6 ms·

Personal Branding Without Being a Douche

49 points by jasonshen 15y ago

bmahmood 15y ago
Very true: "You have to stand up for yourself and sometimes that means being a bit more aggressive than you normally are. This is the way of the world."
georgieporgie 15y ago
Isn't this "100 pushups" and "cold showers" guy? Um...
- llambda 15y ago
  No that's the author of 100-Hour Body (definitely not my opinion of worthwhile literature), right? But I think I understand why you'd have that impression. This kind of "personal branding" definitely has a similar taste to that kind of ethos. Although I don't think it's fair to necessarily opine on this particular blog post, there's nothing abjectly wrong with it, by the same token it does seem a little off for HN. Still, if your goal is to build a brand so that you can sustain yourself, maybe it's not such a bad thing. Approach is definitely important though... Edit: apologies, the author of this article and the referenced are one in the same, according to the author. My mistake!
  - jasonshen 15y ago
    Haha - thanks for the edit. Also, I think you're trying to refer to Tim Ferriss -- but his book is called "The 4 Hour Body". Definitely sounds a bit less taxing than 100 hrs. =)
- kristofferR 15y ago
  Yeah, it is. So? Why would doing personal experiments to improve yourself be a negative for personal branding? Some of his experiments may be considered silly by some people, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he is working on becoming the best version of himself he can be - an admirable mission everyone should strive to have, but few unfortunately do. I don't know Jason, but he seems like a really cool guy with a lot of drive, dreams and ambition.
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    Cold showers aren't self improvement. It's the most contrived and limited form of self-punishment I can think of. Much of the developing world showers this way all the time. Promoting pectoral-shortening exercises among an audience of people who a) largely do not understand how to exercise their bodies in a balanced way and b) spend most of their days hunched or slouching in front of a computer, is not self-improvement. It's sophomoric bragging, and it's irresponsible. How can I put this? Everything he uses to self-promote seems like he set a goal which sounds impressive (e.g. "100 pushups"), but actually requires a fairly short period of commitment to achieve. It's as if he's molding his entire life for SEO, blog hits, and self-promotion, rather than achievement and improvement. To me, that's douchey.
    - jasonshen 15y ago
      Thanks for your thoughts. I wrote about my personal experience with cold showers and how I feel they have improved my life. This is an experiment with an N of 1. Most notably: "It also helps me temper my emotional responses to things. I no longer have the panicky feeling that a ton cold water on your skin gives you for more than a few seconds when I take my cold showers – I’ve trained myself to calm down and overcome this natural response. And I’ve noticed this ability to temper my response overlap into other areas of my life" If you haven't tried taking cold showers regularly you might be surprised by the results. I never posted the 100 pushups article on HN so I'm not sure what you mean about being irresponsibly promoting pushups. I agree that the 100 pushups requires a relatively short period of commitment. Yet it seems impressive. Which is why in my post I wrote: "It turns out, with about 4-6 weeks of pushup training 3x a week (~10 mins per session), you can do build your capacity to do something rather difficult: 100 pushups in a row." The point of that post was not to show off how awesome I am, but to encourage people to go after goals that seem difficult because with consistent effort, large goals can be conquered. I find it unfortunate that my life comes across to you as molded for SEO and blog hits as that is not my intention. As I state in this post and in my about section, I write to provide resources to help others.
      - billpatrianakos 15y ago
- jasonshen 15y ago
  Yeah that's me. =) Do you have any thoughts on those posts?
- edash 15y ago
  Kudos, you've managed to demonstrate Jason's final slide perfectly.
logjam 15y ago
"My blog is my public face to the world and if I post something horribly offensive here, my brand goes with it." Friendly advice: folks might be more inclined to take your advice and your "brand" as something actually post-adolescent if your public face to the world consisted of choices of words other than your odd, repeated use of variants of the word "douche" in your writing and in the headline you self-posted here on HN....not amusing and actually offensive to many women and men.
- jasonshen 15y ago
  Thanks for the advice. I recognize that not everyone will jive with my style or choice of words, but similar to Zach Holman's use of swear words, I chose to pick the word that I feel works best. I think most people are familiar with the term "douche" or "douchebag" and that it's usage is similar to "bastard" -- very far removed from the original meaning. I certainly don't mean to offend anyone but like I mention with the case study of Amit - it's pretty much impossible to please everyone.
  - pamelafox 15y ago
