New Year, New You… REALLY?!? Personal Brand Training (ep.204)

New year, new you. What does that actually mean?

Dr. Andrea Wojnicki makes it clear: it’s not about reinventing yourself or becoming someone you’re not. It’s about rediscovering your strengths, elevating your best self, and defining a professional identity that helps you achieve your career goals in 2026 and beyond.

In this episode, Andrea shares a powerful personal brand training session that walks you through three critical questions designed to reveal what your authentic professional brand should be. You’ll explore what you’re most proud of from 2025, your biggest career accomplishment from the last decade, and what you truly want to accomplish moving forward.

Andrea also shares three definitions of personal branding that will inspire and guide you, plus her proven Present-Past-Future self-introduction framework that helps you present yourself with confidence and impact in any professional setting.

The episode also includes a live Q&A where Andrea tackles tough questions about ageism in the workplace, how to introduce yourself in sales calls, navigating social media versus in-person communication, and more.

If you’re ready to present your true best self and not the version your boss thinks you should be, this episode is for you.

CONNECT WITH ANDREA

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/
✉️ Andrea’s Email Newsletter: https://www.talkabouttalk.com/newsletter/
🟣 Talk About Talk on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-about-talk-communication-skills-training/id1447267503
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📺 Talk About Talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@talkabouttalkyoutube

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Archetypes Quiz – http://talkabouttalk.com/archetypesquiz
• Ageism Episode – https://www.talkabouttalk.com/ageism-160/

TRANSCRIPTION

Andrea Wojnicki: Happy New Year, and welcome to the Talk About Talk podcast. Let’s do this. 

Let’s Talk About Talk. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please just call me Andrea. I’m an executive communication coach here at Talk About Talk, where I coach ambitious professionals to communicate with confidence and credibility so they can achieve their career goals in 2026 and beyond.

New Year, New You: Clarifying Your Professional Identity

Earlier this year, I hosted a live training event called New Year, New You personal brand training. In this session, we covered all sorts of definitions and activities and exercises, and three questions that I ask myself and that I encourage you to ask yourself to help you develop your ideal, positive personal brand in 2026 and beyond.

Are you ready? Here we go. I wanna start by saying truly how much I was thinking about this as I was getting ready, how much I think about respect that you’ve taken time out of. I know no matter what you do, you have a busy schedule, you have lots to do, and this time of year. It’s like it gets all bottled up and then boom, first week of January, you’re back at it and you’re taking an hour of your time to spend with me.

I feel honored. I feel privileged about that, but I also, I already have a lot of respect for you, whether I know you or not, for taking this time to invest in yourself. So I promise you, in the next hour, I’m gonna share with you some things where my intent is to provide you with some real impact in how to help you develop your.

Ideal personal brand, or what we’re calling in this context here are professional identity. Okay?

What This Session Will (and Won’t) Do for You

So it’s a new year and a new you and I was, I was also thinking about this a lot. New Year, new you. I do not mean reinventing you and turning you into something that you are not already. I’m talking maybe about rediscovering something about you that you haven’t been thinking about in the way that you maybe should.

I am talking about. Really elevating your best self, okay? So that you are as happy. And as successful as you can possibly be. So we’re not talking about your needs, the things that your boss is telling you that you need to work on. We’re actually thinking about the opposite. We’re thinking about your strengths and your skills and your expertise and how to share those things with the world, and actually for how you can think about those things more yourself.

I am not gonna waste your time. We’ve got a lot to get through here. I am very ambitious, I’m gonna say that in terms of what we’re gonna generally and in this hour in terms of what we’re gonna get through. So I’m not gonna waste my time. I’ve been to some of these events where people spend 15 minutes introducing themselves.

I am not gonna do that. I’m gonna say, many of you already know me on LinkedIn. If you don’t, you can check me out on LinkedIn. Um, I’m Andrea Wa there, but probably what might be more helpful is if you go to the talkabouttalk.com website, and you can learn all about me there, including the podcast.

I have a biweekly podcast on Apple, on Spotify. We have a YouTube channel now where all the episodes are there and all of the. Past live trainings that we’ve done like this one are there. So you can, there’s lots of resources. And one resource in particular that I wanna draw your attention to is my biweekly email newsletter.

So every two weeks, if you sign up, you get an email from me, and it’s an update with me. And my objective with this email is basically to provide you with free communication skills coaching. So I coach ambitious executives, I’m guessing like yourself, who have establish some level of technical expertise, and you’re looking to step it up in terms of your career and maybe in terms of your life.

And you’ve identified communication skills rightly as one of the things that can really help you get there. So in that newsletter, which I hope you’ll sign up for, you can get free coaching from me there and keep updated on everything that’s going on in the talk about talk world. Okay. What I want you to do now in the next 55 minutes, we’re gonna think of this as a, not just a training session, but a real-time coaching session where you’re gonna make some traction and make some progress in terms of not just thinking about, but actually writing down what your ideal brand is.

So if you have a piece of paper and a pen or a notebook or something like that, please get those out. And if you don’t. You can write it in your phone. Some people like to write notes in their phone. Write it on another device. You can also rewatch this video later on YouTube, and it’ll also be posted on LinkedIn.

Okay? So get your paper and pen ready. I’m gonna take you through four things. For those of you who know me. You’ll be like, what? It’s not three. I know. I told you I was really ambitious. It’s a new year. Four things. The first thing I’m gonna do is I’m gonna ask you three. Really important questions, and I want you to write your answers down, so that’s why you need a piece of paper and a pen.

Okay, so first thing is three questions. The second thing is going to be three definitions of personal branding, but that’s also gonna help you inspire and define your brand. Okay? Then I’m going to share with you a three-point self-introduction framework, and I know from the folks in the audience for a few of you, this is gonna be a refresher.

