Personal Branding Round Table
Personal branding is crucial for professional success. Build a strong online presence with a personal website, optimized for SEO. Use content to showcase your skills and expertise, engage with your audience, and build a community. Tools like Descript and ChatGPT can aid in content creation and optimization.
Personal Branding Round Table
Introduction
Personal branding is more than just a buzzword; it's a strategic approach to establishing your professional identity. In this blog post, we'll delve into the key takeaways from the Personal Branding Round Table, discussing strategies to build a strong online presence, create compelling content, and engage with your audience effectively.
Key Takeaways
The Power of a Personal Website: Your website is the cornerstone of your online brand. Optimize it for SEO using relevant keywords, high-quality images, and clear navigation.
Content is King: Consistently create valuable content that showcases your expertise and interests. Utilize AI tools like Descript for transcription and ChatGPT for content generation.
Build a Community: Engage with your audience on social media and through your website. Foster a sense of community by responding to comments and participating in discussions.
Optimize for SEO: Implement SEO best practices to improve your website's visibility in search engine results. Use relevant keywords, optimize images, and create shareable content.
Leverage AI Tools: Harness the power of AI tools like Descript and ChatGPT to streamline content creation, transcription, and keyword research.
Consistency is Key: Building a strong personal brand takes time and consistency. Regularly update your website and social media profiles with fresh content.
Conclusion
By following these key takeaways, you can effectively build and strengthen your personal brand. Remember, personal branding is a journey, not a destination. Continuously refine your approach and adapt to the evolving digital landscape.
Highlights:
00:00 Introduction and Overview
00:25 The Importance of Personal Branding
01:25 Building Your Personal Hub
02:30 Content Creation and Distribution
04:36 SEO Optimization Techniques
14:47 Using AI Tools for Content Creation
21:23 Content Planning and Organization
32:13 Community Engagement and Support
Transcript:
[00:00:00] So I'll just share this one screen and then we can go into specifics in any of the topics you'd like.
So this is from the masterclass we did like a couple of weeks back where I talked about like the whole personal branding setup. And I just thought I will, I would share that again because sometimes it's just good to have a repetition. I will not go into all the slides, I will just share it based on this.
So what I have found out over the last five years is, I mean, in general, personal branding is, is the biggest differentiator. And Sarah, we discussed it today. It's a long-term game. It's not branding is nothing that happens overnight. It's really something that you built out over time and you're refining all the time.
Like I'm even still today, refining how I want to be seen. What are the different things, changing the shirts? Like we discussed before Sarah joined, like they're so small nuances that, that you can change and do all over. [00:01:00] Yes. In the end, it's, it's a never-ending journey of, you know, Who you are as an individual how you want to be seen, and how you use your personal brand to be successful in what you're doing.
So it always starts with you, with who you are, who you want to be, what is your story and how do you connect yourself. So this, this star is really, the essence of everything and the rest is really the system that helps you to make this, bring this to life. So I always say you need to build your own hub, which is your own personal website, which is the game changer and everything.
And it was the game changer, in my whole life over the last few years. I mean, I was just sharing it with, um, Sam today when we jumped on a call like I'm getting paid for keynotes and that's only because I have my hub and I use my hub to show what I have done over the past because let's say if I'm posting something, something on social media today, that's invisible in two days from now, maybe in two weeks.[00:02:00]
latest, but in the end, it's gone and because I'm centralizing everything into my hub, it's visible, and people can discover it. And then through that I'm getting speaking engagements, I have clients, and so on. And it's in the same way works, of course, when you are looking for a job, because people can explore you in a different context than just on social media.
So the hub is the personal website. In my case, it's JensHeitland. com. And that's where I put everything. Then it's really about how you build a content system that helps you to produce content that is on your hub, but as well that you then distribute, which is the right side into social media. 'cause there's a discoverability opportunity in social media because it's free, you can share things.
