Marketing Happy Hour - Your 3-Step Personal Branding Framework (+ How to Own Your Career) | Sheena Hakimian of Condé Nast

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Want to take control of your career? It starts with owning your personal brand, building confidence, and communicating your value—and today’s guest is here to show you how.Sheena Hakimian, marketing leader at Condé Nast and certified life coach, joins the show to break down her three-part framework for personal branding, how to clearly communicate your goals to leadership, and why becoming a problem solver is the key to career growth.Whether you’re looking to get promoted, switch industries, or simply be more intentional in your professional journey, this episode is packed with actionable advice to help you get there.Key Takeaways:// The three-part framework for building a strong personal brand// How to clearly communicate your goals to your boss or leadership team// How to boost your confidence and become your own best advocateConnect with Sheena: LinkedInLearn more about Sheena’s coaching.: WebsiteListen to Sheena’s previous MHH episode: Do These Things to Beat Imposter SyndromePopular Pays' SafeCollab Tool - Less manual digging, fewer headaches, and way more peace of mind. Check it out at PopularPays.com!____Say hi! DM me on Instagram and let us know what content you want to hear on the show - I can't wait to hear from you! Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. ⁠Join our FREE Open Jobs group on LinkedIn:⁠Join now⁠Get the latest from MHH, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our email list!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow MHH on Social: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

If you want to build confidence, level up, a great tangible way is through a strong personal brand. And a personal brand is your reputation. What they say about you when you're not in the room, it's not just you, it's how others perceive you. It can totally shape how you are perceived. Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour. I'm Cassie, consultant, podcaster, and your host.

Every Thursday, you'll hear episodes packed with insights from brand leaders on an array of topics from crafting effective marketing strategies and hitting career goals to building leadership skills and launching your own business. Inspired by those unfiltered happy hour combos with peers, this show is all about practical, empowering chats to support your professional journey. So grab your favorite drink and let's get to the episode. Oh my goodness. I'm so excited to have Sheena back with us today. Sheena has been on the show before. Amazing, amazing leader at Condé Nast, life coach. We'll get into that here in a minute, but today we're going to talk all things, owning your career, advocating for yourself, building confidence, et cetera, what it means,

how to cultivate those. But Sheena, welcome back to the show. Hi. I am so excited to be here. I love talking to you, Cassie. On the show, off the show, and after we recorded the last podcast episode, I got so many great messages from your fans. And I was so happy to see that. And I am just beyond excited to be to be talking to you again today. My goodness. Likewise, I was talking to a friend earlier today and she's like, what do you have on your schedule for the day? And I said, well, one thing I'm recording with Sheena again. Do you remember her episode? And she's like, what do you have on your schedule for the day? And I said, well, one thing I'm recording with Sheena again, do you remember her episode? And she's like, oh my gosh, yes. I cannot wait to hear this next one. So right back at you. Lots of people excited about this one.

Well, Sheena in a true marketing happy hour fashion, of course, I have to know what's been in your glass lately. What do you been sipping on? So we were talking about this a little earlier. It's very cold in New York. We're recording this in February, early February. What's in my drink is minced ginger from Whole Foods. So really, really delicious. But I put that in my tea with honey. I love the yogurt and the honey lavender, stress relief.

Ooh, gotta have that. That's always important. I have like three a day. I'm obsessed. And it's also in one of my favorite cups that an old coworker slash really good friend, Maria, gave to me on my birthday. That's just like a bunch of really positive words. And I really

think when you're surrounded by things that bring you joy, that spark joy, it really does make a difference. So I tell her all the time, but I absolutely love drinking in this cup. And it means so much to me. So yeah, I think it's part of the experience. Oh, I love that. No, absolutely. And it is, it is so important. Like that's a whole thing with desk setup and just what you have around you and environment is, is so key. Even your mug that you drink. I know.

