Owning your Brand & Owning your Career, with Andy Storch

Bob Gentle [00:00:03]: Welcome to Building your leader Brand. Andy Storch [00:00:06]: Today on the show, Bob is speaking with Andy Storch. Sometime later, he got on Zoom to do the interview, and as soon as he got on, he sees the woman hiring for the position and she holds up his book. She's got her book in his hand. And like I said, this book has not sold many copies. No one listening to this podcast has ever heard of this book and never will. But the right person found that book and he got hired for that job because he was already seen as an expert in that position. Because he took the time to write this book down with his experience doesn't mean he's the absolute authority on this topic. But he has a lot of experience in the area and he took the time to write this book and it got him a job. Bob Gentle [00:00:49]: Hi there and welcome to Building your leader Brand. My name is Bob Gentle, and every week I speak with incredible people who share their secrets to building, marketing and monetizing their expertise and the mindset you need for your business to grow and thrive. While you're here, take a moment to subscribe. It's the best way to help me reach more people, and it means you won't miss a thing. And while you are here, I'll remind you you will probably love the personal brand business roadmap. 50 pages of everything you need to start, scale, or fix your expert business. So this week, I am delighted to welcome Andy Storch to the show. Andy, welcome. Bob Gentle [00:01:26]: Bob. Andy Storch [00:01:26]: Thank you so much for having me. I am excited to be back on your show and I always love talking with you, whether it's recorded or not. Bob Gentle [00:01:34]: Andy and I know each other very well. I have three lines of notes for this interview. It's going to be very entertaining. Usually at this point in the interview, I am tripping over myself with excitement, making a fool of myself about my guests, and I don't want to break with tradition. Andy is a very good friend role model. I get to spend at least an hour with Andy every two weeks in a Mastermind, and it's a real treat and I am really excited to welcome you here to talk about your new book. Andy, tell me about your new book. Andy Storch [00:02:06]: Well, Bob, thank you for having me back on and the feeling is mutual. I do love getting to spend time with you. I listen to your podcast, I get to talk with you live at least every couple weeks, and I always learn things from you, which is one of my favourite things. You know, you care a lot about people, but you're also always trying stuff and sharing so much with your friends and clients. And so I really appreciate that. I would consider that to be part of your brand. You are an innovator, an experimenter and an educator and someone who's always trying to help other people. So my new book, my first book is called Own youn Brand, Own youn Career came out with five years ago. Andy Storch [00:02:39]: I think we talked about it in the past on the podcast. And my new book is called Own youn Brand, Own youn Career that I wrote with our mutual friend Mike Kim. And Mike is an absolute authority in the personal brand space, primarily for entrepreneurs, someone that I have looked up to and followed for many years. And a couple of years ago he asked me if I would do write a book with him about personal brand, primarily for corporate professionals. And it was very flattering. I was honoured and very excited to do it. And it took us a couple of years, you know, to get it done and make sure we had it positioned the right way, with all the right content to give people value. We published it in September. Andy Storch [00:03:16]: It's all about building an authentic personal brand to attract more opportunities and achieve more success in your career. It is geared more towards corporate professionals, people working as employees in companies, and how they can build and leverage personal brands to achieve success. Certainly plenty of great questions, exercises and tips in there for entrepreneurs or people building a personal brand business as well. And that's something that I love geeking out on and learning about and trying lots of different things, which is another reason why I love knowing and talking with you. Bob Gentle [00:03:50]: I remember when you mentioned that you were thinking about co authoring a book with somebody and there was a bunch of us on the call, about six people all saying, andy, you don't need somebody to author a book with. No, you don't need this. And somebody is trying to take advantage of you and then eventually you let slip who it was. Oh, you should totally do this 100% right. Mike Kim is legit in the personal branding space and he really knows how to make a book work. He's written his own books and it looks fantastic and I'm keen to get into it today. I think one of the areas that I think would be interesting to play with is personal branding. It's something that's very easy to think of as self centred. Bob Gentle [00:04:31]: It's all about me and what the impact that it has on me. And in writing this book, you can't have escaped having thought about the impact of the personal brand on the organisation you work for. Both facing out of the organisation, but also for leaders. Giving people a focal point in an organisation