One obvious example is YouTube. Like you can produce YouTube videos and you can store these YouTube videos on YouTube and then use your hub, to let them. [00:03:00] Like let people sort things. So I, for example, a sorting function on my website, I have a search function. I have now connected it to chat GTP in the background where like I can even give access to people on chat GTP to just dig into my videos and content, right?
These are just like AI functionalities in the end, it's everything in your hub. And then it's really combining these things and looking into how do you build a community around what you're doing. Which is, can be as easy as minded people and can be like four or five people or it can be something bigger like we do in this Rising Stars community where we are now plus 200 already in just a couple of weeks and further growing because we're adding more and more people over the next coming weeks.
And that's then the output mechanism is really, the result orientation is really either you do, you want to use it for your career or you want to use it for your own business. And it works in [00:04:00] both ways. That's, that's the brilliant part of this. So I just want to get us all around the table in understanding this perspective.
And we can do a deep dive into anything you would like to dive deeper into in this goal because I'm not going into a masterclass. This is just, let's have a discussion. Let's go into specific things and talk things through. And I can show things live, like how I do this, how we do this, and it can be anything.
You're on mute Sarah. Yeah. I realized I was like, how do you optimize your website for SEO? Okay. Shall we have a look at it? Okay. Because I, mine is not optimized. Okay, let's, so the whole trick, maybe let's start from [00:05:00] blank. That's the easiest. I will just share my screen. We'll share my full screen so that you see what I see.
And it's the easiest. Can you see that? Yes. So if we go to Google, then we put in my name and the number one, whereas it should be in my system is my website. The number three is also my website and then, of course, LinkedIn and, and other social media. But if you see, this is one of the biggest differentiators.
What I have achieved over the last years is wherever you scroll, that's page one. There's no, other than than me, that's page two. There's none other than me. And it's, there are people in this world that have the same name like I have page three. That's our school community. Even that is ranking. So SEO is really, um, search engine [00:06:00] optimization.
So the first three pages, everything about me, I'm not going now to all different pages, but so the whole, The purpose of SEO is how do you, do you give information of intangible things of your website to the search engines? So if you, if you go to your website, obviously you have your, like your website, which is your domain in my case, JensHeitland.
com, but then you have words. So the words that are on your website can be read by the internet. That's easy, but then you have pictures you can, like I uploaded this background photo and this background photo could be named like photo one or photo two. So every photo you upload is, is an indexation. If we go back, maybe just to show it live, these images are showing up because they have the name of Jens Eitland.
associated with it. And of course, now [00:07:00] with all the different possibilities of AI, it will get better and better and better because it's recognizing my face, my hairdresser. But I mean, just look at Google images. All of these photos are named and are linked to my name. And you achieve this in a very, very simple way.
All of those is they are uploaded with my name in context. So when you upload the photo to your website, we go back to my website, this background photo is the name is Jens Heitland, including Jens Heitland. The name of this picture includes Jens Heitland. So that means if, if you have like my podcast, for example, my main podcast, this picture is Jens Heitland.
When I'm uploading it, it includes Jens Heitland, as well. I mean, it's, it's obvious for me because I call like the Jens Heitland [00:08:00] show. It's very easy to name it as well that way. But, if you don't do that, then these pictures will not show up in search engine optimization. So that's, that's an important part.
So pictures are one part, and then you have settings on every page. So a page on your website on, in your hub is this. So, so you're now going, you, you're seeing my homepage. Okay. And this page has an SEO setting. If we go to, like, my speaking page, this page has a different SEO setting. So every page has subsections and, and, uh, like topics that are linked to SEO.
And that's important. I'm just opening up Squarespace, which is my website builder, just to show it how it looks behind the scenes. And it's easier to understand. It's, it's fairly simple. It's not, not too difficult, but we, if we just look at it, let's go to my speaking page, so this is my speaking page. We have you, [00:09:00] you have text, you have the picture, which is my name.
Let's see if we can even see that.
