Please. Let’s stop the B.S. about personal brands

Adam Grant is a spectacularly successful man who escaped the boundaries of traditional academic life to become a global celebrity. An author. A highly-paid speaker. A sought-after podcast guest and mainstream media superstar.

As he enjoys the success fueled by his own personal brand, he continues to lambast the idea of a personal brand. In his latest podcast episode, “The case against personal branding,” he concludes that a personal brand is a “performance” that is inauthentic and unsustainable. It is by definition separate from a person’s values and talents. It is based on “self-promotion and pervasive boasting.”

He uses cherry-picked anecdotes and refers to silly online influencers to support the idea that working on a personal brand is self-absorbed and destined to fail.

But as I slogged through this podcast (which featured 10 commercials in 25 minutes), he ironically SUPPORTS the notion of a personal brand, at least the way I have taught it for more than 10 years.

Powerful personal brands

This is what I teach: A personal brand is not about you. It is about uniquely serving others. It means having the reputation, authority, and presence to get your job done. It is fueled by consistent, helpful, generous content and original ideas. It…