So I cannot agree more. Sheena. So if someone is hearing from you for the first time, this is their first episode listening to you, which I'm going to link your previous episode in the show notes below. It's so good. So please go back and listen. If you have not already, you and I met in person back in May, uh, no June, June or July. Yeah. At an event that, uh, we were hosting alongside creative people, which is amazing. And I was so grateful to meet you and hear your story. But you kind of live this awesome, incredible like duo of a career. So tell us just quickly, like quick recap. What are you doing today? I mentioned Condé Nast. So share a little bit,

if you don't mind, about what you're up to. So I am the Senior Director of Digital Consumer Marketing at Condé Nast. So actually, when we recorded the last episode, I was a director. So just got promoted in the last few months. Congrats. Thank you. So I've been there for 12 years. So it's been quite a while. I truly love what I do, which is such a blessing. I lead the team of leaders who drive subscriptions to magazines like New Yorker, Vanity Fair, if anyone's familiar with that,

different experiences for different types of audiences. So a lot of fun, fun things, working very closely with editorial teams and analytics. Like, for example, we have big moments like the Oscars, the Met Gala, viral articles that we collaborate with, with our brands. And again, love, love what I do in the marketing space and have a great team. But a couple of years ago, I was starting to feel a little bit stuck. And long story short, I wanted more purpose in my life. And I went a little bit into my story in the last episode, but I really wanted a tangible way to be able to help people get unstuck and build confidence. So I decided to get my life coaching certification from the J. Shetty School. school. And it was eight months of hard work, a lot of one-on-one coaching, learning through frameworks and things that honestly I was able to use on myself and my team and with, you know, clients or people I meet who ask. And it's been such a great, I don't even want to say dual life because it's the coaching helps so much at work too, because I'm able to do, I am a leader, but I'm also able to use my frameworks on myself.

And then since we last met Cassie, we briefly talked about this, but I'm actually also building a personal brand in public on LinkedIn. So super publicly. And I have been using my coaching mainly through content creation at the moment. And I have some fun, exciting, super exciting things coming up, like a course that I'm eventually going to create in the next couple of months. But right now, I share a lot of content daily on LinkedIn and actually built an audience of about 3,000 people in September to 25,000

now in February. So it's like super public and really, really exciting. And, you know, I think the two really come together quite nicely, but it is definitely something that gives me a lot of purpose. So I'm really excited to be talking, kind of marrying the two even more together today with you. And I hope to give the audience a lot of tips. Yeah. Yeah. And there's, I gotta say, there's a reason why your audience on LinkedIn has grown so rapidly. The content is so good. It's so actionable. It's very visual as well. And so highly recommend if you do not follow Sheena to please follow her. Um, it's, it's amazing, but so one, one kind of key topic, um, there's a few micro topics in here we'll discuss today, but, uh, specifically with owning your career, I'm curious just overall first, as we dive into this this conversation what does that specifically mean to you yeah yeah

I thought a lot about this and I actually this is a harsh truth that I didn't want to accept for many many years and didn't accept for many years so the harsh truth is that you own your own career no one else controls your career it's completely up you. Meaning you're the one who sets the goals. You're the one who presents yourself in a certain way. You're the one who advocates for yourself. Everyone doesn't necessarily know everything that you're working on at once, right? So you really need to take the wheel, create proper goals, create a strong personal brand, communicate effectively and, you know, in a way that will get you seen and, you know, network with the people who will help you get to the right places. So, you know, it is kind of like a harsh truth, especially I'm in a big corporate environment.

And something that I struggled with earlier in my career was that I always wanted the promotion, give it to me. Right. And I wasn't understanding why it wasn't being given to me. But then I realized I'm the one who needs to advocate for myself. You know, ask the leaders what they want to see and then work towards that. Create a brand that will make me memorable. Right. So it could be super harsh to hear. And I do think it's it is quite harsh to hear. But once you accept that, it's so empowering. It should be really, really empowering. And that's what I that's really what I mean by own your career. I'm curious your thoughts on that, too.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. No, it's such a good way to put it. And that's why I wanted to ask just because when we were talking about topics offline and you presented that, I was just curious kind of how you would define that because I didn't specifically know. I knew it was kind of like one level of identifying what are you looking to do and working to get there. But exactly the fact that you mentioned, you have to advocate for yourself along the way. I feel like a lot of professionals and I'm guilty of this as well of just thinking early in my career, like I'm showing up, I'm doing the work and I'm doing a good job. Why am I not getting these other opportunities? And it's there's our leaders especially are so bombarded with so many different things going on. And I'm a firm believer that until you tell a leader, a manager, whatever, hey, this is what I'm looking to do. How can I get there? They're maybe not thinking about that, to be honest.

