There are a number of reasons as to why I have created this site and blog. I'll try my best to explain them all, and whilst it'll seem a little disjointed - my hope is by the end of this it'll make sense.
My struggle with the divide between my Professional and Personal life.
One of the challenges I've been wrestling with for a number of years now is how much do you separate your professional and personal life. How you define the balance is personal, but probably also governed by your workplace / industry.
There is a cognitive dissonance at play in the workplace where I've struggled with having a professional personality that is (at times) contrary to my personal one. I used to think that to be a professional you couldn't share anything of your personal life. In recent years I realised my folly and begun to open up more. In sharing more of my life, who I am, I found that not only did I feel happier - but it improved my professional life. This idea of being able to share what is important to me forms a foundation for why I'm doing this.
Desire to share, to have a voice online that is my own.
I love sharing, interacting, and being involved in discussions. In recent years I have really wanted to share things like recipes and reviews of cafes with people - but couldn't ever find a way that felt appropriate. If I wanted to make the effort to write something - I wanted it to be in my name.
On twitter I am @Benjamin_Lewis. The only problem was that like most people with their social media accounts, I set it to private and didnt feel comfortable letting people read what I was tweeting.
Last year I grew increasingly frustrated with the idea that I had this great opportunity to be involved in online discussions with my own name... but was afraid to take the dive and unlock my account. Fear is the mind killer.
When I finally made the decision to do this the best way I figured was to delete all the old tweets and start fresh with a clean slate.
Curiosity over the idea of 'personal branding' - how to be genuine and authentic online.
In 2016-2017 I kept reading and becoming interested in the concept of personal branding. The idea was fascinating, but still pretty new and slightly unusual. I read over the articles I had saved, and still with questions saught out people with marketing experience that might be able to help. When I raised the idea and posed my questions - I soon learnt that it's still pretty niche.
I eventually decided that the best way to learn was to just leap in and give it a shot.
Small steps - sharing on LinkedIn.
This site and the blog is, in a way, an evolution of the feedback I've had from numerous people about how much they enjoy the items I share on LinkedIn.
A few years ago I made an arbitrary decision to share work-related / interesting items on my LinkedIn profile. Over time, this became more and more popular and before I knew it I began to enjoy seeing people interacting with the content I shared.
It got to the point where people began telling me in person how much they liked / enjoyed "my LinkedIn" . As someone that likes to share information and ideas, this spurred me on!
The blog
I've always enjoyed blogging and I really wanted to have a little space on the web to create, write, and share my own thoughts. I've previously posted content to other sites, shared ideas elsewhere, but I was really keen on the idea of putting my name on my content.
For me, the blog will be the most interesting component of the site. This will be where I get to flesh out ideas, share things important to me and I hope you find it interesting.
Lastly...
Thank you for taking the time to read all of this. I would really appreciate it if you would comment or share your feedback.
You can use the comment features below, or simply just tweet at me.