56: Chris Dessi on Building a Personal Brand, Becoming a Tastemaker, and Defining Success
Chris Dessi was fired three times in two years, but that didn’t stop him from building a successful career. Instead of letting those setbacks get him down, he leveraged them into building his own business, writing multiple books, appearing on TV, and running his own summits. In this episode, learn about the power of a personal brand, being a taste maker, and defining success.
Here are three things you can learn from Chris:
Build a personal brandBuilding a personal brand is one of the best things you can do to make a name for yourself. Once people recognize you for your thoughts and your work, it becomes easier to get your voice heard. But it’s not always easy.
If you want to build a personal brand, you have to stop taking what’s given to you. Instead, you need to look within yourself to discover what makes you unique, what differentiates you from everyone else. Chris believes we can do this by being introspective. “Building your personal brand is about becoming introspective and not a lot of people become introspective. A lot of people take what’s given to them.”
Building a personal brand is also about defining your goals. “That’s really where the personal branding starts. You need to have a definitive end goal in mind and understand that you have a voice, and then start to play with that.”
Finally, your personal brand is about exploring your curiosity. “If you do anything with fervor and interest and intellectual curiosity, people will start to come back to you and people will become part of your tribe. And if you’re interested in something that scares the hell out of you, at least learn about it.”
Become a tastemakerOnce you’ve built your personal brand, and made yourself known to the world, you have the opportunity to become a tastemaker. Tastemakers are the people you look to for advice and guidance. They’re the ones we turn to when we are looking to make a decision. If you want your voice to be heard, you should aim to be a tastemaker.
Chris believes these people are the ones who make the biggest impact in the world. “It’s the tastemakers, the definitive people that are shaping society, that are shaping thought, shaping businesses, and shaping lives, we’re the ones that do, and go out there and listen to that curiosity and trust their own curiosity and trust that it will lead them to a place that will continue to help them to grow as a business person, as a creative, as a creator, as a human being.”
That’s why Chris thinks we need to stop worrying about our resumes. We need to start worrying about getting our voices heard instead. “Stop tweaking your resume, and create a blog… Don’t worry about the resume, worry about creating your own identity, and then you don’t have to worry about pandering to people to get a job, because other opportunities will come to you, because that system’s broken.”
Define what success means to youOne of my favorite parts of my conversation with Chris was hearing his definition of success. He’s not worried about bringing home the most money or having tons of fans on social media. Instead, he chooses to define success for himself.
The first thing he considers success is doing something that fulfills his curiosity. “If I am doing something that I am being true to myself, that allows me to feel excited, intellectually curious, and fulfilled, and generates revenue, that’s amazing.”
The other thing that defines his success is getting his girls onto the bus in the morning. “I think if I can stick to that, and put my daughters on the bus in the morning, follow things that allow me to continue to be intellectually curious, and things that will potentially generate revenue, I’ll be in a really good spot no matter where I end up, or what I’m doing.”
These two things may not equal success for other people, but they define what success means to Chris. In the end, that’s all that matters. We need to stop letting other people define what success means to us. We need to determine that for ourselves instead.