My one piece of advice for anyone who wants to get promoted, tell your manager. Yes. Tell your manager, but then also come in with, I want to work with you to get promoted, tell your manager. Yes. Tell your manager, but then also come in with, I want to work with you to get there. How can we get there? Right. So it's kind of like, yes, this is my goal and desire. I would also couple that with, I'm looking and talk about growth, really, right? Like this is how I want to grow, build skills, create impact. Then you can go into how can we work together to get there, right? Like, I saw that this is a big priority. I want to work on this, you know, project, how can you help me

get there? Right? So it's like, yeah, really, leaders won't know unless you tell them. Yes. Spoiler alert, like you have to tell them. And it's so it's, it's really, it's so common. I really didn't know that until you have to just tell them. Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. And so I want to talk about confidence in a minute here. But first, I want to ask you, you mentioned, just building your personal brand. And I feel like typically, we hear that it's like such a buzzword nowadays. And we just think, oh, you need to go on LinkedIn and start posting about what you're doing. And, you know, you need to have this like cohesive brand personality and show up and whatever. But I love what you said just before we started recording

about how yes, digital online presence obviously is important. However, it starts offline as well, or it continues through offline. So can you share a little bit about what you mean by that and'm connected with and get to know their pain points. And, you know, a lot of people do talk about personal branding. And I noticed that a lot of thought leaders in the space, they give great advice about an online brand, right? Especially for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs. But I didn't see that much information on building a strong personal brand in person by in person. I also mean on zoom, right? So interact when you're interacting with people. I didn't see a lot of information on that, right? It kind of just went straight. It went straight to that state where you're ready to post a lot on Instagram or LinkedIn. And it kind of spoke a lot towards, you know, influencers, which is fine. And it's all very true. I think it's really important to get out there digitally. But then I really thought about it. If you want to show up digitally, you also

need the self to build self-awareness and build up and monitor how you are being perceived by others in person as well. And it just makes for a strong personal brand, right? Like you can also not do that, right? Like you can totally be disconnected, but then you'll be disconnected and you might get a little bit stuck. So, you know, I thought a lot about this and honestly, this is the, this is the topic that I want to build a course on. So I'm like really, really studying it, I thought a lot about this. And honestly, this is the topic that I want to build a course on. So I'm like really, really studying it, talking to a lot of people. But I truly believe that if you want to build confidence, level up a great tangible way, because we hardly ever figure out like what is the tangible way to build confidence?

What is a tangible way to get to the next level is through a strong personal brand. I truly believe that. And again, a personal brand is how is your reputation, right? It's what people think about when they think about you, like how people think about you, what they say about you when you're not in the room, right? It really is. It's not just you. It's how others perceive you, like how people think about you, what they say about you when you're not in the room, right? So it really is, it's not just you, it's how others perceive you, right? But you can totally shape how you are perceived. You can shape your brand, right? There are so many tools, ways you could do that. If someone wants to get started in shaping their personal brand,

how do they begin to do that? So how I really look at it, it's in, you know, really in a Venn diagram. So with three circles, right? So one, two, three, and the strong personal brand is in the middle. The first circle is how you perceive yourself. So I'll walk through four questions that you can ask yourself to really build that self-awareness. And again, these are questions that only you can answer. No one else can answer it for you. So that's one circle. So how do you perceive yourself? That's very important, right? What's your story? And so on and so forth. I'll go through those questions in a minute. The second circle is how do others perceive you, right? So again, a big part of personal brand is not just you, right? It's,

it's really your reputation, how you're perceived. But these questions I know can help you figure that out initially. And then the third circle is your vision, right? Where do you want to go? And also part of that vision is not only your goal, but also your audience. So who are you really trying to target? I'll go through all three. So if everyone could just keep that in mind, the three circles with a strong personal brand in the middle, I cannot stress self-awareness enough. Cassie, I think we talked about this even in person at the event. It's all about self-awareness. You have to get honest with yourself, right? So in that first circle, how you perceive yourself, these are four really, really important questions to ask yourself, right? So the first one is,

