Paul Bae went from a locally famous musician at 18 with no direction to a TED speaker and Huffington Post strategist by reframing himself as a personal brand. He argues everyone has creative gifts, values, and resources worth packaging uniquely to deliver value, whether working inside a company or building their own venture.
Have you ever thought to yourself, I'm a brand? I mean, normally when the word brand comes up, we think about the Googles and the Apples and the Nikes, and we think about these corporations, but the irony is that these brands are ran by people. And then when we think about personal brands, we think about the Oprahs and the Steven Spielbergs and the Will Smiths and the Kevin Harts, and we say, I can't be that. I could never do that. My friend, you are a personal brand. When I was 18 years old, I was locally famous. But all I wanted to be was a musician. I was selling out concerts. My biggest concert was 1,209 people and I was a brand in my hometown, but I had no purpose. I had no worth. I had no value. I didn't see what I'm doing today. And what I'm doing today is speaking life and light and empowerment into you so that you take your creative gifts, your business values, your philosophies, your resources, and you wrap it all up and you figure out how to deliver that to the world in a creative, in a unique way, being all you, and that is your personal brand. Whether you're an intrapreneur and you work for a company, or whether you're an entrepreneur and you are building a company, you have to think bigger as a brand. I did not know that I would be giving a TED Talk, my friend. I did not know that I would be published in the Huffington Post as the strategist to watch, my friend. So when I started thinking bigger, like calling Paul Bae is a media mogul and the different multiples of revenue that can be created and the stems of the tree that can be created from my own personal brand, when that hit home for me, woo, anything's possible. You, my friend, are a personal brand. It's your boy, Paul Bae. Peace.