So if we look at, at this and I'm adding it, see Gensideland keynote speaker. So that means that's, that photo is indexed automatically. And then if you go to the site settings, which is in Squarespace, it's here, you have Here as well, like different, that's, of course, the page title, the navigation title and so on, but here you have an SEO section and that's what the internet reads on top of what you have on your website.
There are two versions. One is what is written on your website and the other one, what is, what you want the SEO to see. So what I kept is the title of the page. So the title in my case is called speaking. And what you see is here speaking from the inside lens. So inside of Google, that's, that's literally what you see.
You see, I mean, it almost looks here like Google. [00:10:00] When you look in and then the text here is what you type here. So if I delete this, it will be automatically generated, but I don't want to have random text there, which is something that is on that page. So I give it this text. And that's literally what you do on every single page.
So all of these different pages have this, this background. And the homepage is slightly different, at least in Squarespace, because in SEO you have the main setting of the total domain. But if you, if you look at this one, which is the 20 for the planet fundraiser, I did, it's, it's exactly the same. So I, I want this text to be visible when I'm posting something.
On social media, important as well, when you have your own website, you can define what is in the preview. Like when you share a link somewhere on social media, you can in Squarespace, it's, it's [00:11:00] here. You can add that here. And I think it's similar in other website builders as well. So I wanted to have this picture in this case, or if we go to my speaking page.
I wanted to have a specific picture as well, which is this. So I want, just wanted them to see, okay, book Jens Seidland for a keynote and then they click on it and then they end up at my website. These I think are the essentials for SEO. So it's really, every single word that is on your website.
That's maybe a good reminder for me to show you this. So I have my podcast. And one of the things why this is ranking properly, I mean, this is a blog format where every, every piece of this is a separate page. So this is like the blog post from today. And the episode is called this. We have a short description of the episode, which is a summary.
And then we have the links. [00:12:00] That's another way of indexation on the internet. That's not SEO, but it is connected to crawling. So like I'm not a professional SEO developer, but what I know is that. At least Google is indexing all the links I have. So I have a link to the Apple podcast. I have a link to Spotify, Amazon, and YouTube podcasts.
So mapping the internet, um, Google knows that there are different links. And of course, I'm adding the videos here as well. Important. What I do here, which nobody sees because nobody scrolls that far. We're adding every transcript. So the video transcript of this episode is inside of my website, which means that's why when you put in chat GTP, my name, who is Jens Heitland, it gives you all the context.
Like you can ask ChatGTP today for quotes that I did and it gives you a quote, which is super funny. [00:13:00] Um, it's just super powerful. And I do this in the same way with the long, long-form episodes. So if you look at, the interviews I do, like this one, for example, it was with Alistair, who was the former CFO of the Total IKEA group.
I did the whole transcript. And that bought them here too. And then here I kept the numbers. And it's like at one minute, Alistair was saying this, Jens was saying this. And I kept this because you can ask one day, chat GTP. What did Alistair say in 25 minutes into Jen's podcast interview? It's maybe not working right now, but in the future, it's definitely possible.
That's why I kept this in. So you, even just by having this text on the website, the indexing session works 10 times better. And then of course, every single, every single separate [00:14:00] podcast episode or blog post in this case has then as well an SEO section and, and the name of it and the image. So through that they're then popping up inside of search engines.
It doesn't matter if you use Google or any of the others. So that's, SEO, a little bit more questions, or anything you struggle with.
I can go, this is, this is useful for me and I'll, I'll implement it because I kind of, you explained it in the masterclass, but I kind of forgot about it or I didn't prioritize it. So that's good. And also you use to, uh, for the transcripts you use, do you have a program that you use specifically? It's also your resources.
It is. So [00:15:00] we use, uh, Descript. I can maybe just show it just because it's so brilliant. I use it for ages, like years. And the quality is good? Super good. So I will share my desktop and it's always good.
So Descript is an AI video cutting tool, which you, I mean, in the end, it's, it's, that's how it looks. It's not anything too special, but if we just go into my daily podcast, so it's transcribing the video automatically, and then you're cutting the video by deleting text. So it's not old school video cutting, it's, it's like you work in a text document and then it's cutting the video.