    There's actually an entire podcast on "Savage Love" dedicated to the subject of whether "douchebag" is offensive to women. Many women called in and said that since douching has been discovered to be harmful to the vagina, it's good that douchebag is used as an insult, because it reinforces that douching is a bad thing, hopefully discouraging women from partaking in it. Doesn't mean that people won't be offended by it still, but an interesting way to think about it.
    - jasonshen 15y ago
      Really interesting. I could see an argument being made there. I think the bigger thing is that douche is relatively disconnected with women. It's not as direct as, for instance, calling someone a "pussy", which is more directly negative toward females.
davesims 15y ago
Interesting -- this goes straight to some concerns I had about Zach's whole 'brand' and 'persona' response to the (overblown) controversy on swearing. I agree with most of what Jason says here. But I still have an issue with the notion of my character and reputation being tied to the language of 'brand'. I think it cedes too much ground to the encroachment of marketing into some of the essential parts of human interaction, reducing what we present and edit of ourselves to mere marketing. Contrast with _why. Here's a guy who clearly edited himself in a radical way, created a persona, built a following, but it would be hard for me to see _why as a 'brand', because the content of his persona was focused on creativity and his contributions to the community, not his marketability. I totally get that we're all always editing ourselves to present a certain point of view of who we are, from the profile pics we use on Twitter/FB/LinkedIn, to the style we use in our tweets, speeches, presentations, etc. -- it's impossible to eliminate that from our interactions publicly and online. But do we have to concede that much ground to the business side of things that we call it "branding"? I hope we have different ways of tying our public selves to a kind of integrity that goes beyond the ethics of commerce, to something deeper. Commerce is such a powerful force in our everyday lives anyway, can we find a broader language to describe this process than something that tends to reduce us to products?
- aristidb 15y ago
  So what you're asking for is not to use the emotionally cold language of marketing, and use the warmer language of traditional human interaction instead? Perhaps not a bad idea.
  - davesims 15y ago
    Yeah I'll buy that. ...oops
- jasonshen 15y ago
  Thanks for the thoughts. I used the word "personal branding" mostly because it is the established term that covers what I'm talking about. But I agree with your point in that it sort of turns people into products. I guess a larger point I should have made in the blog post and that I did in the talk is this: Your name has a meaning to people, even if you choose to not think about it. Recognizing that what people think / feel when considering "you" is something I want to encourage. Shaping your reputation/brand/name into something positive and making it a useful tool for achieving your goals is, IMO, a worthwhile endeavor.
tycho77 15y ago
The throwaway paragraph about fashion holds much truth, I have found. I decided a year ago to learn how that stuff works. I can't even begin to list the benefits that come with it - it isn't only women that like you more, but men are more likely to take you seriously if you aren't walking around in jeans and a t shirt. Here's a good site to get started: http://www.magnificentbastard.com/ http://www.magnificentbastard.com/ Lots of good advice, I agree with most of it. A more important step is to head to a high-end clothing store, the type that sticks a salesperson on everyone who walks through the door. Yes, the clothing is expensive, but in conjunction with the professional advice it is very much worth it.
- jasonshen 15y ago
  Hey tycho77 - welcome to HN and thanks for the tip. This site looks really useful.
- billpatrianakos 15y ago
  I second that. I've been wanting to start dressing better and this site looks awesome. It's not out of vanity, it's out of necessity and the side effects. It really is true that if you dress well, you feel well, and people just plain take you more seriously.
njharman 15y ago
Calling it personal branding instead of reputation is high douchebaggery.
gxs 15y ago
I'm not one to lunge personal insults around - but is it bad that when I read the title "Personal Branding Without Being a Douche", the first site I thought of that could use help in this department is the site below? sebastianmarshall.com Then again, I did think of it, so maybe they're doing something right.
- klbarry 15y ago
  I adore SM's brand - it's quite refreshing to me, and possibly the only blog I read every single new post of.
- jasonshen 15y ago
  I'm actually friends with Sebastian. But before we knew each other personally, definitely admired his blog from afar. His style is not for everyone, but I think his content is really really good.
joelrunyon 15y ago
I was at DefragCon the other day and James Altucher had a quote based on his experience with personal branding. "Anytime you hear someone say 'Personal Branding' it means 'I'm going to lie to you and steal all your money'" I thought it was pretty spot on based on my experiences with all the people that are so gung-ho about the buzzwords. :)
- jasonshen 15y ago
  Thanks for the love Joel... =)

