Your Personal Brand Is Bigger Than Your Title: My Conversation on The Elle Russ Show
By Becca Powers®
Some conversations feel like coming home. This was one of them.
I joined my friend Elle Russ on The Elle Russ Show for Episode #217, "Becca Powers on Reinvention, Identity, and the Power of AND." Elle was a guest on my show before, so this time I got to sit in her guest chair, and we went deep on the thing I care about most: you do not have to choose just one version of yourself.
If you have built a career you are proud of, and something in you keeps pointing toward a keynote, a podcast, a book, consulting or maybe all of it, this one is for you. You already have the expertise. Let's put the pieces together.
Listen to the episode
Heads up: Apple Podcasts marks this episode Explicit.
Prefer a link? Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. (35 minutes.)
Why this conversation matters to you
I spent my corporate years as a former Fortune 500 sales executive. I built a $500K personal brand plus 10 President's Club titles. Individual results vary. And right alongside that career was the woman with a book in her heart and a message for the stage.
I told Elle, "I absolutely was in love with my career." And at the same time, "there's this other part of me that just like lit up so high."
So I wrote my first book, without a big plan. "No one in my community actually even knows that I write. ... I might only get 10 readers. I gotta be really okay with that, right?" And: "I didn't go in there with like, hey, I'm gonna be a bestselling author, right? I was just like, hey, I'm gonna try to write a book."
Here is what Elle and I unpacked, and what I want you to take with you.
What does it mean to honor your AND?
It means you stop choosing one version of yourself. You can be the executive AND the author AND the speaker, and let each part feed the others.
Elle and I talked about embracing the many sides of yourself without feeling like you have to pick just one. Your title is one part of you. It is not the whole of you.
As I said on the show: "...women, we... are multi passionate and multi faceted, but we try to fit into a box of one."
Is it too late to reinvent yourself after 20 years?
No. Twenty years of experience is the foundation, not the finish line. Your expertise is exactly what makes your next chapter credible.
We talked about identity and reinvention, and about giving yourself permission to evolve and become more of who you already are. Reinvention is not starting over. It is building on everything you have earned.
Here is what writing that first book taught me: "the journey itself is so healing and you learn so much about yourself. And you also learn that you have wisdom and legacy in you that can only get expressed when you start to come out of... whatever title you have."
And so many of us hold back right there. "...when it comes to our own expertise, our own wisdom and the footprint we can leave behind from it, we get very timid."
Can you build a personal brand while you still have your career?
Yes. You build what is next alongside the career you already have, one clear step at a time.
This is the heart of Build Beyond Your Title. You do not have to walk away from the role to start the book or step onto the stage. You get to pursue more than one passion, career and dream at the same time.
Here is how I did it, in my words from the episode: "you can do things in smaller steps. You can just start." Individual results vary.
How do you know what to build first, the book or the stage?
Start with your positioning: the one idea you want to be known for. Once that is clear, the book and the stage both grow from it.
This is where many of the brilliant women I work with get stuck. Not because they lack the expertise, but because they are not sure what to build first. That is the part I love walking through with you, in a dedicated, held space.
Elle and I got into this on the show. The question is always, "where do I start? The, the idea feels so big." My answer: "it kind of starts with, I call it a core idea. Like, what is the one thing you ruminate with all the time?"
Thank you, Elle
Elle, thank you for the warmth, the laughs and the room to go deep. It was a gift to be on your show. You can learn more about Elle and The Elle Russ Show at elleruss.com.
Where do I start building beyond my title?
If this conversation stirred something in you, start with what you already have. You can keep your seat AND build what is next.
Watch the Build Beyond Your Title masterclass. It walks you through the first moves toward your book and your stage, so you can start to see what to build first.
Your AND is waiting. Let's build it together.
With love,
Becca