what are your strengths? So these are skills, hard and soft, that you are very proud of, that you have, and just take the time to write them out. How often do you think about your strengths? Probably not that often, right? There's so many people that I talk to that are like, huh, I don't, I'm not so sure. Please, if you take anything away from this, take the time to pick out five strengths that you are really proud of. I'll use myself as an example this whole time, right? Some of my strengths are leadership. So that's more of a hard and soft skill. Communication, which is more of a soft skill. Data visualization, you know, super helpful at work, right? I really, you know, love public speaking and storytelling as well, right? Am I

necessarily the best in the world yet? No, but it's something that I'm strong in, that I'm working towards even more. And once I wrote them down, thought about them, I'm able to live them more. But it is really important. The first step, become aware of your strengths. Then the second question is, what are you passionate about? To have a strong personal brand, you really need to play to what lights you up. You need to talk about that, right? Like, for example, I'm really passionate about traveling. It's something that means so much to me. I will talk about it. I will talk about it at work.

It's something that I really care about. I'm kind of known as the person who loves to travel now because I talk about it. So what are you passionate about? What is unique to you that brings a lot of joy to your life? So that's number two. The third question is, what are your core values, right? What do you stand for? So a core value is an intrinsic motivator, something that is so true to you.

So I think in our last episode, we actually went through these first three in major depth. So if anyone wants to listen to that episode to hear about that more. But for the third question of what are your values, what do you stand for? So for example, my values are courage, gratitude, and faith. So those are so important to me as I go in my everyday life. Then the fourth one is what is your story? This is kind of plays into what makes you unique. We all have a different story. And don't think you don't have a story. You have a story, right? Like think about your upbringing. Did you move? You can talk about your college life or your past experience. A story that I talk about all the time that I actually said to you guys earlier in the episode is how I used to feel really stuck and I felt like

I had no purpose. So that's a big thing driving my personal brand and how I connect with people. It's because I am so passionate about getting people to be unstuck. I don't even know if that's a word, but go from stuck to confident. And it's so important to me. And that's a big part of my story and what makes me unique. So these are questions that you can answer for yourself. No one else can answer these questions for yourself, right? So what are your strengths? What are you passionate about? What are your values? What is your story? So that's the first circle. Then the second circle is how do others perceive you? And again, you're answering these questions. You can always get

feedback from others on these three, but maybe in the first exercise, you can think back on interactions that you've had with people or feedback sessions with your manager. But I do suggest taking a stab at this, these three on your own. So the first one is what are you known for? Right? So this could be something that again, pops up in your feedback sessions, or just in conversations. So for example, someone once told me, Sheena, you always say hi to the new people who come and invite them to happy hour or take them to coffee. And multiple people have said that to me. And I'm like, you know what? I love that. I'm down for that to be part of my personal brand. So let me double down on that. So again, what are you known for? Something

that you can think about. The second question in this circle is what do people compliment you on? And it doesn't necessarily only need to be about work. It could be, right? Like maybe people compliment you on the way you present. I get complimented on how I'm kind to people, but really think about what people compliment you on. And the third one is what what do people come to you for help with? Right. So this might take a little while to think through. You know, at work, is there a certain area of the business that you're an expert on that people want to know more on?

And does that area really excite you? So think about that. You know, for me, people have always asked me about, you know, confidence and leveling up. So it goes quite nicely with my personal brands and a reason why I want to double down on that. So again, we just went through how do you perceive yourself? How do others perceive you? And then the third section is what is your vision for this brand? Where do you want to go? Do you want to get a promotion? Do you want to get a new job and you need, you want to network with people and be presented that way? Do you, are you an entrepreneur who wants to gain more clients? Are you like me who is mainly on LinkedIn and also in person, but really trying to build a community of people who want to, to grow and level up and be seen like what is your what is your goal so so again as I said my goal is quite frankly to help people digitally and in person go from stuck to confident so that's that is my goal and with that a big part of my goal is building a

personal brand a digital personal brand on LinkedIn as well so super clear for me and then what is your audience your audience can be your manager if me. And then what is your audience? Your audience can be your manager. If you want to get a promotion, your audience is your manager. If you want to get a new job, your audience is people at networking events, but quite frankly, you know, recruiters on LinkedIn. If you are, you know, an entrepreneur, your audience is your ideal client. So get super clear on that, right? Once you have a clear vision, which I actually used to put in as the second step, I actually think you might as well do that first, like figure out where you want to go and then build that self-awareness is so helpful to

have. So again, now it's like the three circles of how you perceive yourself, how others perceive you and how, and your, your vision. And if you have the three really nicely aligned, you'll have a really strong personal brand. All right. Imagine this. You're out having drinks with your coworkers and they're venting because vetting influencers feels like a full-time job. Been there. If you have, you've got to hear about popular pays. Their platform is like having a marketing assistant that's on 24-7. SafeCollab, one of their smart tools, takes what used to take hours, like scrolling through creators' posts, checking for red flags, and does it in minutes. I'm talking AI-powered