You’ve seen it before, but we’re gonna be looking at it through a new lens. Then I’m gonna share with you three reasons why this work is so important and how you can do it. And then we’re gonna get into a q and a. So in the Q & A, for those of you who know me, you know that I love an open q and a where I have no idea what you’re gonna ask me.

So I always make time for that at the end, if you have questions, you can save them for when we do the live q and a, or you can put them in the chat. So I’m gonna be looking for people who are raising their hands first, and then we’ll go into the chat for, um. 

Three Questions That Define Your Personal Brand

Okay, so let’s get into this. I don’t have slides for this part.

I will when we get into the definitions and everything, but we’re gonna start now by me asking you, and I’ve asked myself these questions, by the way, three really important questions that can inform what your personal brand should be, and it might surprise you what these questions are. It might not. But regardless, I think these are questions that we don’t ask ourselves often enough, and if you really double down on the answers for these, you’ll be doing yourself a big favor.

Okay? The first question is this. What are you most proud of that you accomplished? That’s a very general term, right? Accomplished. 25. So before you answer that, I just wanna say we in this session, in this one-hour session, are focusing on your professional identity. And many of us, I hope, have personal accomplishments that they’re really proud of.

So, for our context here, let’s keep it in the context of your career. It could be a skill that you learned. It could be a leadership skill. It could like, it could be a soft skill or a hard skill, right? And the soft skills often are related to ourselves personally as well. Like you could say, I really worked on my listening, or I really worked on not using filler words.

And this is professional and personal, but I want, if you said like, I’m really proud of, you know, having my oldest child graduate and go off to college, that’s an amazing accomplishment, and you should definitely be celebrating that. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about personal or professional accomplishments. 

So again, it could be a skill, it could be an award that you won, something that you got a big check mark on. It could be something that maybe at the beginning of 2025, you and your boss decided that it was something you needed to work on, and then at the end of the year, you were told that you made great strides.

It could be that. I want you to write that down. That’s the first question. Okay. You can, of course, continue to refine your answer to these questions, but that’s number one. The second question is, I want you to just pull the lens way back. What is the thing that you are most proud of in terms of your career in the last 10 years?

So I was gonna say five years, and then I thought, I know from myself and from some other people that I coach that things may have happened five or six or seven. It doesn’t really matter. It’s like recent history in the last 10 years. What are you really proud of in your career? Again, it could be you learned a hard skill.

It could be you launched a new product. It could be that you made a career change. It could be that you earned a degree or other credentials. By the way, you’re allowed to answer with more than one thing, but you need to have at least one thing that you’re really proud of from the last 10 years. Okay? Now, at this point, when I’m coaching folks one-on-one, I often get this comment from people they say, I find this really hard to answer, Andrea, because I spend so much of my time thinking about what I need to work on.

My weaknesses or my developmental areas. So that’s what’s really special about this work. On personal branding, we purposely focus on the positive, unique, and relevant things that you wanna reinforce. And of course, you need to work on your development areas, but we rarely double down on our strengths and our accomplishments.

So that’s where I wanted to kick this off. So you’ve got your, hopefully. Answer number to question number two, which is what is the accomplishment or the skill that you are most proud of from the last 10 years? Okay. Now you’re probably wondering what the next question is. Is it gonna be like the last 25 years?

I know some of you probably aren’t even 25 years old. No, that’s not where we’re headed. The third question is something that I know personally and from coaching hundreds and hundreds of folks can be very, very illuminating. And the question is this, what compliments have you received that mean the most to you?

So for some of you, you might be like, oh, I know what it is right away. For most of you, you probably don’t. So here’s the thing, when we. Receive compliments from people. We light up, we feel happy, we feel validated. We feel appreciated. We feel like we are successful at something, right? So we might be told that we are smart, or we might be told that we’re attractive, or we might be told that we are a kind person.

If you had to choose out of those, which one, it’s not that they’re not all fantastic, of course they are, but which one is the most meaningful? Which one lights you up? I can tell you the compliment that I’ve received a couple times in the last, I don’t know, six, eight months from my clients that really lights me up is they’ll say to me, Andrea, you have incredible listening powers when we’re in these coaching sessions.

You really listen to what I’m saying, and then you’re able to interpret what I’m saying and then articulate it in a way that I’ve never thought of it before, but it’s true to me. And that just shows that you’re really listening. And when my clients tell me that I light up because I’m, I’m like, well, I wasn’t actually listening on purpose.

I was just really trying to understand them so I could help them articulate their brand. And when they say that I’ve done that, I light up. So what compliment have you received? That lights you up. And this is really important for your brand because these compliments and your responses to them are telling you something, perhaps about where you should be focusing more.

So the fact that this lights me up really to me, reinforces that I’m doing the right thing with my career and coaching people. Because if the compliment is that I’m. Making an impact on my clients, and that’s what lights me up, then that’s exactly what I should be doing. So again, I’m sharing my first-person story here, hopefully to inspire you to think about when have you felt that way when someone made a specific compliment to you that really lit you up?

If you’re not sure about what this compliment is, the other thing that you could do is I have an archetypes quiz on my website. It’s talkabouttalk.com/. Archetypes quiz, and if you take the quiz, you’ll get an email back that tells you what your archetype is. So when I take this quiz, it tells me that my archetype is magician and someone who leads people through transformation, and I’m like, that maps perfectly to the compliment that lights me up.

It’s not a coincidence. Right? So the answer to this question, what lights you up in terms of a compliment and what your archetype is? Probably, there’s probably a very direct link there. There should be a very direct link there. So I guess my challenge to you is to answer that question first. To the best of your ability.

And then if you wanna, the quiz is free, by the way. When you take the quiz, you can see whether it valid and what I hear from people, they, you know, guess what their archetype might be. Or they, they think about what the compliments are and when they get the answer back from the quiz, the results of the quiz, if they align with what they.

