Hey, friends.
I'm running around tying up loose ends before this weekend, when I head off to Spain for some family hang-time, and then straight onto Chicago for some wedding action. It's been utterly brilliant to be in Berlin for so many weeks in a row -- but let's face it, my heart belongs to WH Smith.
Recently, I've been talking a lot about titles. I'm sure you've all heard of imposter syndrome, which is a real and legitimate thing for everybody I know. Whether you're getting a fancy new promotion, starting out on a new career path, or just flat-out starting, you have to decide what you're going to call yourself.
The first time I decided to call myself a "content strategist" was on a business card I printed before moving to Berlin. I had already lined up a boatload of meetings, meet-ups, and conferences for my first couple of weeks -- and miraculously, I remembered to make myself some business cards before boarding my flight. I clicked around moo.com for a while before I came up with this:
At my very first conference in Berlin -- the now-located-in-Hamburg NEXT -- I must have passed out at least forty of these. No one questioned me. In fact, they actively asked for my opinion on how marketing, public relations, and hiring worked in the States.
I won't say a felt like a total fraud, but I was very grateful to myself for that business card. For me, it comes down to social accountability. That's what helps. If you say you're a[job title] out loud enough times, if you write it all over your business cards, your Twitter, your Instagram, your LinkedIn -- well, you'd better be that thing, right?
If you want to get more comfortable with your title (self-given or not), practice on strangers and practice on the internet. I still fumble when I attempt to introduce myself as a copywriter (which I am) or a singer (which I am). So, I put both titles on my Twitter. Now, you go try.
Cheers,
Alexa
PS: Huge high-fives to all of you that already pledged to The Human Jukebox Project. Eight days in and already at 106%, which is absolutely incredible. The first votes have already come in, and right now it's the Beatles and Black Sabbath in the lead.
PPS: I promise the videos have not gone away forever! They'll be back in June, bigger and better-edited than before.