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Head to popularpays.com and book your demo Trust me. This will free up your time and protect your brand's vibe. Cheers to that So good. I just wrote all of those sections down and I encourage you if you're listening It's good to kind of like download and digest that information But scroll back a couple minutes and just work through everything as we're chatting I think having it down on paper and and we'll talk in a second, just about how do we take those elements and then actually take action on them.

But yeah, take some time to go through this stuff or bookmark this episode and do it another time. Because I think even just having these elements in general written down is so important. Knowing what your strengths are and who you are as a human being, what do you believe in? And again, as you mentioned,

we talked a lot about that in the last episode, but yeah, so powerful just to have pen to paper and know kind of where you're, you're going in general. It's huge. Yes. Write it down, write it down. I was just showing Cassie my notebook, which I talked about in the last episode. I'm obsessed. Yeah. Gina, now we have it written down let's say we've we've written all these sections out we kind of have our answers to that how do we then take action on this that thank you for bringing this up because it's great to write it down and think about it but nothing will happen if you don't take action right you have to take action on this and you know I think a really important step before you even take the action is looking at

your positive and negative traits. So still self-awareness, but, you know, positive traits could be caring, kind, timely, and a negative trait might be something like late, unfriendly, stubborn, you know, just have that in mind too. But once you have that sense of who you are currently as a person, you can start to really shape your personal brand by taking action. So what does that mean? We just wrote down your strengths. How are you going to double down on that? How can you live that strength or tell your manager you want to do a project

that will make these strengths shine? For example, something that I was really excited about was data visualization. And before I got promoted, I was kind of on my campaign trail, right, of wanting to build that brand at work and wanting to take on stretch projects. And I knew that I was strong in data visualization. So I made it a to to work through that and really use that skill in these stretch projects to demonstrate that I'm using the strength and talk about it. My strength is data visualization. I want to work on this more, like communicate that

out. For example, I think one of the most important skills that you can have for as a high performer, and I say this all the time, is problem solver. If you want to be anything, be a problem solver. People want to work with problem solvers. If that's a strength of yours, talk about it. Do the action of problem solving and then display that out so people can see that you're doing that. Pick three buzzwords for your brand for, let's say, the next six months and then really use those words. I'm not going to lie. My buzzword in the six months is personal brand. Right. I'm using it. I'm using it. I'm showing people that I'm passionate about it. I'm showing people that I have overcome, you know, challenges of building a strong personal brand.

And I'm not keeping it to myself. I'm talking about it. Another buzzword for me is communication. I literally sat my team down and I said, a huge thing I'm focusing on this year is communication. I really, really want to eliminate back and forth. I want to be clear. I want to be kind. I want to be able to actively listen and I'm bringing you with me, right? So now my team knows like communication is huge. I think that's a really, I wonder what your thoughts are, Cassie, on like the three buzzwords and using that to guide your actions, both, you know, offline and then online. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I have a few. One of the things I think a lot about is clarity and ensuring that everything that I am communicating, doing has a pure intention or a clear intention. I work for myself. And so taking on projects, for example, like, is this something I should be doing? Is this helping me get to my

future end goals? So that's been a big word for me. Um, just especially at the start of the year and just going into the rest of it. Um, and then I would say besides that, yeah, communication is always a big one for me. Um, I think whether it's for personal reasons or professional, just over communicating, being very clear, telling, answering questions before they come up, like that kind of thing. Yeah. I think it's effective as a marketer to like thinking about that as we're creating content for, for a brand. Yeah. But also like for ourselves, you know, especially as we grow in our career, you think of all the, the most successful leaders in the world out there, they're really good communicators. And so I think that's a huge

