Ep.71- Reinvent Yourself through Personal Branding with Urmi Hossain

In this episode, Lia is joined by Urmi Hossain, who works in the financial industry and is a speaker and ambassador for women in finance. Today they explore the power of personal branding and how it can open doors and unlock opportunities. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, Urmi shares valuable insights on finding your own unique niche and starting the personal branding journey with confidence.

This episode is sponsored by Lunarherbals.com, where you can find natural wellness products to support your bliss life. -- Use code Lia10 for $10 off your first order.

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Host: Lia Bliss on LinkedIn and Instagram

Guest: Urmi Hossain on LinkedIn

Find Lia’s book here: Everything Is Your Fault by Lia Bliss

Podcast Manager: Kimberly Smith

Transcript

You’re listening to Master Your Bliss Life. Join Kiera Masters and Lia Bliss as they dive into the magical, mysterious, and mundane elements of life, helping you to master your purpose and find your bliss.

Lia:

Will record. Yes. Here we go. I think again, all of my guests, every single time they come on this podcast, they're like, Wait, are we recording yet? Did you do it? Oh, no. So I'm joined by Urmi Hussain. She is an author, an entrepreneur, a speaker, a knower of things, a writer of to-do lists. What else? How would you self-proclaim your accomplishments? How do you describe yourself?

Urmi:

I don't have a word to describe it. I feel like I need one word that encompasses everything because every time I feel like I'm making a list, like my to-do list of what I am, I'm always saying I'm a speaker, I'm a mentor, I'm a self-published author, I work in finance, I'm a blogger in YouTube. And I feel like the list doesn't end, but I feel like I need one thing, one word that encompasses everything, but I don't have that yet.

Lia:

There's no word that reminds me of that Beyonce song Diva, where she's like, Diva is the female version of a hustler. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's it. You're a diva.

Urmi:

I can be a diva. There you go.

Lia:

You're a diva. Hell yeah. Okay, so we wanted to talk about well, we didn't know what we want to talk about, and then we ended up talking about to do lists because we quickly realized that we are soul sisters in the to do list. Creating even to do nothing is on the to do list.

Urmi:

Yes, it is. No, it is. And I feel like I can't even when I have an empty spot on my calendar, I have to do something so I find out what to do. And I don't like to watch TV. Like, for instance, it's hard for me to sit down and just watch TV and do nothing. I feel like it's such a wasted time.

Lia:

It gives me anxiety. I'm like, what could I be doing right now?

Urmi:

Yeah, exactly. So I go for a walk or I go for a run, but to stay in front of the TV for.

Lia:

An hour, I can't I try to justify it like, oh, let me tell you this. That happened. So I've been, like, watching this TV show with my boyfriend, Yellowstone, right? It's about the cowboys and Indians in Montana. And I was like, okay, this is quality time. This is right, like, relationship building. So I'm like, okay, I can justify sitting here and watching, like, we're eating, we're spending time together. Great. This asshole watched two seasons without me. That's like, relationship rule number one, don't watch the show without me. So now I'm like, we have no shows. We almost broke up. It not really, but he was in trouble.

Urmi:

Yeah, I get it. Well, you know what? I started on a Korean show on Netflix, and these Korean shows are so long, they are like an hour long, and they have, like, 16 episodes. And me and my coworkers started together to watch them. So she watches at her home, I watch it at my place. And every time we were trying to catch up, she's like, oh. I'm like, at the episode 14 me. I'm like, oh, I'm at episode six too. And she already finished it. And she's like, oh, did you finish? I'm like, no, I'm still stuck there. And I don't know if I'm going to I don't even know how I'm going to go forward with that because it's just so long that I'm like, I can't I can do so many other things.

Lia:

Yes, it's so hard. I got dental surgery last week. It's the worst. Never wished it on anyone, but I had to just take it easy for a couple of days. And taking it easy is awful. Doing nothing, laying there, not doing 100%. I don't know how to do it. But you do 100% on everything, right? You said YouTuber blogger, you work in finance, you self published, you're doing all this female empowerment. That's how we connected. Female empowerment. That's what we're here about, right? The Hot Girls, we're here for you.