That's so useful. Yeah. So the videos you see, at least the older versions, I think. Since last week, we have had a new video editor who is taking care of [00:16:00] things. But until that, it's all cut with this. And the transcript is 100%. Like there's very, very seldom. And you can just download the transcript from here.
I do this with everything. Like here, almost all of my videos are here. If you go to. Um, even then, the rising stars community videos, like our last, um, don't matter. Like this one was the last version. So I automatically like this, this is the whole cut version, of me doing the masterclass. And I mean, it's not properly cut because it's just like the recording of it and it's not done for YouTube or anything, but in the end, I have every single word I've said, and I can just copy-paste it, into my website.
If we just go there, Let's show you the example, because what I always do, I [00:17:00] duplicate everything I'm posting that is like videos and so on into my website. So, just to show this live, resources, and this one is in my blog, so I have a separate blog, see here. This, this are the master classes, and then.
Usually, there should be the transcript as well, as you see here. So the whole masterclass, if you ask ChatGTP again in five years from now, how do you lead difficult conversations at work? How, how did Jens Seidlant do that? How would Jens Seidlant do that? And you just ask this question, the engine will start running and you will get the input.
Which is super cool. And it also works for translations. It works. They, just have added a new feature. I've not tested it that you can do it in different languages. So you, you can even it's so far if you allow it because I have allowed it to recognize my [00:18:00] voice. So I can now type and then it's creating the audio.
Like I can type hello, Sarah, without me saying a single word. And then it's, it's, it's playing the audio and they're working on a version right now. If you have uploaded enough videos inside of it, they can replicate me almost like if I'm talking and I'm typing, like I'm saying something wrong and then you type it and it's overdubbing my voice and it's changing my mouth even.
So great. Deep fake stuff. It's crazy.
Yeah. That's just, that's a game changer. When I started going into this tool rather than any other tool because you have everything at once with text overlays and you can cut properly like YouTube videos, everything. Is it free? No. But it costs like 30, 30 or something. It's not that crazy [00:19:00] expense and they have different plans.
Depends on the amount of videos. Like I do a video everyday video. So it's a little more on my side.
Any more questions? Chat. Sorry. I didn't see the chat. Yes, Sarah, that's an AI tool and it's paid. You already answered it.
I did it on my website. I'm not using AI tools right now. So for everyone that is just listening, Sarah is asking in total, what are the different AI tools you use on your website? What's the total cost like we, we mainly use only chat GTP and, and descript and I mean, that's not inside of the website, but to produce all of what we were doing.
Oh, not true. And we use, what is this? The, [00:20:00] the, the chat GTP of Google, Gemini, Gemini, exactly. Yeah. So those are the main tools we're using right now. No, they work perfectly. Like if you look for keywords, what does Kholoud find out. Um, I think two, two or three weeks ago, it's better to use, um, Google because they're better in keyword search production than ChatGTP.
But in the end, I think it's just. Easy to use tools, especially when you create original content, like I'm talking to the camera, anyhow, transcribing it and then using that, Hey, can you write me a summary? It's amazing what you can do, with these things. And then you just, you have the video, like I have in my, in my blog post, or like we even have in the community, like there's the video and then you have the summary of the video.
The summary is always produced by AI these days, at least for us.[00:21:00]
Any more questions? I know it's a huge topic.
Any bottleneck? Are you something you're scared about?
I can share one. Um, yeah, well, something that we discussed before, how overwhelming it can be at the beginning, the content production, because if you have like a podcast or something that generates, uh, content, it's easier. But if you need to come up with something to post, I think at the beginning is a bit overwhelming.
But what I learned in only two weeks, Is that by sitting one day doing an Excel file, organizing, um, a bit like Jen suggested, no, by topic, what can I write about? Yeah. Uh, what do I know? What are my skills? Then you can brainstorm and have that [00:22:00] as a, as a guiding line. And it actually relieves and suddenly it doesn't feel, That's like a burden.