to look up to and to connect with an organisation. How did you approach that? Andy Storch [00:04:57]: Yeah, absolutely. One thing that's really been interesting for me, going through this journey. You know, I went through my own personal development journey many years ago, trying to figure out how to build a business and a brand around my strengths and things I wanted to do. That journey helped me discover a framework that I knew would be helpful to helping other people own their careers, which is how I wrote my first book, Own youn Career, Own youn Life, five years ago. And as I was doing that, I was also studying this idea of building a personal brand, especially as an entrepreneur, a personal brand type business, which led me to attending a personal brand conference in London, which is how you and I met, I think seven years ago now, something like that. And I started to realise that there's a. Certainly this idea of personal brand is very popular among entrepreneurs, but there's a big opportunity for corporate professionals as well to be thinking about their reputation and their brand and how they're being portrayed and remembered and thought of. And do people know about the work that they're doing? Because it's one thing to do great work, that sort of table stakes for, you know, achieving success in your career, but do people know about the work that you're doing? Can you find a way to let them know about that? Same for us as entrepreneurs. Andy Storch [00:06:11]: The interesting thing is I've noticed things really shift from a corporate perspective, from, you know, I've been creating content on LinkedIn for years and I think the last time I was on your show we talked a lot about LinkedIn and I used to have people in the corporate world, clients tell me like, oh, I see your stuff on LinkedIn, but I don't discover, dare, like or comment on it because I don't want my boss to see that I'm on LinkedIn and they'll think I'm looking for a job. And you know, companies tell their people like, either stay off of LinkedIn or if you're going to share something, only share this company approved post. That is boring and that nobody cares about. Right. Many of us have certainly been there and I had an experience many years ago where I worked for a consulting firm and I had an idea to start a podcast and I brought it to the Chief Marketing officer and he was very open minded but his initial response was, what's a podcast? I don't understand what that is like, explain it to me. This was 2017, so it's been a little While. Right. And I was creating a lot of content online and people started to question my dedication to the business and how I was spending my time. Andy Storch [00:07:12]: And it was one of those signs that you need to go off and do your own thing. And I did. I started the podcast and it's helped me build a conference and a community and a business and a brand and all this sort of stuff. But I'm seeing things shifting now where companies are not only supporting their people in building a brand, in posting on LinkedIn, they're encouraging them to go out and do it because they're starting to really see the benefits of that. And we wrote a chapter in our book about why companies need to be supporting their people in building a personal brand and sharing content on LinkedIn. Because I don't know about you, Bob, I know you're on LinkedIn every day. I see your stuff. It's quite popular. Andy Storch [00:07:50]: Every company has a page on LinkedIn. I don't follow any company pages. I don't care what companies post like. I love Apple and my iPhone. I don't follow Apple on LinkedIn, but I follow people and I want to know what other people are up to. And when I see leaders in companies posting. We just had this big gathering, we had this sales kickoff, we did this training programme. We're developing our leaders to do this. Andy Storch [00:08:14]: In my mind, it elevates the company's brand as a place that I might want to go work. I don't really want to go work at a company, but a lot of people may want to. And so you have an opportunity when you enable your people and empower them to go build a brand and especially share content on LinkedIn, to attract talent to your organisation and possibly save a tonne of money in doing it, because you're going to attract eyeballs through organic content rather than paying for tonnes of ads to attract job hunters. Bob Gentle [00:08:43]: I think you're absolutely right. I used to build websites for money and I thought an awful lot about the psychology that went into websites and we discovered that, and our friend Alex reinforces this all the time. Human beings have a natural resistance to crossing thresholds into unknown spaces. And if we can let the brain think that it's, this isn't an unknown space, you have been here before, these are people you know, then the resistance to crossing that threshold is dramatically reduced. And from a marketing and an organisational perspective, if people can feel like they know what's on the other side of the void, then that's the organisation that's going to have the Line of least resistance established for it. Opportunity is going to go in that direction because it's known, whereas opportunity is not going to go in a direction where you don't know what's behind the wall. So this connections are really important. The