one. So I would definitely, I would definitely cherry pick that one from your list too. I think that's really important. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I know you had a great episode on top skills to grow. First of all, I love Cassie's solo episodes. I'm so proud. Thank you. I'm trying to do more of it. That's another, you know, that could be another word is just like growth, you know, doing things that, that are a little bit scary and out of the ordinary, but no, thank you. But again, if we're really going to talk about side note, my, you know, my hot tip is two skills to really focus on. And I think our important are communication and problem solving. That's my topic. I love that. Yeah. Problem solving is huge. I tell people all the time and I have conversations

with especially startup leaders, for example, or people in smaller businesses, like you have to be a problem solver. They need people to help kind of shift and adapt things. I tell young professionals, I'm like, you should, if there's an issue, you should be trying to fix that issue in every which way before going to your leader or someone else from a different department and saying, I need help. Can you help me fix this? It should be, I need help, but I've already tried these nine different solutions. And so just taking that, that extra step to, to try to Yeah. It's okay if you don't have the answer, right. But to your point, I, this is the solution that I want, want to rectify. So being super clear, these are the things I looked into. And if, if you do have them, like, here are the three things that I suggest we do next.

The top one is number one. Yeah. Right. Like getting super clear if you have that information. Yeah. And honestly, that works towards, you know, getting approval on certain test plans. My team is doing our Q2 test roadmap right now. It's great to ask leadership what they think, but come with your suggestion based on your knowledge and data and all that, and then get their thoughts on, like I solutioned for this problem. The issue is still we have three options. The solutions that are all here, we need to pick one. This is what I suggest. What do you think? Right? Yeah. I love that. And I love too, you think right yeah I love that and I love to you mentioned just sharing with your team that hey this is an area I'm looking to grow and develop and I think as a

leader that transparency is so important for building trust and just relatability you know it's like this is something that I'm looking to grow in. And I think that opens the door for your team to then feel like, oh, I can also come to Sheena and let her know and even ask for her opinion. So I'm curious, like on this whole personal brand journey that you're on, and even you establish these different components of your Venn diagram, for example, how important do you feel accountability is for this journey? Like, are you personally, as you're working towards your goals, are there people you're bringing along in that, updating them? What's kind of your journey with that? I'm just curious. Accountability is very important. So how I really view accountability is letting people know that you're on this path. I want to grow.

I'm building a personal brand. So this is more in the sense of at work, if you're trying to level up, but you can also, as an entrepreneur, let the people around you who get to work with you know that this is something that you're actively pursuing. A huge thing is feedback, right? You have to solicit it. First of all, it's so important to solicit feedback and I I'm not gonna lie, it's it's uncomfortable sometimes. Right. You might not want to have that feedback, but it's also very helpful to help you shape your brand in a way that's going to just get it stronger and stronger. ask yourself when you're soliciting feedback is what do I do well and what makes me unique, right? So those are two really good questions. But as you're also building your personal brand, I think it's really helpful to check in with the people who know you best, right? Like, do you think I'm staying in alignment with that brand? How do you think that I could repair any, you know, type of

reputation that might not necessarily be great? So, so this is really where, you know, I do think it's really important to work on that maybe tainted or negative aspects of your reputation. And you might sometimes be hard to see that. But once you do know that, then you can take the steps to actively rectify and get out on the other side of it. So if like someone always complains, right? Totally fine to complain. But if someone overly complains, that's part of your brand, right? If you're okay with that, fine. If you're not okay with that, how can you actually take the steps to, you know, be the person who doesn't complain? And that might be

like, hey, best friend at work, can you please let me know when I'm complaining? It's something I'm working on, right? I do think it's really important to be as open and vulnerable during this process of actively shaping a strong personal brand. And also a strong brand is about authenticity at the end of the day, right? Like it really is what I wish I said at the very beginning is like, do you want to shape your brands? Right? Like, do you is that something you want? The answer might be like, No, I, I don't want to do that. I'm not. It's too much for me right now. Right? Do everybody has a brand, but it's up to you whether or not you want to do that. I'm not, it's too much for me right now. Right. You, everybody has a brand, but it's up to you whether or not you want to shape it and it will take work, but it's so