Thought before it’s great. It’s very validating, and sometimes they don’t. It’s a little bit different, but then they see the archetype, and they’re like, but actually that’s really true. And it this helps you feel seen and this your archetype can help inform what is unique about your brand that you should be reinforcing.

So the archetypes all talk about a PO one of 12 positive personas that, um. Is like a universal pattern that people will understand and that you can use to reinforce your strengths. Okay, so we’ve got, hopefully, you’ve written down three answers to three questions that I asked. What are you most proud of from 2025 in terms of your career?

What are you most proud of from the last 10 years, and what compliment lights you up the most? I kind of feel like I may have opened a big can of worms here because you’re like, okay, this, this feels good. It’s all positive, Andrea, but what am I gonna do with it? I’m gonna take you through some definitions and an exercise, uh, uh, self-introduction framework, and some benefits of personal branding now, and I’m gonna be referencing back to these questions and your answers to these questions to help you sort of make sense of how you can leverage them.

So, by the way, your answers to these questions should be evolving all the time. I, I encourage you to ask yourself these questions the next time someone compliments yourself. I hope you have a new lens on that compliment, and you think compliments are nice. How does this one rank in all of the compliments that I’ve received?

Is it a just nice to hear or is it like telling me something? My response to it? Is it telling me something that I should be paying attention to in terms of my brand, how I’m being perceived by other,s and how, what I wanna be thinking about myself. Okay. I wish I could read what all of you wrote down so badly.

All right. Here we are. New year. New. Yes. By the way, I’m wearing the same blouse I was, I was like it, looking at what to wear today, and I’m like, I should just wear the same thing that I’m wearing on the, um, on the poster for this event. 

From Self-Awareness to Strategy: Being Yourself on Purpose

Okay, so the first question is, what is a personal brand? I’m gonna start by telling you what it is not.

So my guess is that, well, I hope that you are not in the camp of folks out there, and there are plenty of these folks who think that personal branding is about turning you into social media influencer or monetizing your brand, Andrea, encouraging you to quit your job. So because you’re, you’re feeling empowered to go out there and become this big, you know, influencer, celebrity that is not, that is not what we were talking about here.

Okay? We are talking about identifying, as I said before. The positive, unique, and relevant traits about you that you wanna reinforce. You can think of your personal brand in the same way that marketers, brand marketers, think about product brands, right? Like you’re selling a box of Tide, you’re selling, uh, I don’t know, an AI software platform or whatever you’re selling.

You think about what are the unique characteristics of this product that I want people to know. It’s exactly the same. Almost exactly the same with people. With people. It evolves, though, right? Because the world changes. We grow, our family changes, our careers change. But you can think of it as your reputation or your identity.

Over the years I’ve used, as I’ve been coaching folks, I’ve been using different definitions of personal branding and, uh, the one that I think is the most well known is this one from Jeff Bezos. If you haven’t heard it, you, I’m, this is probably a reminder for most of you, any article that I have read in the last, at least five years on personal branding, almost always within the first three paragraphs this comes up, Jeff Bezos says, your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.

So I want you to add, this is a real coaching session here, okay? I want you to ask yourself. The important stakeholders in your career. It could be your boss and your boss’s boss who look after succession planning. It could be your clients, your customers, or your consumers. It could be your colleagues at work.

It probably is your colleagues at work, no matter what. It could be your people that you’re negotiating with. It could be investors. If you are an entrepreneur, these important stakeholders, what are they? Saying and actually thinking about you when you’re not in the room. So imagine you just met with them and you leave.

What’s their impression of you? Or if I just ask them right now, or if you could read their mind and your name comes to mind, what are they thinking and saying about you? That’s your brand. Now, here’s where a lot of people say, oh Andrea, it is not good. That is not like it. I mean, it’s fine, but it’s not what I want people to think about me.

And I say, that’s great. That’s why we’re doing this work. But if you’re gonna be. You know, if you’re really gonna make an impact here with your brand, you gotta start with what people are already thinking and saying about you, and also thinking about what you wanna reinforce. So now I want you to go back to the three questions also and ask yourself, do these people know about these good things that I’ve accomplished in the last year, in the last 10 years?

Is there a way without bragging or being awkward about it, that they, that this can come up in conversation. Should it be on my LinkedIn profile? Are they aware of these compliments that other people are giving me that are lighting me up? Did are they aware of these things? These are important questions to ask yourself.

Okay, so this is, this is. Very helpful. This is actually an exercise that I do take folks through when I’m coaching them in masterclasses and one-on-one coaching. It’s very helpful. Um, and I brought this up when. Two years ago, I interviewed the marketing guru, Seth Godin, who’s written many, many, many, many books.

Uh, depending on how you count them, it’s either 20 something or 80 something. Um, and he also ran the podcasting fellowship that I did, uh, six and a half years ago. So I asked him if I could interview him. He said, sure. And it was. Fascinating conversation. Let me tell you, this guy thinks like no one, like I knew when I logged on, this is not gonna be a normal interview.

And I also said to myself, I’ve listened to many of the other folks that have interviewed him on podcasts. I’m gonna ask him questions that my audience wants to know. So we started talking about personal branding, of course, and he said, oh, people think my brand is my orange glasses that I wear, but that’s not my brand, that’s just my logo.

And I was like. Oh goodness. We’re not gonna go down that rabbit hole. That’s just, that’s not helpful. And I said, Seth, how do you think about your brand? And this is what he said, this is gold. He said, my brand is what people think I’m gonna do next. Let that sink in for a minute. Think about the folks that I just listed, right?

The boss’s boss, your colleagues, your clients, your customers, your negotiating partner, your investors, these important stakeholders who have impact on your career. What do they think you’re going to do next? Okay? At least as importantly, what do you want to do next? So this is the next thing I want you to write down.