connections are the lines along which opportunity and essentially energy can travel. Andy Storch [00:09:54]: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm really seeing things shifting to the point where, as you know, I got hired by a large defence contractor in September with over 100,000 employees to speak to their entire population during their career week about building your personal brand. This is a company I would consider to be a traditional, quote, old school type business and they would agree with that. And they asked me to come in and talk about building a personal brand and when I even suggested that I spin it in how it would benefit the company, they said, no, we don't want to talk about that at all. We wanted to make it about them and how we're supporting them in building their personal brands. And it's very interesting because I talked a lot when I talk about personal brand. I talk about the importance of self reflection and building your self awareness. I talk about the internal side of personal brand. Andy Storch [00:10:41]: So how you're showing up in the workplace, how you're interacting and collaborating with others. And then the external side is LinkedIn and you're talking about a lot of people who probably don't use LinkedIn very much. And one of my favourite things that came out of it, somebody messaged me just last week on LinkedIn and said I was in the keynote that you gave. This is a month later. I just revamped my LinkedIn profile. Could you take a look? That was really cool to see. You know, this is a. He's an engineer in a big defence contract. Andy Storch [00:11:08]: He's not someone who's looking for a job, not someone who's trying to get clients but still taking time to revamp that LinkedIn profile. And you never know what may come of that later on for him. But the idea here is that companies are supporting people and being more thoughtful about who they are and how they're showing up. And I think everybody's going to benefit from that that. Bob Gentle [00:11:27]: It reminds me a lot where I heard Mike Schaer has a book. Am I going to remember the title? Andy Storch [00:11:33]: I know you had him on the podcast recently, written so many. Bob Gentle [00:11:36]: That's the problem. Andy Storch [00:11:36]: Yeah. Bob Gentle [00:11:37]: And I have them all. But what he was describing was in a world of AI and virtualization and commoditization, the most human company is going to win. Because if I'm an employee. I'm going to move towards the company that looks like it's going to create a sense of belonging for me, because where the function is the same, the money is the same, going to go where I feel like I'm going to be valued. So the human aspect and really making space for the human beings is really important. And this is what it sounds like that defence contractors caught onto. Because if you have to compete for people in a global marketplace and everybody can have the same benefits, this is really all that's left, which is really interesting. Andy Storch [00:12:26]: Yeah. And another thing that I wrote about in the book, and I took this from my friend Leanne Hughes down in Australia, who's a good friend and has built a really strong personal brand business, a good thought leader was this concept that there's three ways that we provide value to others in the work we do. One is manually, with our hands and our feet, right? You think about whether it's cleaning a house or, you know, putting something together, or even being a photographer, videographer, using your hands. And the second is through knowledge work, right? This is most people in the corporate environment, Accounting, Finance, Marketing, etc. Using your knowledge, using your brain. And then the third way is through your personality and your personal brand and who you are, something that's entirely unique to you. And the interesting thing is that throughout history, technology has almost always disrupted the. The quote, unquote, lowest, you know, job on the totem pole, which would be more of the manual type jobs. Andy Storch [00:13:17]: You think about manufacturing and it's all robots now putting products together and Amazon's putting robots in their distribution facilities. But with AI, it's a little bit different because it's really disrupting more of the knowledge workers, not the manual labour, because AI still can't clean my house, but it can review a contract for me. But what it can't replace, at least for now, is your personality, your true experience, your relationships, how you connect with other people. And I see that as a sign that we need to lean more into that. Because to your point, and like what Mark Schaefer writes about as well, humans want to do business with other humans. And in this book we wrote a chapter about the seven human traits that are going to be more and more valuable in the age of AI. And it's all about human skills about that, empathy, relationships, being able to connect with other people. When technology does everything, it's the people that can connect with others who are going to win in the marketplace. Andy Storch [00:14:17]: And I don't know what's going to happen with like social media content. But I have a sense that when we know something is truly authentic to, you know, a person, then that's going to be more valuable to us in the marketplace. So it might be