It feels like, okay, I have this plan today. I'll post about this. No, or you can schedule. So it feels good after a couple of weeks, you get a hang of it. Even if it doesn't look like it at the beginning. Yeah, exactly. Maybe I can share that as well. Just, just, just for everyone who is watching the recording, just sharing my screen again.
So what we have is we have, I mean, this is like all my content and documentary from the last years. But just to give you an example, this is my daily podcast with all the YouTube links and shorts links and so on from a production. What Sarah just mentioned, what I have is I have five different themes and I focus mainly on these five and then I have still two extra, but what I'm doing is I have mindset and goal setting, networking, personal branding, leadership, increase your [00:23:00] influence, my story and leadership topics again.
So this is twice. But what I do is like, I just write down keywords for me and then I produce from those keywords. I mean, this is my real video, like short-term video production. So that's the script that, that I'm using them to produce the video that goes like, of course, more into details. But in the end, everything starts with a sentence like this, like put the work in, in, and out.
achieve your dream. That's kind of my trigger. And I write these things down over time. Like if you go further down, you will see, see some brainstorming topics. Now for me, usually we are not producing this week. Um, and then there are different colors, but that's, that's, it's always the same structure. So from a sentence, go to the script and then go to the recording, of the video.
And yeah, I have different versions of that for other topics in the same way. In the end, it's. [00:24:00] It's always like, how do you set yourself up for success so that you create a production schedule that helps you not run out of content? And just for me, it's like having this. In, my case, seven areas, but if you just limit it to five, it's very easy.
So you have every day something to talk about without having a lot of stress or anxiety because you can just brainstorm as you go, with your content. It's very funny. You're so organized. Mine is chaotic for the moment. I need to find my way into the five topics that I haven't found yet. I'm exploring, but it's very funny.
Yours is like so clean and neat. I do this for a couple of years. I mean, this is, it's a long, long term work and learning and doing all the mistakes as well. Because the tricky thing is just like, like we have all YouTube videos on all from all my channels. Because I have several YouTube channels always [00:25:00] with the topic and the link because like if you have like on my main YouTube channel with the Jens Heidland show like 1700 videos you will never be able to find anything anymore and just if you have it in an Excel table you can just search and then you find the link and then you can use the link again.
Yes, that's the German nerd. No, I might take some of that. Because, yeah, well, I'm exploring at the moment, now it's more chaos, it's like ideas here, there, topics, it grows on some different lines. But yeah, I think it's good to see yours so clean. I can get there. It's just easier because then you can just follow the structure without like Taking a lot of time in production.
I have the same, like when it comes to YouTube videos, I have, I mean, it's then more text-based, so it's in a Word document, but I have the ideas I have here as well. So I'm adding the ideas and one of the [00:26:00] YouTube videos I want to record. And then I, when I know it's production time, then I take this idea and then put it into a structure, which is like, Well, I have a script for every YouTube video that I do where I follow the same logic so that I, I mean, to, to feed the YouTube algorithm, you need to do slightly different things.
And then I just repeat the same script searching, for the keywords and everything before I start to record. So the script is done before I record and then I record and then it's going into production. And how, which questions do you ask yourself to get those five key topics? Or, yeah, five, seven in your case, for me, it's very easy because this is like, if you have seen it, it's the same topics like we have in the community.
So I have, I mean, I have even more, but this, these are the five essentials. So I just look into, for me, it [00:27:00] was, what are the things that I enjoy talking about and what helped me? So it sounds weird, but I do a lot of content just for myself is what I've understood that If you do something that you need and what, where you dig deeper into you want to learn more about, then you produce it, then you are getting more knowledge about it and there's more knowledge you get about it, um, as easier it gets plus you, you enjoy.
The whole thing is, is for, for me, it's really like I have talked about leadership for more than a year now in, depth and sometimes it's so detailed that it's too com too too complicated for some people and sometimes it's so high. That is. as well too complicated for some people. So you can say the same thing in 20 different ways.