What do you want to accomplish in your career? In 2026 and maybe beyond, do these people think it’s likely? So let me tell you one of the things that I am most proud of in 2025, it took a lot of work, and I am really proud of it, but it’s just opening a whole other, a whole other line of projects that I’m working on now is I signed a book deal, right?

So, if my brand is what people think I’m going to do next, the important question for me to ask myself is, do people think I am going to write a book that is worth reading? Right? And if they do, that’s fantastic. If they don’t, what can I do to make sure that I’m evolving my reputation or my brand so that that is the case?

So when Seth Godin shared this definition with me, I was like. Oh my gosh. And we talked about it for a while, and then when I finished the interview, I pulled out a piece of paper sitting where I am right now. I drew a line down the middle, and I was like, what are my goals? Do people think it’s possible?

And I gave myself a score, and then I was like, how can I make people believe that this is gonna happen? Because when they believe it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna be even more successful, and it’s also more likely that I’m gonna do it. So I want you to do the same thing. What do you want to accomplish? And do other people think you are gonna do that, or that it’s conceivable or perceivable that you’re gonna do that. 

And if they are great and if they’re not aligned, then you have some work to do. But this is work that is, I was gonna say, it’s not, it’s not easy work, of course. It’s not easy work, but it’s really, really important work. Okay. Alright. So we have these two definitions of personal branding from these two.

Very smart, very successful, very well-meaning people, and these definitions are getting a lot of traction. The thing that bothers me about these definitions is that there’s no agency associated with them. So what do I mean by that? By agency, I mean we have no influence or control. It’s just what are people saying and thinking about us, and what do they think we’re gonna do next?

So what am I gonna do about it? So here’s my definition now that I use it’s personal branding is about being yourself on purpose. And there’s really two parts of this definition that I want you to really understand here. It’s being yourself, and by yourself, I mean your true self. You’re not acting like somebody else.

Your whole self. So yes, we’re talking about your professional identity, but you are also maybe a husband or a wife, or a parent, a sister or a brother, or a friend, or an athlete or a musician. Like these other things that are not directly related to your professional identity, they are related to your professional identity, right?

So it is your whole self. It is your best self. So I’m asking these questions at the beginning of this session in terms of the things that you’re most proud of. I want you to start to focus more on your strengths, your accomplishments, and your skills. How can you leverage those things? Make sure you’re in opportunities where you can demonstrate those things.

Make sure you’re reinforcing them. One of the interviewees that I had in my podcast last year said it so well. She said, people are afraid to share their accomplishments and their skills. And she said, I think of it more as like a service that you’re doing for the people that you’re working for. They hired you to do a job.

You need to tell them what you do best. Think about it. If you know what your skills are and you share that with the people that you’re working with, then you’re gonna be doing your best work, and they’re gonna be getting the most out of you. So personal branding is about being yourself, your whole self, your true self, and your best self.

You got that whole self. True self and best self. It’s not that you’re ignoring your weaknesses and areas of opportunity, but that’s not what you’re emphasizing when you’re introducing yourself and you’re interacting at work. Right. And then the second part of this definition is on purpose, and I have it in capitals because that is what we’re literally, maybe not literally physically.

This is what we’re physically doing right now. We are unapologetically, strategically. Taking the time and making the effort to purposefully present ourselves in a true and effective way to others and to ourselves so that we can be our happiest and most successful self. That sounds good, right? I have this on purpose thing.

I put it in caps. I emphasize it as much as I can. It’s like I hope I’m turning a light bulb on for you that most of us go through our careers doing kind of what we wanna do and a lot of what other people expect us to do, and introducing ourselves without really thinking about it. What we’re saying about ourselves.

If you put a little bit of effort into identifying what your strengths are. What you love to do, what you’re good at, what your accomplishments are, and how to share that with the world and reinforce it even with yourself. This work, you know, I’m a communication coach, and my background is marketing and it’s all, you know, it’s all about like amplifying your message.

Recently, I’ve been thinking more and more and more about like this whole idea of self-identity and your professional identity and your personal brand. It affects you as much as it affects everyone else. I mean, not just because of the impact and what happens, but actually how you think about yourself.

So this is my definition, and personal branding is about being yourself on purpose, and what, so what this definition adds here, like I said, is agency. You can make a difference in over to Jeff Bezos, what people are saying and thinking about you. You can make a difference in as Seth Godin says what people think you’re going to do next.

You can do that. And it starts by taking an inventory of the things that you love to do, that you’re good at, the compliments that mean the most to you, the accomplishments that you’re most proud of. Okay, so you see how this circles back to the three questions that I asked you at the beginning. If you wanna take a screenshot of this page, by the way, you’re absolutely more than welcome to.

And again, it’ll be posted on, on YouTube if you wanna reference it there. And we’ll also be posting it on LinkedIn. My challenge here, if you want to think about these three definitions, is to. Like I said, do the mental exercise of answering the three of them for yourself, and also maybe thinking about where can you get the most traction.

If you look at each of the three of them, some people say, like Andrea, I agree with your definition, but Jeff Bezos, that’s the one that really matters to me, ’cause I’m trying to convince my boss that I deserve promotion. So I want, when I’m not in the room, I want ’em to tell everyone that I need to get promoted.

I’m like, bingo. That’s the definition you need to be focusing on, then. Right? So think about. Maybe which of the three is most relevant for you today, and maybe in 2026. 

The Three-Point Self-Introduction Framework (Present, Past, Future)

Okay. Now we are gonna move on to the three-point self-introduction framework. So some of you have seen this before, and if you have, I’m going to be.