the least, you know, sort of done up video in the end that wins because we know everything else could be created by Sora. Bob Gentle [00:14:38]: I think this is a really interesting question because I am a scroll TikTok for leisure, we'll put it that way. And I came across a TikTok post, I think it was just yesterday, and I was like a good 15, 20 seconds into it before I realised it was AI. Andy Storch [00:14:54]: Yeah. Bob Gentle [00:14:54]: And I was really annoyed and I think that's going to happen more and more. There is going to be. And the flip side of this, I was watching a YouTube video because I was interested in an E reader, small pocket E reader. And I saw this guy doing a walkthrough of this E reader and he had the scruffiest hair. His eye contact with the camera was terrible, but, boy, did he have personality. And I thought that was awesome because similar to AI, AI is great at polish, but there is no correct way to do video, which is something I'm thinking more and more about. There is no right way to show up on camera. There's lots of assumptions, but it actually doesn't matter. Bob Gentle [00:15:41]: What matters most is, do I feel like I met you? Can we build rapport? Do I experience your vibe? Andy Storch [00:15:48]: Yeah, you're being authentic and maybe this gives people permission. So, you know, there's a lot of people. I know you work with a lot of entrepreneurs wanting to build personal brand business, create more content. A lot of people sitting on the sidelines because they're afraid their content won't be good enough or perfect, that authenticity is going to win. So this is your permission to go start creating stuff and putting it out there and not worrying about how well it does. Bob Gentle [00:16:10]: Yeah. And almost badly put together content is going to be your superpower. Andy Storch [00:16:15]: Right. Bob Gentle [00:16:16]: So one thing I wanted to pivot into was I'll tell a story and you'll probably know very quickly where I'm going with this. So I spent about 15 years working in search and rescue and when I was the new guy, I was on probation and I was quite introverted and it was the best time I had, like doing stuff nobody would ever get to do. And then six months into my. My probation, when they're going to tell me, I'm on the team now, they said, bob, you know what? We've decided we're going to extend your probation. Because you don't really seem to be into this. Andy Storch [00:16:51]: Huh. Bob Gentle [00:16:52]: And I said, what? What? This is the best thing? And they said, well, you better tell your face. And at that point I realised, oh, what's on the inside is not getting outside. They have a version of me in their head that I feel there's no connection to. And I think this is something a lot of people shy away from. They think, well, I am a professional, I'm competent. Andy Storch [00:17:15]: Yep. But how are you showing up? How are people perceiving you? Right. Which you can't control what other people think about you, but you can certainly influence in how you're showing up. There was an example I shared in my first book. I wrote a chapter about personal brand and the example I shared to illustrate the importance of personal brand was, if you're hiring for a project and you need to choose between John, who has 15 years of experience, he's an absolute expert, but he's gruff, he's a bit miserable, he's hard to work with, he doesn't collaborate very well, he just likes to go off and do things on his own. Right. Or Jennifer, who has a lot less experience, but she's eager to learn, she's very collaborative, she's supportive and quite frankly, she's fun to work with. Like, who are you going to choose in your team? There are some projects where the expertise is just absolutely essential, but for most things, I'm taking the person with less experience who's going to be more fun to work with. Andy Storch [00:18:12]: When I worked in consulting, we would do, like, multiple rounds of interviews with people coming in. And because we all travelled a lot, one of the questions we'd ask is, would I want to be stuck in an airport with this person for four hours? Because it was going to happen eventually that you're travelling with somebody and you're stuck in an airport, and if that person is not very pleasant, then you may not want them on the team. And, you know, this is not taking me away from, like, you don't want people to be fake. Everybody has their own personality. I'm not telling, not saying introverts need to become extroverts, but you can be mindful about how you're showing up, the energy you're giving off. Are you being kind and helpful to others? Are you being reserved and keeping to yourself? And maybe there are some tweaks you can make because you are ambitious, you want to achieve more and you heard Bob's story and you know that the energy you give off and how you show up and the look on your face does factor into whether people want to work with you or not. Bob Gentle [00:19:05]: I think. Also to your point, I heard a podcast where somebody was talking about the best mentor she ever had. And she was a woman working in corporate and she really felt she was struggling to break through a ceiling in her career. And a very senior executive sort of offered to mentor her through this. I think they met through a cup of coffee in the lobby or something. And