Over the past two weeks, through the #Interest Spiral course offered by Fresh Time Books, I reflected on my journey with #personal branding. This half year has really seen more and more different types of creators emerging, and I've felt the pressure intensifying. As the saying goes, poverty limits imagination, and lack of knowledge often makes people think they're already sufficient. But when you think you've reached the top of the tower, you look up and see a skylight waiting for you to climb through to another world—and it might not even be high enough, making it difficult just to squeeze through that window⋯⋯

"When everyone is discussing personal branding, what distinctive features and irreplaceability do you have?", For content creators who already have loyal fans, asking them to look back and say "I'm building my personal brand" "Personal branding is so important!" It's easy for such rhetoric to influence public perception and create an impression that this person has "successfully built a personal brand," even if they never thought that way originally. This is the flexible growth mindset of moving with the times. For someone like me, comparatively speaking, I have almost no advantage—I might even be a joke.

Always reflecting on almost everything, during the class I used the #Life Design Cards provided by teacher #Zhang Xici to discover my irreplaceability, and it lies in "media industry." Although the public has a poor impression of it, this is an opportunity—a chance for the public to better understand this field.

Reflecting back, I've been a new media editor, editor; worked as a television news reporter assisting the online news department in providing columns, and now I'm a feature reporter for a print magazine. Few people in the media industry have this kind of experience, because the mindsets are completely different. Even if each of these experiences lasted only a year or two, the media landscape doesn't change much, so cross-industry experience in media has actually become an advantage.

Of course, media experience has also given me firsthand knowledge of the industry and market, networking connections and communication skills, and even the ability to bridge different fields. This course also helped me reassess my own resources.

I was fortunate to cover the "education beat," and many people think education is a niche topic. But the more I covered it, the more interested I became. Education is needed everywhere. Many people might think education is limited to the K-12 school system, but for me, I've actually come to reflect on the limitations K-12 brings.

I happen to be in the first cohort of the Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum, much like the white rats in today's ongoing debate over the 12-Year National Education Curriculum. Textbooks from the National Institute of Compilation and Translation unexpectedly became different versions from Kang Hsuan, San Min, and Han Lin. I couldn't borrow my older sister's books, and couldn't discuss material with good friends from other schools.

Nine years of the integrated curriculum from first grade to ninth grade in confusion and bewilderment—and then we became the first cohort to use different publishers' exam questions for the university entrance exam. I even had to study textbooks from other schools. Basically impossible to prepare thoroughly⋯ Suffice it to say, an utterly chaotic education system, and I don't even remember what I learned 😔😔😔

Not to mention I chose science in high school⋯⋯and attended evening university classes while basically just making videos without studying. The skills and knowledge actually needed when entering the workforce were only realized after I got into the workplace and discovered what I lacked. It was as if I knew nothing, so I could only buy books myself to absorb the author's life wisdom, or attend lectures and purchase online or offline courses to fill the gaps in my life⋯⋯

I think the path of personal branding is a journey of continuous learning. Starting from what you're good at and what you like as a core point, expanding outward to absorb the knowledge and skills you lack; going back to refine your abilities from things you want to do but haven't yet tried. Once these skills continue to layer and accumulate, you become irreplaceable—not by constantly saying "I'm special" until you become special, but by continuously challenging new things, integrating your abilities and insights. That's how you polish yourself into someone irreplaceable.

Postscript:

  1. Because I learned about Zhang Xici in the first year City Nomad was just launched, and I happened to have attended overseas events with her poetry idol younger brother, so we had a small connection. Being able to take her class and personally feel her warmth was truly incomparably wonderful 😍😍😍

  2. After using the Life Design Cards, I immediately messaged the organizer to sign up for the instructor training course. Wait for me to graduate!

  3. On that day, I introduced myself using a lucky number—I chose 37, because March 7th is the day I created my WordPress, and the world changed so much after that day 😌

  4. The girl next to me that day was a 19-year-old who took a break from university. She wanted to write and asked me many questions. I forgot to add her on Facebook that day—I hope you'll message me

【Lecture | Interest Spiral Series Course】 https://newsveg.tw/product-category/興趣