49 points by jasonshen 15y ago

Very true: "You have to stand up for yourself and sometimes that means being a bit more aggressive than you normally are. This is the way of the world."

georgieporgie 15y ago

Isn't this "100 pushups" and "cold showers" guy? Um...

llambda 15y ago
No that's the author of 100-Hour Body (definitely not my opinion of worthwhile literature), right? But I think I understand why you'd have that impression. This kind of "personal branding" definitely has a similar taste to that kind of ethos. Although I don't think it's fair to necessarily opine on this particular blog post, there's nothing abjectly wrong with it, by the same token it does seem a little off for HN. Still, if your goal is to build a brand so that you can sustain yourself, maybe it's not such a bad thing. Approach is definitely important though... Edit: apologies, the author of this article and the referenced are one in the same, according to the author. My mistake!
- jasonshen 15y ago
  Haha - thanks for the edit. Also, I think you're trying to refer to Tim Ferriss -- but his book is called "The 4 Hour Body". Definitely sounds a bit less taxing than 100 hrs. =)
kristofferR 15y ago
Yeah, it is. So? Why would doing personal experiments to improve yourself be a negative for personal branding? Some of his experiments may be considered silly by some people, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he is working on becoming the best version of himself he can be - an admirable mission everyone should strive to have, but few unfortunately do. I don't know Jason, but he seems like a really cool guy with a lot of drive, dreams and ambition.
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  Cold showers aren't self improvement. It's the most contrived and limited form of self-punishment I can think of. Much of the developing world showers this way all the time. Promoting pectoral-shortening exercises among an audience of people who a) largely do not understand how to exercise their bodies in a balanced way and b) spend most of their days hunched or slouching in front of a computer, is not self-improvement. It's sophomoric bragging, and it's irresponsible. How can I put this? Everything he uses to self-promote seems like he set a goal which sounds impressive (e.g. "100 pushups"), but actually requires a fairly short period of commitment to achieve. It's as if he's molding his entire life for SEO, blog hits, and self-promotion, rather than achievement and improvement. To me, that's douchey.
  - jasonshen 15y ago
    Thanks for your thoughts. I wrote about my personal experience with cold showers and how I feel they have improved my life. This is an experiment with an N of 1. Most notably: "It also helps me temper my emotional responses to things. I no longer have the panicky feeling that a ton cold water on your skin gives you for more than a few seconds when I take my cold showers – I’ve trained myself to calm down and overcome this natural response. And I’ve noticed this ability to temper my response overlap into other areas of my life" If you haven't tried taking cold showers regularly you might be surprised by the results. I never posted the 100 pushups article on HN so I'm not sure what you mean about being irresponsibly promoting pushups. I agree that the 100 pushups requires a relatively short period of commitment. Yet it seems impressive. Which is why in my post I wrote: "It turns out, with about 4-6 weeks of pushup training 3x a week (~10 mins per session), you can do build your capacity to do something rather difficult: 100 pushups in a row." The point of that post was not to show off how awesome I am, but to encourage people to go after goals that seem difficult because with consistent effort, large goals can be conquered. I find it unfortunate that my life comes across to you as molded for SEO and blog hits as that is not my intention. As I state in this post and in my about section, I write to provide resources to help others.
    - billpatrianakos 15y ago
jasonshen 15y ago
Yeah that's me. =) Do you have any thoughts on those posts?
edash 15y ago
Kudos, you've managed to demonstrate Jason's final slide perfectly.

logjam 15y ago

"My blog is my public face to the world and if I post something horribly offensive here, my brand goes with it." Friendly advice: folks might be more inclined to take your advice and your "brand" as something actually post-adolescent if your public face to the world consisted of choices of words other than your odd, repeated use of variants of the word "douche" in your writing and in the headline you self-posted here on HN....not amusing and actually offensive to many women and men.