the senior executive, who was also female, said, I'll tell you exactly what to do, because this was what worked for me. And it worked almost immediately. You're good at what you do, you're competent, but you're kind of invisible. Bob Gentle [00:19:44]: So every day I want you to just walk the floor. I want people to get to know you, because people will always gravitate towards safety and the known people over and above somebody that's unknown and of questionable competence. You don't know what you don't know, but you avoid what you don't know. Andy Storch [00:20:04]: Yeah. Bob Gentle [00:20:04]: So she did this, and within six months, her career was just rocketing. And I think it kind of. It simplifies what you were describing there, which is simply being a known quantity. Andy Storch [00:20:15]: Yeah. Bob Gentle [00:20:16]: If you're a nice person, it's not going to be that difficult. And you can walk the floor physically. But I think this brings me to my next question, which is about content. You can walk the floor virtually as well. And I think a lot of people have a lot of anxiety. And you touched on this in the beginning around becoming a content creator. Not necessarily because of insecurity or being an introvert, but sometimes it's just, what if I get it wrong? What if it's. What if somebody looks at this and thinks, andy, what do you think you're doing so strategically or tactically, what. Bob Gentle [00:20:53]: What do you think is a good, safe approach for content for somebod whose career track is inside an organisation rather than outside? Andy Storch [00:21:02]: I think the safe route is to start by sharing content that you are consuming. I just read this book, I just read this article. Here's a lesson I learned. I just watched this video, I just listened to this podcast with Bob and Andy, and here's something I learned. I think that's always a safe and easy way to go. If you are consuming content, especially for learning, then sharing that out can be helpful to others. It builds your brand as someone who is curious and learning and potentially becoming a thought leader in that area. Especially if you stick with one area. Andy Storch [00:21:37]: You're always sharing interesting content and lessons around adaptive learning or AI or marketing campaigns, whatever it is, right, that you're really curious about. Share lessons along the way. Like, I learned these three things today, or I learned this thing today, this happened and this is what I learned and this is what I'm going to do. And you're remaining humble. You're passing lessons on to others who can learn. Because if it was something you didn't know, then most other people probably didn't know it either. But you're not trying to say, I'm the expert, look at me, I'm the end all on this. I'm learning these things. Andy Storch [00:22:11]: And I think you could. I think that's the safe, good way to go. You know, the next level is to start sharing things that you are pretty confident, work well for you and will work for others. And just know that there will be a small percentage of people that disagree with you and are like, no, that's, that's not for me and that's okay. It's not for them, it's for somebody else. We just have to be. I don't run into that too much, but we've got to be okay with that, right? Some people are going to see our stuff. Most of my content these days are about career development and personal brand and stuff. Andy Storch [00:22:41]: And most people agree years ago. I've always been in health and fitness and I used to post a lot more like gym selfies and stuff about fitness and basketball. Yeah, basketball. And I still post a lot about cycling, which I'm really into, but I used to post about from the gym and, and I would have some people, including my brother for a time, who would make fun of me and kind of make me feel a little bit bad about it and to the point where I'd be like, oh, should I be doing this? Like, you know, people are making fun of me. But then I would just run into people sometimes even on the street in my town who would be like, I've seen your content and it has inspired me to go work out more and I want to thank you for it. And it's like, boom, that's all I need to hear, right? And I'm not saying I changed the world, but if I inspired people to go work out because I was working out and a couple other people thought it was dumb, who cares? Like, I helped some people. So I think that's the next level to recognise that, you know, nobody's going to see the value in your stuff. Probably a lot of people aren't going to see your stuff at all. Andy Storch [00:23:41]: In the beginning, if you don't have much of a following and that's okay too. Like, you just have to kind of build that muscle and start sharing stuff over time. But I would take a step back and start with some reflection and intention and ask, what is it that I want to be known for? That's a key question that we ask in our book and that I ask in every workshop that I run on this, which is, what do I want to be known for? And that could be an adjective. Like, I want to be known as humble, kind, helpful. Bob Gentle [00:24:10]: Right. Andy Storch [00:24:10]: Collaborative, hardworking, high integrity. I've had people tell me they want to be known as reliable. Or it could be something that's more like a noun. Like, I want to be known