Asking you to think about it just a little bit differently in terms of integrating the three questions that I asked you at the very beginning. For the rest of you, I just wanna share a couple things. So, your self introduction, both personally and professionally, by the way, is the most direct way that you have to reinforce your brand.

Think about it. Your self-introduction is your words from you about you. You’re sharing with the world, and they’reyour  words. It’s not just, oh, Andrea’s, you know, got books behind her. It’s like this implicit thing. No, no, no. These are words about you that you’re sharing. So about four years ago I did an episode on how to introduce yourself.

And it very quickly became the top Talk About Talk podcast episode of all. It actually remains number one of 203 episodes as of, uh, this week. And. I wrote up, I wrote it up, and I sent it into Harvard Business Review in 2022, and in 2023, it was one of the three most downloaded articles of the year on the hbr.org website.

So this topic gets a lot of traction, and the self-introduction framework works. That’s why this article was so popular. I’m gonna share it with you now. And by the way, it is so easy that you do not even need to take notes. It’s just three things you start with present. 

So this is the way many people start their self-introduction, by the way, hi, my name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. I’m an executive communication coach at Talk About Talk, where I have a podcast, and I coach ambitious executives to be successful in their careers by focusing on their personal brands and their communication skills. So you see what I did there? It’s my name, my title, my company, my What I Do.

If you’ve done the work on your personal branding, you can also. Talk about, um, maybe what your unique leadership style is, what differentiates you compared to other people. Um, but at least it is your name and what you do. Okay? So I, I told you I was gonna be linking this back to the three questions in terms of your present.

If there’s something that you have accomplished, and maybe you have a new title or you have a new skill, you can talk about this in the present tense now, right? My name is whatever. I’m a chief technology officer at a BC tech company, and what differentiates me compared to other technology experts or leaders is my ability to do this.

And I’ve recently, uh, developed a skill with AI, whatever it is, right? So you’re talking about yourself in the present tense. This is really important. You wanna anchor yourself introduction in who you are and what you do very often people will say. We’ll be going around the table. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?

And people will start with the past, and they’ll share this kind of default, boring chronology. I’m exaggerating here, but I graduated in 2002 with a commerce degree, and then I went and worked at this company and then I, and it’s like what? Start with who you are and what you do. This is the most important thing, by the way, if you’re unemployed.

I coach plenty of people that are in job transition and they say, how do I do that if I’m in job transition? You introduce yourself and you share what your expertise is, right? My name is Jane Smith. I am a finance and marketing expert, blah, blah, blah, right? You just, you get right into your expertise and you tell them your industry expertise or your functional expertise.

Okay? So that’s step one. Present tense. Step two is past tense. So, here in a professional context is where you establish credibility. You, depending on the context, you might share one or two or three things. I say less is more. We all, including myself, get tempted to share too much information. You don’t wanna talk more than the person before you.

You wanna speak slightly less in your self-introduction than the person who introduced themselves before you. But here’s where you can say, guess what? The answer to the, the questions that I asked you, at least question one and two, you could say I’m something I’m really proud of in the last year that I accomplished is blah, blah, blah.

By the way. Telling people that you’re really proud of something, as long as you don’t do it all the time, like, I’m proud of this, I’m proud of that. I’m proud of this. I’m proud. Of course, that’s not what I’m talking about, but saying, you know what? I’m actually really proud of the fact, like I told you at the beginning, I’m really proud when my clients tell me that I am an exceptional listener.

I hope you don’t take that as me being arrogant. It’s like one thing. So arrogant. People are defensive. They can do no wrong. They’re good at everything, right? Telling someone one thing that you’re proud of does not make you arrogant. In fact, you should practice. Telling people what you’re proud of. So here is where you could say, in the past 10 years, one of the most significant things in my career is that I accomplished a transition from blah, blah, blah to blah, blah, blah.

Or I earned this degree. So this is where you talk about the thing from question number two, the thing that you’re proud of for the last 10 years, and then you can say, in the last year. In 2025, the accomplishment that I’m most proud of is this. And you’re telling people what your value is, what your expertise is, what your skills are, and remember what I said before.

This is actually providing a service to others so that they can get value out of you. Okay, so you could talk about your past credentials, accomplishments, things that you, you know, new products that you launched, big projects that you led, or projects that you participated in. Maybe it’s your business results from 2025 or from the last five years, whatever it is.

So this second step is establishing credibility. That’s how I want you to think about it. Okay? Now, many people, in fact, I’m gonna say. Most people, a significant majority of people, end their self-introduction here. They’re like, my name is blah, blah, blah. This is what I do. Previously I worked at this other company, la, la, la.

And then it kind of fades off. Then the next person goes, are you done? Okay, my turn, blah, blah. Right? That’s how it goes. Sound familiar? The research shows that if you can share something. Positive and enthusiastic that things will go your way. So I first learned this from a negotiation expert who I interviewed.

She was doing her PhD research on negotiations emotions, and she found this insight about the emotion of enthusiasm. And when you share enthusiasm, the negotiation is more likely to go your way. So I went into Google Scholar, and I started looking at all the research on enthusiasm. It turns out in the teaching context, people learn more when you’re enthusiastic.

In the job application process, the job applicant who is more enthusiastic, is more likely to get the job. In a sales context, the salesperson who is more enthusiastic is more likely to close a sale, and on and on and on. So here’s the magic in your self-introduction. Instead of ending it with this awkward like, and that’s me.

Add one simple sentence about something that you’re looking forward to and say it with enthusiasm. It could be generally about like in 2026. I’m really excited, you know, to be in this new role, or I’m really excited to work with you all. Ideally, when you’re introducing yourself, this three-point self-introduction framework is not a script.

