As I’m continuing this book, “You Belong in Tech,” I’m up to the chapter about making a name for yourself and branding yourself. Getting out there and putting a name for myself goes against my introverted heart. All my social media accounts are private for a reason. The thing is, making a name for yourself online isn’t negotiable. You have to put your name out there. I tried to get into my LinkedIn account, which apparently I haven’t been to in years since they asked me to identify myself. They need my driver’s license. Fine, I will do that later. But if you think about it, when you buy someone’s product, you purchase the person behind it. That does sound a bit weird, but it makes sense. That person made an impression on you where you don’t forget that person. You trust that person. Therefore, you trust their product. Now, I won’t have any products, but I need to make myself into something that people will remember. But it has to be something about me. I think I’m funny…that can translate into something that people will remember me by. I can’t be trying too hard, either. This has to be something that comes naturally to me, which is a bit difficult due to my social anxiety/awkwardness/shyness/habit of hiding from people. How does one get over social anxiety? Cause if I’m to do this, I need to try to get over this and become more personable.
This is not something that is going to happen in a day. So let’s go over what I need to do:
1) Make a name for myself.
2) Make my social media accounts pop. (possibly make them public. Maybe)
3) Get into my LinkIn site.
4) Finish reading this chapter on Branding Myself.
5) Read up on techy social media accounts.
6) Get over my social anxiety.
7) Pretend I’m not shy.
Oh, yeah, I need to keep learning about programming. If you haven’t heard of the Odin Project or FreeCodeCamp, you should. It’s fun. I’m having a great time on their sites. It’s pretty easy right now, and I’m sure it will become harder the further I go. But I’m up for it.