That's also the fascinating thing. Because like social media is so fast that people don't see what you have said half a year ago. Like I could post now the [00:28:00] same exact content like I posted last year at this time and nobody would ever get it. I'm pretty sure. That's another fascinating thing. I think it's like that, uh, like for many companies, they, they do that.
They take the same from the previous year, change the picture perhaps. Yeah. And to Sarah's topic, creating unique and daily content can be a challenge. I agree. It is. That's why I have this, this system, uh, built up so that I'm dropping always things into, into the, into this. And what I do, like when I'm reading books.
It's not, no, it's here. So I try not to have my phone next to the bed. So when I'm reading, I'm just taking sticky notes these days. And I just write down like ideas just, just to keep, because if I, if I am too inspired when I go to bed, I can't sleep. I, [00:29:00] at least for me, it's like, it just says yesterday I listened to Tony Robbins and that's just an example.
It's just the word decision because he talked about the importance of decision-making. And when you make a decision, then you move things forward, which fits a hundred percent to my mindset topic. So I can just repurpose what he said in, this. So I get a lot of. inspiration from books, from podcasts, because I listen to podcasts almost every day.
Um, and sometimes really random under-the-shower moments where it's like, Oh my God, that's a cool topic. And of course, through the community, getting questions, seeing what I also do is I always take screenshots from interesting posts. Like, posts that hook me somehow, I take screenshots and then document them for myself because then I can replicate them just with my angle.
Sometimes it's a post about, let's say, bodybuilding or running or whatever and it's like, oh my, that's a cool way of saying it. And then I just [00:30:00] use that and say it in my context and with my values and who I am is still different. Even if you like one of the leadership experts in this world is Simon Sinek.
Even if we talk about the exact same thing, because we have, we have different backgrounds and different superpowers, as I always say, it's still different. Even if it's contextual, the same thing, leadership and whatever, or listening, it's, it's still different because I have different experiences. I tell a different story.
So I get a lot inspired by other people. And to, to, to the next part is how do you keep the inspiration flowing? It's like, for me, it's just, just explore. Because in the end, like a piece of content, if you take my case, like a daily video, it's just 60, 60 seconds. It's. It's just like a spark of something and then I, I just test these things [00:31:00] and that's, that's maybe an interesting one again, more from a strategy perspective.
What we do is we post my daily videos first on, on TikTok. So I see how they're performing and then I combine different TikTok videos into one longer-form video. One of my last videos on a real YouTube video was the networking, um, YouTube video. And you will see if you pay attention, these are all smaller clips that I did with single like the selfie tip and, the phone hack and all of these are a single smaller short-form video.
So we tested all of them in, in, in, in TikTok, and then I can use them and, and put them into a real video. So that's another expert hack.
Any more questions? I know we're a small world.[00:32:00]
Nothing. I
mean, we, we have the community. I will drop this, into the community as well. You're always welcome like Sarah as well to reach out and ask questions inside of the community, especially, on topics there where, where you think like, maybe that's not something for everyone. It is. In the end, it's like a lot of people have the same question, like the AI tools, are you with the SEO?
That's an easy answer because I have done it for the last five years. I'm not an expert that can like be the expert when it comes to SEO or AI tools. I can just tell what works for me and what's the easiest way to do it in, my experience. And always happy to share. And we have so many people in the community now, there will be maybe experts in specific needs that can tell you way more than I can like we see with the post today, [00:33:00] like what are the leadership problems you have faced or things like there are people talking about it.
We can help each other. That's what the whole community aspect is about.
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Transcript:
Personal development masterclass. One of the topics that's dear to my heart, because of what I have seen over the last 15 years is that personal development is quite seldom in organizations. It's not really taken, uh, in a proper way, at least in my eyes. So that's why I'm really keen on sharing this today.
So we have two. main perspectives. One or two topics for today. One is personal development talk versus performance evaluation. And then we do a deep dive into how I'm doing personal development talks. And then we do questions in the end. Personal development. So we have one part, which is the personal development talk, and then we have the performance evaluation.