It’s purposely just three words, present, past, and future, and you fill in the blanks and you always customize it and personalize it for the person that you’re introducing yourself to. For example, in step three, this future step, you will turn to the person, look them in the eye and say, I’m really looking forward to getting to know you better, or, I’m really looking forward to working with you, or I’m really looking forward to like, as a client, serving your needs, whatever on this account.

So, turn it back to them with a smile on your face and enthusiasm. And I have so many stories from podcast listeners and people who have read this article who told me they get caught off guard and asked to introduce themselves. So one of my clients, his name’s Mike, he is a very very successful wealth advisor, and I was coaching him a couple years ago, and he told me that on some Saturday, he was, uh, at the golf course, and one of his very wealthy clients ran into him and said, Hey Mike, nice to see you.

Happy Saturday. Oh, by the way, this is my buddy that I was telling you about and he’s looking for a wealth advisor. And Mike was like, oh, come on. It’s my Saturday. I don’t wanna have to sell myself. And then he thought, self-introduction framework. He said, Hey, yeah, my name’s Mike, and I’ve been a wealth advisor.

I used to live in Toronto. I moved my family over, blah, blah, blah. And then he goes, he shifted to past, and he said, I’ve been doing this for X number of years. He added a few things for credential and then future. He said, I don’t know if you, if you live around here, but maybe next week we can connect. And the guy said, sure.

And five days later, he had a new client, and I was like, oh. So Mike, do I get the commission check? Anyway, he said, Andrea, you saved me. Because he goes, my mind was in a fog. I was trying to drink my coffee. It was Saturday morning, and I just thought, present past future. And he goes, it actually resulted in me signing on a client.

So your self-introduction is not always gonna be this impactful, but I’m telling you sometimes it will be when you walk into a job interview and they say, tell us about yourself. Are you kidding? The way you answer that question determines whether you make it to the next round of interviews. Let’s be serious here, right?

This framework works for that. So present, past, future. Now, I want you to think about your answers to the three questions, the compliments and the things that light you up, and how the compliments that light you up and your accomplishments from 20, 25 and 10 years before. How can you work these in without, you don’t have to say I’m particularly proud of, although I, I would suggest maybe you could once, right?

How do you include positive, unique, and relevant things about yourself in each of these three steps? Here’s the word that I was telling someone yesterday. I’m, I used to say, introduce yourself with confidence. Now I’m saying introduce yourself with purpose. This is an opportunity for you to really reinforce your professional identity in a positive way that’s gonna impact how other people think about you.

Okay, now we’re gonna move into. Three benefits of building your brand. And again, I’m gonna map this back to you, and you can continue to take notes here. But these are three, yes, I’m a huge fan. In case you didn’t get the memo of the Power of three, but perhaps not, coincidentally, there are three things that I see and hear all the time from people about the benefits of doing this work, about being yourself, your true self, your whole self, and your best self on purpose.

Okay? The first thing is when you do this work. You have the ability to control your narrative. Have you ever noticed that sometimes people will talk about you, and you’re like, ah, that’s not quite right. Or something comes outta your mouth, and you’re like, ah, you know, that’s true, but it’s not the best thing that I would’ve said about myself.

When you’ve done this work, you are controlling the words that people use to describe you and how you even think about yourself. You’re not leaving it to chance, and I, I say this to my clients all the time. You can be a very strong B plus, maybe even an A if you don’t do this work, but if you really wanna knock it outta the park, you’re gonna take the time to really define yourself, your true self, your best self, and your whole self purposefully.

And then you’re going to use those words to control the narrative. The best example that I have of this is well. Best. I said that so emphatically, didn’t I? I think it’s one of the best stories that I have to illustrate this. I was doing live coaching session very similar to this, and a brave woman raised her hand, and she said, I have a question for you, Andrea.

As you can tell by my accent, I’m an Indian immigrant, and I live in the States. I’m a lawye,r and I want my brand to be lawyer, not immigrant. How do I control the narrative around that? And so. I said to her, tell me about yourself, like where do you work? What kind of law? And every, and as she, as she was speaking, I was listening to her accent, and then I, I said to her, so your accent is definitely decipherable.

You didn’t have to tell me that you were from India. I could have guessed, but your English is clear. I’m not working hard to understand you. And you know, the research shows that when you have an accent, people might click in that you have an accent, but then as long as you don’t make them work to understand you, it’s fine.

It’s not a negative thing, so I wouldn’t worry about it. In fact, you’re thinking of it as a liability. Let’s turn your accent into an asset. And she said, okay, how do I do that? I said, you control the narrative around your accent. You could literally say to people, yes, literally, literally say to people, as you can tell by my accent, I am from India.

I have global experience. I have lived and worked in India, and there was one other country, and now the United States. I passed the bar exam in New York, and I’m now a corporate lawyer. I work as a corporate lawyer in Manhattan. And I said, boom, like your accent is actually evidence. And so you are controlling a narrative.

So here’s where if you have something about yourself that you aren’t. Maybe that you’re trying to hide like her, she’s trying to hide her accent. You can create a narrative around that thing. Don’t let other people create the narrative for you. I said, you don’t need to correct people if they call you an immigrant, but you can tell them what it means, right?

When they say, oh, are you an immigrant? You could say, I’ve lived and worked in three different countries, and I’m a corporate lawyer now in Manhattan, where I leverage that global experience. Boom, drop the mic. Right? You control the narrative. Okay? The second benefit is that working on your brand provides you with direction and focus.

So, as I said before, arrogant people think they’re fantastic at everything. I asked you a really, really hard question about what compliments mean the most to you. That answer, I hope, provides you with direction and focus. It doesn’t mean you never work on anything that’s not related to that compliment, goodness knows, but it means I hope that you have the opportunity to raise your hand enthusiastically and volunteer for any kind of project or work that relates to that compliment where you can really flourish. 