as an expert in software development. I want to be known as an expert in AI. I want to be known as an expert in building a personal brand business. I want to be known as an expert in podcasting, whatever it is. Like, what do you want to be known for? And then are you showing up in alignment with that brand, both internally in the organisation you work for, if you work for one, and then externally, are you showing up in alignment with that brand online? If you want to be known as helpful, are you helping people? If you want to be known as an expert in personal brand or software, whatever, are you sharing content about that so that you can be seen as that person? Bob Gentle [00:24:52]: I love that. I think the idea of thought leadership, I think a lot of people kind of misunderstand it. They have this grandiose idea that it's all about pontification from the mountaintop. I am at the pinnacle of my achievement and I will bestow some knowledge upon you. Andy Storch [00:25:06]: Yes. And you have to be like the expert. Yeah. Bob Gentle [00:25:09]: Yeah. From my perspective, thought leadership is sharing that you are thinking, period. Andy Storch [00:25:16]: Full stop. Bob Gentle [00:25:17]: That's why I love your example. Here's a book I'm reading. To me, you've just demonstrated your thinking. You're already a significant step forwards. Sharing that you are thinking and what you are thinking about. That's leading with your thinking, thought leadership, so it doesn't have to be big, fancy and complicated. Another question of branding, especially inside an organisation and thinking of your career track, rather than people like Andy and I who are thinking audience, client base. Andy Storch [00:25:47]: Yeah. Bob Gentle [00:25:48]: If you're inside an organisation, you have a very luxurious situation where you know whose mind you need to be occupying, you know who you need to be influencing to an extent. So it makes it much more interesting because you don't need big numbers. It could simply be connecting with the leadership team in your organisation so that they see your content and the next time the people who didn't know you walk past you in the corridor, they give you a nod. You're now occupying their head. You've lit up. There are neurons in their brains with your name on. Andy Storch [00:26:23]: Mm. Bob Gentle [00:26:23]: And this is hugely powerful. Andy Storch [00:26:26]: Yeah. It doesn't, like, a lot of people think personal brands about becoming an influencer and like lots of followers, you don't need all that. You just need the right people to know about you. One of my favourite stories about this is a friend of mine named Larry was in my talent development community for many years an expert. He ran talent development at a couple large tech companies. He's done a lot of HR transformations and he. After he left a job, he decided to do some consulting and he spent some time. He wrote a book about HR transformations and he didn't put a lot of marketing behind this book. Andy Storch [00:26:58]: He self published it. And it's a pretty small niche, you know, HR transformations. And quite frankly, I don't. I don't know any numbers on it, but I doubt it sold more than, you know, 50 to 100 copies. Like, it probably hasn't sold much. It's certainly not a bestseller. Right. He did a little consulting and then he decided that maybe it was time to go back and work for a big company. Andy Storch [00:27:17]: I don't remember if he decided that, or he was scrolling LinkedIn and saw this position posted that was absolutely perfect for him. So he reached out to the hiring manager, the head of hr, and said, I saw this position. This is exactly what I've been doing my whole career. I love to interview for it. And she agreed. And sometime later, he got on Zoom to do the interview. And as soon as he got on, he sees the woman hiring for the position and she holds up his book. She's got her book in his hand. Andy Storch [00:27:45]: And like I said, this book has not sold many copies. No one listening to this podcast has ever heard of this book and never will. But the right person found that book and he got hired for that job because he was already seen as an expert in that position. Because he took the time to write this book down with his experience doesn't mean he's the absolute authority on this topic, but he has a lot of experience in the area and he took the time to write this book and it got him a job. Bob Gentle [00:28:13]: So everybody needs to go and buy on your brand. Own your career. The definitive guide to building an authentic personal brand that accelerates your success. I endorse this message. I'm still waiting for mine. So, Andy, let's pivot across to part two. Your three amplifiers, the three things that people can go and do to take action, levers they can pull. What's amplifier number one? Andy Storch [00:28:42]: So amplifier number one is to do the learning, do the work. So either get this, get the book, own your brand, own your career if you've been thinking about building more of a personal brand. Or number two, if you're not keen to read a whole book, start to write down some of the important questions. So we have a digital workbook on our website that has all the exercises and questions from the book. You don't need the whole book, as usual. Right. If you just go to ownyourbrandbook.com, you