The 4 E’s of Personal Branding

September 25, 2023

Personal brand doesn’t have to be some cringy weird marketing thing. It can actually just be your reputation amongst your people, whoever they may be. 

If you can accept we’re just talking about how others describe you, and assuming you want others to describe you well, these 4 E’s can be really valuable. Even if you don’t ever under any circumstance want to think of it as “your personal brand.”  

Via Amanda Goetz, the “4 E’s” we’re all putting out there so we might as well acknowledge are:

Educate

Experience

Emotion

Entertainment

Let’s add some definitions:

Educate means “what” you can teach “who” about?

Experience means what have you lived through to get your knowledge? 

Emotion means what are you feeling and how does it productively/empathically relate to the people you’re talking to?

Entertainment means you can prove you have a little fun too.

In the least corporate way, just think about your friends for a second. They think you’re smart and have certain stuff they’d ask you to educate them on. You talk about what you’re experiencing lately. You talk about what you’re feeling and when you’re p***ed or overjoyed. You talk about what you’re going to do next time you get together and you remember “that time when…”

Jot down a story for each. In 4 steps, a reputation takes shape. And it can be used at home, on your team at work, or at whatever level you want to use it.