rewarding. It is so rewarding. Yeah, absolutely. I'm, I'm curious too, Sheena, like just thinking about my own personal journey, for example, and building my own personal brand as well. I feel like the biggest things that have kind of thrown it off course, for example, is unexpected challenges or things that come up around our passions, for example, things that like make us question, like, am I on the right track or whatever? So do you have any encouragement or just insights and, you know, things will happen, right? We'll kind of get blown off course from time to time, but just getting back on track and not letting that pull you away from this goal of owning your career and developing your personal brand. Unfortunately,

things happen, right? Things will get you off of your course. A big thing that that's been happening is layoffs. People are impacted by layoffs. It's really tough. First of all, please be kind to yourself and take a moment to relax a little bit. Like at first, if something big happens, if you didn't get a certain promotion in the time span that you want, you know, something that's happened to me, you know, very, very, so many times, so many times. It is so hard and it just knocks you off course, but it happens. You're not the only one. But I do honestly think when the biggest challenges arise, you'll come out the other side way

stronger. And what I mean by that is like when you're seemingly at your lowest point, that's when you're like, F it, I'm taking action. I'm getting my, oh my gosh, getting my shit together right now, figuring it out. I said I wouldn't curse, but here I am. Sorry, mom. Sorry, mom. I honestly think that those moments are when the moments that kind of break you open and you could really take intentional action to figure out your next step.

Because there's always a next step. There's never not a next step. Right. There should always be some other vision, even if you're not like, I want to get a million dollars by next month. Like, it doesn't need to be so grand and so intense. But in the example of a layoff, like your, your next step could be like, I just want to redo my, my resume and put myself out there. If you didn't get the promotion that you wanted in this time span that you wanted, I really want to put together a growth plan, which I think is totally on me or you as a person, right? Like you own your

career. I want to put together a growth plan. I'm going to figure out exactly what types of projects I want to go after. And I'm going to get my boss and my leaders on board and get them to know that I want to do this. I think in a weird way, sometimes challenges are blessings in disguise. I know it's so hard to think about it that way. Cause it's like, you're, you're, you're done. I'm at the bottom and I just want to get back up in the most like bad-ass and authentic way. Does that resonate with you? Yeah, absolutely. No, I, I am so glad you said that too, because I, I strongly agree. I think in all of the, the things I'm thinking of that have challenged my, my brand and my direction and everything. It's like, I look back and I, and I'm like, wow, that really sucks when I was in it. But now I'm like, oh,

I'm actually glad that happened because it got me kind of to a refined version of what I was looking to do. And I'm even curious too, like on that topic of refinement, like this plan that we put together and this kind of idea of what we're looking to do, this vision, just this idea of allowing it to also maybe evolve. Like, I'm curious your thoughts on that, just because I look back to the vision I had for my life and my career a few years ago. It's very different to what it is now. So I'm curious on that too. Like, what do you think just in terms of being open to that? And I think again, challenges will help you sometimes pivot, you know, to a different version, for example. Your brand should always be evolving. Actually, that's the last step, you know, being mindful of when those moments are happening. And it happens quite often. Honestly, that's why I said to think about in terms of six months. Honestly, I would recommend three months, but it could be too soon. to really look at these questions, look where you want to go and see how you want to pivot

because you will pivot. There is no way that you're staying the same and whether you like it or not, you will not be staying the same. And this also goes for content creators. I used to talk a lot about limiting beliefs and I still will talk about it here and there, but I've really evolved based on the conversations from, you know, my ideal customer avatar and conversations that I have had at networking events. People want more tangible ways to be seen and be heard. So I pivoted to talk about personal branding. Even when I was on the show in September, I didn't have this clarity that I wanted to really talk about personal branding. That's something that has evolved.

