What Do You Have to Say For Yourself? (JHP Day 10)

I think every time I come back to this blog now, I come at it with a newfound focus. This is the second weekend I’ve spent in the JHP challenge, just trying to post something everyday. And honestly, coming at it with this perspective that I have something to write by default, gives me the drive to go and find it. Over the past few days, it's really spurred me on, to find the things that I value speaking about.

Hence, the title of this post - a question I like to think about a lot nowadays - and a call to action for everyone reading this, who's ever thought of blogging/posting/sharing any other type of content online. Start creating, and you'll figure out what it is you've made.

The more I consider writing on this blog in the future, 5 or 10 years down the line, the more it makes me think - what do I actually want this to look like? This website, or personal brand if you could call it that - what do I want to be able to give to you all, that will actually help you in your own lives?

I've been continuing to listen to Amelia Sordell's 'Branded' podcast, hearing interviews from CEOs, heads of marketing and other professionals at these amazing companies. Here's another one I listened to today:

My biggest takeaways from it had to do with setting goals for the kind of business you want to develop long into the future, based off of your own personal objectives - and the idea that it's important to think about these things very early on.

The more I've listened to Amelia, the more I've found out how much of an advocate she and the people she invites to her podcast are, for creating a personal brand. The idea that you have to begin to think of it in the same way you would a business, which solves a problem in the world for it's audience. I've mentioned this in a previous post, but it's slowly sinking in for me, and has left me with some important lessons to take forward about what I want to achieve.

I always find it really interesting having these conversations in 'the public eye' so to speak, because as someone who listens to insights from creators and businesspeople often, it feels like those processes that they go through early on in their journeys are completely behind closed doors. Those early days are the ones I find most interesting, because they're the most relatable for me, as someone who's never achieved success like that, and wants to get to that level in my own way.

A part of my whole mindset regarding the documentation process of my hobbies on this website was very much affected by the need to create a space to share things from the ground up. And that’s what I’m trying to do. I’ve mentioned wanting to start a YouTube channel before, to close friends and family, but I’ve never been able to make the jump, purely out of a fear to take the next step and show myself on camera. It seems like that would be the next leap for me - one that many people choose not to make, but that I think is necessary for my own development.

To someone reading this after I post, maybe even years down the line, who finds themselves in a similar situation, wanting to make an impact but being hit by all this self doubt, I'm hoping that the journey I’m going on and documenting through with these blog posts right now will be inspiring.

So what am I planning?

At the moment, I already feel quite booked up with work I've committed to, with university work, my internship and little projects here and there. But the truth is, the idea of setting up some sort of platform for myself online, in the way that I've done here, has always appealed to me.

I also think that the kind of platform I want to build is similar to the work I already do day to day, or at university, with regards to teaching people about engineering and sharing resources. As I go further in my studies at university and in my career, I'm finding my passion in specific aspects of engineering. At the same time, I'm getting a better appreciation for the field as a whole, as well as all the routes that are available to me.

I want to create a community that benefits from resources based around that. As an 18/19 year old going to university in lockdown, where there was little-to-no in person support available, and I had to resort to searching online to learn more about my course and my degree - I felt like there was such a large gap of information with regards to what engineers actually did. I suppose I want to solve that problem for the students starting their degrees in the future, including those coming in September.

One of my biggest inspirations for it has been a YouTube creator called Sagar Shah - another (former) engineering student from the university of Sheffield, who documented his own journey as an engineer at the university, and creates content about software engineering, aerospace and other topics. Here's a link to his channel:

As someone who's gotten a lot out of his videos, and others like this, I think I'd want to continue down that path and share my own experience for people coming into engineering today.

It's fun to imagine that these might be the early days of a journey that I go on as I get older and more knowledgeable about these things - how to write, how to give value to you guys, my readers, and how to become someone that I can be proud of in the future.

On the off chance that you've read something on here and loved it, or want to read more, feel free to shoot me a message on my socials:

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The feedback helps massively. Thanks!