57. Part 1: On Building a Work Life after Corporate Life with Kathy Oneto & Philip VanDusen

Overview

In this episode, I’m excited to be joined by my good friend and mentor, Philip VanDusen, whose been on the podcast with me two times before. Philip comes back to join me for this 5-part series on Building a Work Life after Corporate Life. How do you leave corporate and move into self-employment or starting a business? Our intent with this series is to create a guide to going out on your own.

This became a topic for The Sustainable Ambition Podcast based on a listener request, and I thought who better to discuss this with than Philip. Both of us have had 25+ year careers in Corporate and then went out on our own and even have a shared journey on our post-Corporate path that we’ll share along the way.

The series will be aired here on The Sustainable Ambition Podcast, as well as on Philip’s podcast, Brand Design Masters.

In Part 1 of the series, we talk about the importance of building your personal and professional brand before you go out on your own.

In this conversation, we discuss why this topic is of interest, our own personal experiences with leaving Corporate despite loving our experience working on the inside, the importance of lifting your head up and considering the outside world even while you’re still employed, and how to think about building your professional and personal brand. Or, if the “branding” terminology makes you uncomfortable, just think about it as building your reputation and how you want people to think about you as your best self.

Philip - as always, I love being in conversation with you. Looking forward to Part 2 in the series! Next up: Recognizing it’s time to go and how to go.

More About Our Guest

Philip VanDusen is a creative entrepreneur and owner of Verhaal Brand Design a branding agency based in New Jersey, USA. As a thought leader, Philip shares his expertise in marketing, design and entrepreneurship on YouTube to his 250k subscribers, in his Brand•Muse newsletter, on the Brand Design Masters podcast, and in his Brand Design Masters Facebook community.

In his career, Philip has led creative teams on both the client and agency-sides— serving as VP of Design for PepsiCo and Old Navy and Executive Creative Director at the iconic branding firm Landor Associates. Past clients include a host of Fortune 100 companies.

Topics Covered

  • Why is this topic of “Leaving Corporate” or “Work Life after Corporate Life” of interest to Kathy and Philip?

  • We share our personal experiences in leaving Corporate. What pulled us each out of Corporate life?

  • We also make note that working in Corporate is not a bad thing! Neither of us would trade our experiences working within companies.

  • Philip talks about the employee mindset and how so many of us, especially in the U.S., put our identity in our job and our title. We talk about how jumping out of Corporate ends up asking us to redefine our identity, which can be a challenge for people.

  • Philip also advocates for people to lift their heads up “outside of the cubicle wall,” if you will, to see what’s happening in the work world outside of the Corporate structure.

    • “What I really want people to take away is if you are currently employed, raise your head above that old cubicle wall to understand that there is an outside. There is another way of doing things. Take just a moment and start to look at people who are operating independently out there to see what is possible.” - Philip VanDusen

  • We delve into personal and professional branding and the importance of building a brand throughout one’s career and especially as you think about jumping to work out on your own.

  • Kathy and Philip start to break down how you can think about building your professional and personal brand.

    • “What we're really talking about here [with personal branding] is just building your reputation. What do you want to be known for? And what should people be expecting? We talk about brands as being a promise. So, what are you promising? Essentially, if people interact with you, what should they expect?” - Kathy Oneto

    • I want to encourage people to set an intention around [personal branding] and to raise this topic as an awareness for yourself.... Another way of thinking about it is: how do I want to show up as my best self every day? ...And that's really what your brand is: it’s being your best self. - Kathy Oneto

Resources Mentioned

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57. Part 1: On Building a Work Life after Corporate Life with Kathy Oneto & Philip VanDusen

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