Okay. So you can see how building your brand provides you with direction and focus. I hear this from my clients all the time. They’re like, I dunno if I should be doing this or that, or this or that. And then we create this list of themes about them that they know are positive, unique, and relevant to them, and then it provides them with direction and focus.

The third and last benefit is the one that. I think is the most significant. I wanna really be clear about this, and the reason I keep bringing this up is I get this question often, like frequently all the time. I’m afraid that it’s one thing to write down these things that I’m proud of and these compliments that light me up, but to actually talk about them, and I say, you are not saying that you are good at everything.

You are taking the time on purpose. Remember to identify your unique strengths and skills, and there’s nothing arrogant about that. So, identifying the unique things about you that differentiate you compared to everybody else who does what you do. Differentiates you compared to your coworkers, your competitors, maybe even compared to your family and friends.

This is gonna boost your confidence. And one of the reasons I love what I do so much is that I am focused on the positive, right? I help people think about this strangely. They’re at work, and they’re thinking about their weaknesses and what they need to work on and their skill deficiencies, and I’m like, hang on a second.

What about your strengths? Think about the people you know who are. The most genuinely confident, not arrogant, genuinely confident, and happy and successful in their careers. They are the ones that have doubled down on their unique strengths, right? So that could be you. These are the three benefits of building your brand.

It helps you. You can see how they’re kind of intertwined. They’re integrated, but they’re importantly distinct. You’re controlling your narrative. You’re thinking about the words, and you’re reinforcing them with purpose. I’m not saying you’re great at everything. You’re providing yourself with direction and focus, and you’re elevating your confidence because you’ve taken the time to think about these positive accomplishments.

The two first two questions and compliments that you get from people, and this is sure to boost your confidence. So that is the main material I guess, that I wanted to cover with this. We’ve covered a lot already. We’ve got three big questions if you wanna send them to me, by the way, on LinkedIn, I, I would love to see what some of them are, three definitions of personal branding to get you thinking about them more deeply.

The three point self introduction. Remember, present, past, future, it’s not chronological, and the three benefits of building your brand. So if I were you. I would be thinking, thank you. This is helpful. I feel empowered, but now what? 

Wrap-Up & Live Q&A

So onto my favorite part of the session, the q and a. First thing before I look in the chat, what brave soul here has a question for me.

I would love to hear a question. I know you’ve got questions. 

Theo: All right, I’ll go. 

AW:  Oh, Theo. Amazing. 

Theo: I’m afraid you’ll cold-call someone. So I am curious how you think differently about the future piece and the present. Well, actually, the whole introduction piece, when you’re talking about people who are either currently employed, transitioning, or coming back to employment after a long time out of the workforce.

Yeah. I’m curious, like for people who are not 25 on this call. 

W: Thank you Theo. Amazing. This is a common question that I get and I think it’s really important. I think if you are gainfully employed, it’s kind of obvious, right? Like present tense is who I am and what I do. Past tense is, you know, the things.

Remember, you’re customizing it for the people in the room, right? So you’re thinking, if you’re introducing yourself to a new project team, like what do they need to know about me that I’ve done that’s gonna help me establish credibility, right? And then future is, I’m looking forward to working with you.

If you’re in a job interview, I think the best way to answer this might be to just make some scenarios up, right? If you’re in a job interview. You go in and they very often purposely ask you, tell me about yourself. And you don’t know how long to talk, and you don’t even know what the structure is. Yes, you do.

It’s present, past,and  future. Hi, my name is Andrea. I am a, or my name is Theo. I am a blah, blah, blah, industry, blah, blah, blah. Function expert. I am. You’re still present tense, right? I am excited to learn about this position, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you say, I’m gonna tell you three things about my experience and my skills.

There are many things, many things that I could share with you, but, um, in terms of, you know, sharing things about myself, there are three things. Again, I told you I’m the, I’m a big fan of the power of three, the benefit of saying. At that point, I’m gonna share three things, is they’re not gonna be like, how long is she gonna keep talking?

And then you say, the first thing is I have extensive expertise in blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? And then you say, the second thing is, one of the things that I’m most proud of in my career is this. And the third thing that I wanna say is maybe something that’s directly related to the company that you’re interviewing with.

Right. And then you say, so those are just three things, and I’m happy to elaborate on those three things. And on any other questions that you have, and then they’re gonna think that you’re just gonna end there, and you say, but I just wanna conclude by saying I’m really excited. You see what I did there?

That’s enthusiasm. I’m really excited to learn from you more about this company and more about this role because, based on what I know, I think I’m gonna be a great fit. Boom. That’s. Okay. And if you’re, say in a networking meeting, you’re either thinking about leaving your company or you’ve already lef,t and you’re doing, you know, the classic networking call, uh, or you’re at a networking event, and it’s like, let’s go around and introduce ourselves.

That’s not when you’re gonna say three big thing,s and you’re gonna take the mic for that long. But think about what do you wanna be remembered for with the people that are here, right? So you could say, my name is Jane Smith, and I don’t know sales and. Retail sales expert and in technology, blah, blah, whatever it is, right?

So you tell them what, tell them so that when they hear about a job in that area, they’re gonna think of you, right? And then you could say, I’m currently seeking a new job in this area. I have 25 years of experience in things that are gonna really help me succeed. And I’m really excited to get to know all of you better.

Right? So you, you, you shorten it. You make sure you’re really clear and I do a lot of work with an executive recruiter, and she said after these networking events, you literally remember if they’re lucky, one thing about each person that you met. So make sure the stuff that comes outta your mouth about you is what you want them to remember.

Does that help, Theo? I’m guessing you have more specific questions. 

Theo: No, that’s amazing. 

AW: Okay, good. 

Theo: Like to get push on that a little. Thanks. 

AW: Yeah, you’re welcome. My pleasure. So Blake has a question in a sales call, would it be better to skip the future remarks and just speak on present and past Blake?