can download that. It's probably about 10 pages, lots of questions and exercises to be thinking about your personal brand. Bob Gentle [00:29:16]: Have you started on the audiobook yet? Andy Storch [00:29:18]: It's a good question. Have started on the audiobook. We're a bit behind, but it will be coming out in the next few weeks. I don't know when your podcast this episode will be coming out, but we'll see if we can. We can try to time it along the way. But yes, the audiobook is in a work in progress. Bob Gentle [00:29:37]: So amplifier number two. Andy Storch [00:29:39]: So number two is answering one of the most important questions in the book, which is what do you want to be known for? It's something that we talked about in this interview. In this conversation, getting really clear on those things that you want to be known for. Again, remember adjectives like I want to be known as helpful, kind, hardworking, high integrity nouns such as expert in X, thought leader in this subject. And then ask yourself, am I showing up in alignment with that brand? Am I showing up in alignment with that brand in the work that I do with people in my company or with my clients? And am I showing up in alignment with that brand online, on LinkedIn? And if not, what actions do I need to take to start to show up more in alignment with that brand? Bob Gentle [00:30:25]: I think that's really valuable and it kind of, as you were speaking, it was reminding me of one of the most common problems people have in the entrepreneurial space with personal branding when they want to be known for something which is human beings seem to have this innate resistance to repeating themselves. And it's really important as personal brands that we try and move towards repeating ourselves in order to get those messages through and finding creative ways to restate those things. So it's just a little something to add to that. So Amplifier number three. Andy Storch [00:31:01]: Amplifier number three. I am going to depart a little bit from our conversation and on personal, brand and career, etc. Although I can relate it back and that is to say, I know it's very cliche to talk about AI these days because it's already everywhere and I know you, you talk about it with a lot of people, but my amplifier number three would just be to go play with something with AI, like go try some stuff in ChatGPT with other AI tools, because the world is changing fast. I want to be known more as an innovator, someone who's on the forefront of technology. I consider you to be one of those people, Bob, that I'm trying things and I'm not going to be disrupted. So I'm going to use the tools that are available to me and have them help me in my business. So, like earlier today, I created a custom GPT to help me with some things in my business. I'm finding it really, really interesting and valuable and there's a lot of things you can be doing. Andy Storch [00:31:54]: You know, we don't need to turn this whole thing about AI, but it is taking over everything. There's tonnes of opportunities out there and I don't want people to fall behind. So if you found yourself intimidated by it, just go do something and go play around with it, because it is kind of the future of everything. Bob Gentle [00:32:11]: I absolutely echo that. I think I made a note earlier today, that's how I approach content creation. Next week I will be talking about how AI is allowing us to make time for the things that really matter. And if you're not using AI to eliminate as much of your busy work as possible, for me, that's not honouring your clients, that's not honouring your mission and I think that's really important and I am more excited than a squealing teenager at the moment. I'm going to show you something after the call. Andy, you're going to love it. I can't wait to show it. Andy Storch [00:32:44]: Ok, I'm excited. Bob Gentle [00:32:46]: Andy, you have been awesome. It's been great fun. If people want to get closer to you, if they want to find out more about you, how can they do that? Andy Storch [00:32:53]: Well, the new book is called Own youn Brand, Own youn Career. It is available on Amazon. If you want the digital workbook, it's an Own youn Brand book. I have a couple podcasts, including the Own youn Career show and the Talent Development Hot Seat. If you're interested in corporate talent development, that's the one that I produce every week and of course I'm really active on LinkedIn just like Bob. So feel free to reach out or just Google me. Andy Storch A n D Y S T O R C H True to my own desire to build a personal brand, I've got content all over the place. So just go find me and reach out and let me know you heard me on Bob's podcast. Bob Gentle [00:33:28]: Awesome. Well that does bring us to the end of another episode. Thank you At Home for Listening. If you enjoyed this show then I would gently encourage you to leave a five star review. That's five wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you did enjoy the show, you will love the personal brand business roadmap. It's 50 pages of everything you need to start, scale or fix your square business. 100% free as a gift from me. Bob Gentle [00:33:51]: Hit the link in the show notes or visit amplify. Thanks again At Home for Listening and Andy, thank you very much for your time. Andy Storch [00:34:01]: Thank you Bob.