And a lot of organizations, focus on performance evaluation. And the difference between those two is that the performance evaluation, the main part they are focusing on, or the main source of that is the company. So the company is on the top. And from there, it goes into, the individuals and the different tasks that need to be done to accomplish what's happening in the company, what is required to do to be done in the company.
And the individual that is doing the task is the last point. And then inside of the performance evaluation, you're looking backward. So you look, how did this person perform in the past? The development talk is the opposite. So the most important part of the. Development talk is the future. Where does the person want to be in the future?
And it has nothing to do with the outcome of the company or where the company wants to be. The goal of this is, and why, why do this personal development talk? I believe that if we are developing people in organizations beyond what the organization needs, they will contribute more to the company. They will contribute better.
So the goal of what I'm doing with development talks is finding out what the people desire and going deeper into that. And we will have a look at that in the next couple of slides. And then look, what are the different tasks of the organizations that fit the person and what the person wants to be. And then you marry these two things.
And then it works as well from a performance evaluation perspective. So that's my perspective on development talk and performance evaluation. Let's go into personal development talk a couple of, I think it's almost two years ago or something. I've developed this in as, as a worksheet. So if anyone is interested in getting this worksheet as a PDF.
Happy to share that. So, the starting point of a development talk is really a setup of the atmosphere and the place. So you are going to do a development talk with another person. So you are the manager and the, the other person is like reporting to you and then you're meeting up. So what you need to make sure of is that you have, an appropriate place.
The best case is always doing this outside of the office environment in a. In a place where people feel well, the atmosphere is super important. The time of the day is important, not doing it on Friday afternoon, for example, when people want to go on the weekend, of course, you need to be aware of your relationship with the other person, depending on how deep your relationship is.
You of course have then a perspective on how deep you can go. And how much that is. And then what is important as well is that you put the note-taking responsibility to the person that is inside the room or is working with you. So me as a leader, I always give the note taking responsibility for the other person because then you see what they understand and what they get out of that.
And then I always do as well. A version in front of us so that people understand this. So printing out this worksheet as an example, if you do that in a physical space, then you print it out and then you go into the development talk. And the starting point of the development talk goes really wide.
Looking into what's the personal vision like. I always ask these as open questions without showing them the worksheet in the beginning. Who do you want to be? And that's very, very, very wide. Like, who do you want to be? What does it mean? Some people who have never had a conversation like this, struggle with this.
So they start with, yeah, I want to be a manager. I want to be something specific. So they go very, very, very specific and they don't really look into the future. So the first round of this, I just, Help them to find out who they want to be and they write down, they write down a manager. I want to be a good father.
I want to be whatever they come up with. And then I go to the next question and I show them the next question, not before. So why do you want to be that person? So then they're reflecting on the answers they have given and then they go back and refine who they want to go to be. And that's an interesting process because what.
You as the manager that is holding this development talk are doing, you're literally shutting up and just asking open questions to tell me more. How, how does that feel? What does that look like? What would that look like in the future? So you only ask open ended question when that gets the person talking and reflecting.
So if you're saying this, what does it mean? So, and then they're explaining, explaining, and they go in a loop between who am I going to be? And why do I want to be that person? So until they have clarity, and the first loop is always. The starting point where they don't know what's going to come, then who am I going to be?
They come up with high-level topics and then they go, Why do I want to be that person? Then they go back to Who am I going to be? And then they go deeper. And I always then give them a perspective. Okay, think about five years, 10 years from now, who do you want to be? And then they go more particular in all of these things.
And then we go, we don't close this, we keep it, we put it aside. And then we go to the next sheet, which is a personal development map. So I want them again to reflect on certain questions. And it doesn't matter in the order, I just take them clockwise right now. But it's really going and answering the specific questions.