Excellent question. No, the future can be one. In fact, most of the time it’s one sentence. So if you’re, for example, you have a call with aa prospective client, and as I do right with my coaching clients, and I’ll say, why don’t you introduce yourself and then I’ll introduce myself. I would never skip the future thing.

I’m like, I would love to help you. I even say to people in this call, I’m not gonna hold back. I’m gonna, I’m gonna share with you whatever coaching advice that I have for you, but I’m really looking forward to getting to know you better. Right? So just say one thing. I’m really glad to meet you, or I’m really looking forward to this, or I’m excited about this, or I’m enthusiastic about this.

It could be about the person. Ideally. Actually, it is about the person, but sometimes if, if that doesn’t feel quite right, you can make it. The comment about yourself in general, you could say, and I’m really excited about 2026. I feel like, you know, we’ve turned a chapter or whatever, or despite what’s going on in the world, I am really excited about what we’re doing here at work.

I hear people saying that a lot right now. Okay. Anyone that wants to raise their hand in this group, I’m gonna answer it first, but otherwise I’m, I’m staying in the chat. Sydney Ann asked to piggyback Blake’s question. In public speaking, we’re taught to establish credibility. Yes. Recency bias and primacy bias.

However, in social media, it’s preferred to begin with the hook solving the audience problem. Oh, okay. Sydnee, that’s fantastic. I actually learned this from Sarah Blakely. I did the Sarah Blakely. You know the Spanx billionaire entrepreneur. She has a masterclass where she talks about problem-solving. How you did it, like what the details are.

And then step four of the sales pitch is the ask. Right? But you start with the what’s their problem? Same thing on social media. I tell my team this too, when we’re working on my social media posts, it’s not, guess what, Andrea did today? No. It’s actually talking to them about what matters to them. I think for the self-introduction framework, it’s really about.

Finding opportunities to use the framework, but you’re not shifting the attention to yourself all the time. In other words, I’m not saying that all social media posts should be present, past future, I’m not saying that at all. And if you’re doing the sales pitch, I hope you first have the opportunity to ask the other person, introduce themselves, and you’re introducing yourself.

And then I, I totally agree with you, Sydnee. You start with the other person. You do not want to be. One of these myopic, selfish people who’s always talking about themselves. By the way, did you notice I did not really introduce myself here in this session? I just said, if you want more information about me, here’s where you can go that’s on purpose, because I want this to be about you.

So Sydnee, there’s an example, right? You don’t wanna be the person that talks longer than everybody else, and you don’t wanna be the person that everybody thinks is like self-absorbed. So you speak not as long as everybody else. You make sure that the other, like this morning I had a coaching call with someone that I, I’ve been coaching for about six months and he’s like, how was your holiday?

And I was like, you go first. Right? Like it’s not all about you. I think Sydnee, the fact that you’re asking that question tells me that you know that. So that’s fantastic. Okay, I’m gonna take one more question. Are there any live questions? Otherwise, I’m gonna go to Jennifer’s question. How do you recommend navigating age bias in high-stakes stakeholder meetings, particularly when they appear younger than you are or actually are early career, while still signaling authority and competence in rooms where age is often equated with credibility?

So I get, um. I think it was about a year and a half ago, because I remember it was in the summer. Yeah, it was about a year and a half ago. I was getting this question a lot. I think there was an article that came out in the New York Times about ageism. Ageism is real. So I am 55. I’m gonna tell you that right now I’m 55, and I would say I started feeling ageism probably at around 50.

I think it depends on your industry. In some, I talk to 40-year-olds who tell me that they feel like a grandparent, like the wise old grandparent in the office. So it really depends on what industry you’re in, but ageism is real. It is a bias. It apparently is an illegal bias, but it is a bias that definitely exists.

So how do you present yourself as having the expertise and maybe years, maybe decades of expertise without having the negative impact of ageism and this sounds really simple, but if you can present yourself in a way where you have energy, then your age. Probably doesn’t matter. It actually, it’s not just energy, right?

It’s energy and like current insights. This is an extreme example. If your email is AOL or even Yahoo, I’m gonna say it, as opposed to, you know, a more modern email provider, if you are constantly talking about your grandkids or your listing, and I don’t mean necessarily on your CV or on your LinkedIn, but you’re like.

Articulating when I, you know, when I graduated from high school in 1985, and people, you’re, you’re prompting people to do the math, so don’t prompt people to do the math. Do present yourself with energy and in like youthful energy, right? People that are, you see kids running around. I sometimes if I’m walking down the sidewalk and I see a family and it’s like the two adults are like this, and the kids are like running around, right?

So have that, you have youthful energy, and you’re current. And then my big thing is like I just told you, I’m 55. Unless you have reason to believe that your actual age is really gonna hurt you, you don’t need to necessarily tell them your age, but you can reference that I clearly, the elephant in the room here is that I’m older than everybody else, but you know what?

I have a lot of experience that I’m, I would, and wisdom that I would, the word wisdom will help a lot that I’m happy to share. I think as I’m saying that, it really does, as I said, the beginning, depend on the context of your industry and the audience of people that you’re talking to. I hope that helps.

It’s a great question, Jennifer. I do have a podcast episode on ageism that I will, when I post this on LinkedIn, I’ll put a, a link to that episode. So I wanna say thank you. I wanna start actually, by saying Happy New Year again. We can say that at least for this week, right? Happy New Year. Again, thank you so much for being here for this session.

I loved your questions, and I hope you found the information that I shared with you on personal branding. To be helpful. It’s a new year. It’s a new you. That doesn’t mean you’re reinventing yourself again. It does mean that you are presenting your true best self. And I want you to really think about your answers, especially to the first three questions that I asked you at the beginning.

Thank you so much. Bye.

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