relevant content. Have a reason to speak. In early 2015, I decided to take on LinkedIn to write one post a month as a New Year resolution. And by the end of the year, I posted over 30 times. And throughout that time, I was able to interact with many interesting people throughout the world. Some students reached out to me from Denmark, saying that my writing has helped inspire them to be a marketer, whereas some writing has helped create conversation at a national level. Over a course of a year, I realized that I have touched over a million people through my writing. And so write with the intention to impact. Write with the intention to create value. For only when you create value for other will other people see the value in you. And being able to create value is to position yourself as a top of mind. Think about publishing long-form thought leadership pieces on LinkedIn or Medium or your personal blog. Have a reason to drive dialogue. Position yourself as top of mind in your industry. Don't just farm relationships, grow them. Many people see personal branding as a number game. They think that the more people you know, the better it will be. I believe that it's more about depth rather than width. It's not about how many people you know. It's more about how many people you know and how well you know them as well. Don't be transactional when it comes to outreach. Think about reaching out for people for advice and not for favors. Personal branding is ultimately at its core about building your network and your relationship. Online, engage with your mentors. Engage with the people that follow you. Think about ways you can add value to them, bringing back to the second principle. Think about where you can check in with your mentors via email, sharing great quality content, a blog post that you read. And ultimately, offline, attend conferences, dinners, or better yet, host them. I personally host many dinners myself, thinking about the way I can connect with people inside and outside of my industry. So don't just think about growing your relationship with people within your industry. Think about ways you can engage with people outside of your industry. The way I think about relationship building is through a 50-30-20 approach. 50% of your time should be spent with people who you aspire to be, leaders in your industry. 30% should be spent with time with people who are in your proximity peers, people that are your colleagues, your peers. They're going through their career with you. And 20% of the time should be spent paying it forward to people that look up to you. They're your mentees. And throughout your career, as I hope you mature your career, that this concept can flip over, where 50% of your time can be spent paying it forward. So to recap, there are no such thing as a manual to building a personal guide. A personal branding is mainly the idea, the representation of the best of you, your flaws, your triumph, your challenges, but also your successes as well. Today I've shared with you the why, the what, and the how to personal branding. I took on the stage of TEDx to embrace my identity, a part of me that I've rarely shared with many people. Ultimately, I was able to share my value through my personal branding experience, my background with you, and I hope that's added value to your life as well. And beyond this talk, I'm looking forward to growing and cultivating our relationship in person and online as well, through the various social media channels, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook, and follow me on Twitter as well. And that's my personal branding. I'm just kidding. Yes, and so at the end of the day, I want to share with you some of these principles so you can do this, and it doesn't have to take 10 people to manage your personal brand. You can do it yourself as well. So to conclude, this is a transformation of the son of two hot bun street vendors from Vietnam, from an immigrant from a disadvantaged background to a storyteller and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley today. And this is what I call the designing of a purposeful personal branding from zero to infinity. Thank you.