What do I want to learn? So you're asking this, the person that is in front of you. So what do you want to learn to be that person? So linking it back to that person of the future. And then you're asking, what do you want to improve? And then they come up with things. So it's, it's like writing down the, all the different topics and then what do I want to leave behind?
And then they come back with topics that they want to leave behind. Another question is what excites you? Yeah. And then going deeper into this, who is important to them? And then what is important to them? And when you have done this circle, you go around it and they were deeper in this topic.
What quite often happens then if you ask them, so how, if we go back to the other one, is that still the same thing you want to be? Because they have now clarified what they want to be. and answer the question, they go back to this one and then clarify, no, no, no, I want to be this, I want to be this. What I always ask them, in this part is to paint a picture.
So when, when we have finished with this one, I go back to this one. And say, from a personal vision perspective, imagine a picture and describe the picture that you see on the wall. And then they describe to me who they want to be and who they are going to strive to be inside of a picture and explain everything that is around them.
I've had, for example, a person that told me where they are going to live, what, how it feels, um, in this picture, where the kids in this picture, where the wife or husband and, and going really into details and then linking this to. A job perspective as well, because in the end, we are at least this part is in a job environment.
So they are linking that to the job environment of who they're going to be working with as well. So these two are super powerful. And then you go into the next step, which is a goal perspective. So it starts with the staircase. So in the top right corner, we have what is the goal. And the starting point is really, um, defining that goal.
So if you want to be this person in five years, what is the goal for the next year for you to be very specific? And of course, you can do smart goal setting and all of that, but it's in the end, What does feel right for that person? What is the development goal they want to reach in one year from now?
And then they formulate that goal. And then you go to the bottom of this page where you look into where do you stand today on a scale from one to 10. So they're rating themselves on how close are they to that goal. If they're close, then they're at 10 or 9. If they're far away, then they're at 1. And what always happens is they're somewhere in between, obviously.
So when they have rated that, then you look into what are the things that get you closer to that goal, meaning moving your scale from 5 to 10. And that's what they are writing down above the stairs. So, above the stairs are the things that are getting them closer to their goal. And then they're defining this in bullet points and formulating that out.
And [you do that obviously all in a conversation. You ask the person who is doing the development talk, you are asking them questions to get them moving. You're asking them clarifying questions about the topics that are put, into the sheet. And then the next part is, what are the things that getting you further away from that goal?
So downstairs, if you think at it from a staircase perspective, and then they're writing these things down and then they have a clear picture of a goal staircase where they, they know they want, where they want to be linking that to the vision that's five years from now and the goal picture, and then they rate themselves.
And have then clear understanding of that are the things I need to do to get to my goal and that are the things I should not be doing. And then the last step of the development talk is getting specific. So now we zoom into one year and actionable goals that help them or tasks that get them towards the one-year perspective.
So what are the things they're going to do? When are they going to do this? What do they need to make happen to be able to do this? What are the things they need help with and how I'm, how they going to measure them? So it's a very, very simple setup where they write down literally the different steps that help them to get there.
And they're putting measurable goals towards the goal. And this is roughly. I would say one and a half hours, even if we go through this right now in a theoretical setting in, let's say 15 minutes in a real conversation, in a coaching style, where you ask the manager or coach the other person to find out what they are desiring and where they want to be.
It takes roughly one and a half hours if you do that well, sometimes it's faster depending on the relationship as well. The fascinating thing with this is it has zero to do with the company you work in and one hundred percent to do with who they want to be. And as well as zero to do with you as their manager, if you're their manager, like your perspective, your opinion on anything of that.
Um, just to give you a couple of examples, I've had people that told me that they want to be. building their own company in the next five years and they worked in the company and I was their manager they told me because they trusted me that they wanted to build their own company and we built a plan for how they were going to build their own company and I've had situations where people told me that they want to get married in the next five years and then we built a plan to get them towards marriage getting married and looked into how that does that work with the career perspective same with kids and all the other things so this is a development tool you That I use with everyone that is working with me over time because I believe that as further we as managers and organizations help people to develop as better it is.