You will always be evolving. I highly suggest getting used to that and really reflecting on your brand and those three buckets of how do you perceive yourself? How do others perceive you and what your vision is? Honestly, every six months. Okay. So Sheena, we have all of these steps these tools that that we need to to walk through in order to develop what this personal brand looks like for us we have as you mentioned just the steps for actually getting started and taking action but what do you feel

just with these tools we have them in hand what do you feel the why behind this practice anyways like why should we care so deeply about our personal brand and developing this and owning our career ultimately? Like, why is this such an effective practice, you think? This is such a tangible way to not only build self-confidence, but also self-worth. When you really take that opportunity and that time, because it will take time, right? It will take not too much time. It will take some time to really become, build that awareness of how you perceive yourself, how others perceive you and where you want to go. You will have such

a great and in-depth actionable blueprint to be able to build that confidence, build that self-worth, be seen and level up. If you want to level up, take these steps, take these steps. And honestly, the first question to ask yourself, and this is a little bit harsh, is do you want it? Do you want to level up? Do you want to build confidence? Do you want to build self-worth? These are things that a lot of people want, but they don't really know how to get there. I'm not gonna lie. I was one of them. I had no idea. This is how you get there. This is a tangible way to get there. So I really hope that, you know, if you want to take the time now to rewind and really answer those questions and figure out your vision, but if you, if you do it, if you take the time, it might take 20 minutes,

30 minutes to really think about it. But once you have that, you are set up for success, right? As long as you take that action and have intention to build confidence, level up and be seen, you will get there. Yeah. Yeah. So good. I mean, I, I would encourage you, you know, if you're still on the fence to this, to really think deeply about what that could mean for your career, your life in general. Um, because it's, it's so, I don't know, it's so refreshing to build just kind of foundation for where you're headed and, and be able to level decisions against that. Um, everything, I mean, just this practice and the practices you talked about on the last episode, diving into your values, your vision,

everything. It's like so integral, I think as human beings, especially, you know, as professionals too. So highly encourage you if you're on the fence, try it, do it. It's such a powerful, powerful practice. So, and the last thing I'm going to say is you have a brand already, right? So it's, it's taking, taking the reins and shaping it on your own, right? Shaping that, using this strategically to build that confidence and level up. Yeah, absolutely. Sheena, this has been amazing as always. We're going to have you back. You're, you're kind of our correspondent for all things. just mental wellness, confidence, like everything. And I, I can't wait to see just what you continue to build for yourself. You mentioned a potential

course down the road for everything you're doing, but, um, on that, how do we just stay in touch with you and stay connected and see your amazing content you're creating too online again? I would love to connect with you all. I really enjoyed getting to know people who connect with me on LinkedIn and, you know, maybe shoot me a note that says that you were listening to the episode. And then I'll share with Cassie as well. I really, really want to talk to you, get to know your pain points. And, you know, as I said, I'm building this course and I'm so curious to hear what people's

thoughts are on this episode. So we'd love to hear that. And yeah, I mean, I post content almost every day. I want to say seven days, sometimes it's six. It is meaty, very, very meaty. As Cassie knows, but super, super actionable. And I also have a newsletter that people can subscribe to that's biweekly at the moment. I also created a quiz that people can take that honestly was so much fun to do.

It's based on the DISC personality assessment. And at the end of the quiz, it's only two minutes, but you will get your strengths, your weaknesses, your communication style, and how to best set goals based on your personality type. So again, did a lot of mapping to make sure it made sense. Got really good feedback on that. So honestly, if you need any help figuring out your strengths, communication style, so on and so forth, Please take the quiz. It's on my website as well that maybe we can link to in the show notes. Yes, yes. I mean,

honestly, I just want to meet you guys. So let me know if you listen to the episode and want to chat more. Amazing. Sheena, thank you so, so much again. One of the joys of having you on the show is connecting with you like a week out of recording and you sharing with me what's on your mind lately. And so I can't wait to gear up for another episode in a few months and just see what you're thinking about recently and just kind of the developments of everything. But thank you for sharing this with us today. I mean, again, I think it's so actionable. It's something we can start doing today right now. And so just really grateful that you passed

this along to us. And I'm so grateful to be here. And I love the show. And I'm so proud of you, Cassie, for all the things that you do. And I just, you know, I'm so honored to be here. So thank you. Oh, my gosh, right Oh my gosh. Right back at you. Right back at you. Thank you so much, Sheena. Thank you, Jazzy. And we'll see you again very soon. Yes, we will.

Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, I would love your feedback. And if you're ready to take things to the next level, sign up for my weekly newsletter in the show notes. You'll get weekly career and marketing insights straight to your inbox. And if you have an idea for a future marketing happy hour episode, shoot me an email. Hello at marketinghappyhr.com. Thank you again, and I'll see you next Thursday.