jasonshen 15y ago
Thanks for the advice. I recognize that not everyone will jive with my style or choice of words, but similar to Zach Holman's use of swear words, I chose to pick the word that I feel works best. I think most people are familiar with the term "douche" or "douchebag" and that it's usage is similar to "bastard" -- very far removed from the original meaning. I certainly don't mean to offend anyone but like I mention with the case study of Amit - it's pretty much impossible to please everyone.
- pamelafox 15y ago
  There's actually an entire podcast on "Savage Love" dedicated to the subject of whether "douchebag" is offensive to women. Many women called in and said that since douching has been discovered to be harmful to the vagina, it's good that douchebag is used as an insult, because it reinforces that douching is a bad thing, hopefully discouraging women from partaking in it. Doesn't mean that people won't be offended by it still, but an interesting way to think about it.
  - jasonshen 15y ago
    Really interesting. I could see an argument being made there. I think the bigger thing is that douche is relatively disconnected with women. It's not as direct as, for instance, calling someone a "pussy", which is more directly negative toward females.

davesims 15y ago

Interesting -- this goes straight to some concerns I had about Zach's whole 'brand' and 'persona' response to the (overblown) controversy on swearing. I agree with most of what Jason says here. But I still have an issue with the notion of my character and reputation being tied to the language of 'brand'. I think it cedes too much ground to the encroachment of marketing into some of the essential parts of human interaction, reducing what we present and edit of ourselves to mere marketing. Contrast with _why. Here's a guy who clearly edited himself in a radical way, created a persona, built a following, but it would be hard for me to see _why as a 'brand', because the content of his persona was focused on creativity and his contributions to the community, not his marketability. I totally get that we're all always editing ourselves to present a certain point of view of who we are, from the profile pics we use on Twitter/FB/LinkedIn, to the style we use in our tweets, speeches, presentations, etc. -- it's impossible to eliminate that from our interactions publicly and online. But do we have to concede that much ground to the business side of things that we call it "branding"? I hope we have different ways of tying our public selves to a kind of integrity that goes beyond the ethics of commerce, to something deeper. Commerce is such a powerful force in our everyday lives anyway, can we find a broader language to describe this process than something that tends to reduce us to products?

aristidb 15y ago
So what you're asking for is not to use the emotionally cold language of marketing, and use the warmer language of traditional human interaction instead? Perhaps not a bad idea.
- davesims 15y ago
  Yeah I'll buy that. ...oops
jasonshen 15y ago
Thanks for the thoughts. I used the word "personal branding" mostly because it is the established term that covers what I'm talking about. But I agree with your point in that it sort of turns people into products. I guess a larger point I should have made in the blog post and that I did in the talk is this: Your name has a meaning to people, even if you choose to not think about it. Recognizing that what people think / feel when considering "you" is something I want to encourage. Shaping your reputation/brand/name into something positive and making it a useful tool for achieving your goals is, IMO, a worthwhile endeavor.

tycho77 15y ago

The throwaway paragraph about fashion holds much truth, I have found. I decided a year ago to learn how that stuff works. I can't even begin to list the benefits that come with it - it isn't only women that like you more, but men are more likely to take you seriously if you aren't walking around in jeans and a t shirt. Here's a good site to get started: http://www.magnificentbastard.com/ http://www.magnificentbastard.com/ Lots of good advice, I agree with most of it. A more important step is to head to a high-end clothing store, the type that sticks a salesperson on everyone who walks through the door. Yes, the clothing is expensive, but in conjunction with the professional advice it is very much worth it.

jasonshen 15y ago
Hey tycho77 - welcome to HN and thanks for the tip. This site looks really useful.
billpatrianakos 15y ago
I second that. I've been wanting to start dressing better and this site looks awesome. It's not out of vanity, it's out of necessity and the side effects. It really is true that if you dress well, you feel well, and people just plain take you more seriously.

njharman 15y ago

Calling it personal branding instead of reputation is high douchebaggery.

gxs 15y ago

I'm not one to lunge personal insults around - but is it bad that when I read the title "Personal Branding Without Being a Douche", the first site I thought of that could use help in this department is the site below? sebastianmarshall.com Then again, I did think of it, so maybe they're doing something right.

klbarry 15y ago
I adore SM's brand - it's quite refreshing to me, and possibly the only blog I read every single new post of.
jasonshen 15y ago
I'm actually friends with Sebastian. But before we knew each other personally, definitely admired his blog from afar. His style is not for everyone, but I think his content is really really good.

joelrunyon 15y ago

I was at DefragCon the other day and James Altucher had a quote based on his experience with personal branding. "Anytime you hear someone say 'Personal Branding' it means 'I'm going to lie to you and steal all your money'" I thought it was pretty spot on based on my experiences with all the people that are so gung-ho about the buzzwords. :)

jasonshen 15y ago
Thanks for the love Joel... =)