Urmi:

On your box.

Lia:

The book that you wrote. Talk to me about your empowerment book, because how many books have you published?

Urmi:

No, only one. And then I have two ebooks.

Lia:

Two ebooks, okay, so talk to me about your ebook, about the personal branding, because I am constantly maybe it's because maybe my astrology somewhere makes me this way, but I'm like, OOH, reinvent myself. Yes, let's do it. So you had this whole personal branding journey that you went on, so talk to me about how that went.

Urmi:

Yeah, so basically I would say that everyone has a personal brand. We're just not aware of it. Like, you're a brand, I'm a brand. Everyone is a brand.

Lia:

Okay. Yes, you have it whether you like.

Urmi:

It or not, whether you know yeah, exactly. You have it. Like the skills, expertise that you can bring. It's unique to you. I don't have what you have, for instance. And what happened with me is, I think unconsciously I was doing personal branding. I was not aware of what it was. And then I started to read more about it and I was like, oh, I'm doing all of these things, so I'm actually doing my own personal branding. And then I was like, let me just Google myself.

Lia:

It all starts with a Google.

Urmi:

Let me Google myself. And I was like, oh, crap. I have done a lot, and there's a lot of things about me out there. And so it actually started with one little step, which was literally I had to get out of my comfort zone. I was never comfortable doing all this personal branding being out there. And it was when I started with my LinkedIn profile. I have a friend and I usually talk to her. And basically what happened is I was like, oh, you know what? I think I can offer a lot to the word, have a lot of accomplishment. But for some reason I was shy to put it out there. So she was like, you know what, LinkedIn is a good place. I started with LinkedIn, but even then it was like, I don't know how much I wanted to put I don't know how much I want people to know about me. But then I will look at other people's profile. I was like, you know what, they are talking about this stuff. And I feel like, wow, this is incredible. I want these people to feel the same way about me. So I started with LinkedIn profile and then little by little, I started with putting myself out there by creating a blog and YouTube channel. And I feel like with personal branding, that's how you have to find the tool or a way to promote yourself. Whether it's like with a specific social media account, whether it is with LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, you have to find what's the right fit for you and what's most comfortable with you. And I started with LinkedIn.

Lia:

You know, that's my day job. Did you know that? That I'm a LinkedIn expert?

Urmi:

No way.

Lia:

No way. I know. I'm like adding you on LinkedIn as you're talking like, hell yeah, LinkedIn, it's the new cool kid place to go and start showing up with who you are as your brand. I'm seeing TikTokers starting to dominate LinkedIn posting, oh, we talk after this because we going to do some LinkedIn stuff.

Urmi:

The power of LinkedIn is so big because I have most of my connections on LinkedIn. Not even on Instagram. I have that many connections, not even on YouTube, not even on my blog, but on my LinkedIn, every time I do something and I post it, boom, I get 100 connections to me. It's incredible. People find my stuff and they connect with me. Then the connection of the connection add me. And so that has been really big. I just feel like it's so powerful. Like if you have a nice profile, set up a nice profile, picture, all your accomplishment, what you do, how you can help others, it just shows how valuable you are. And that's part of personal branding. It's like, what is it that you can offer to the world that no one else can do? That's really what it is about. So yeah, that's how it started. And I feel like personal branding is so important. You know why? Especially if you work in the corporate job. It's sort of like an insurance. That's how I see it. It's an insurance because if you lose your job, but then you have a nice brand of yourself, like if you do these extra things, then people are looking you up. Because usually when you're looking for a job, the first thing people do is look you up. People will see that you can offer much more than a daily nine to five job. You can offer so much value in terms of expertise, knowledge, skills. It shows a bit of your personality that you are a working person, that you have other interests. I feel like personal branding is sort of like an insurance, because, yes, maybe you lost your job, maybe you're looking for a job, but if you have a good personal branding and someone else doesn't, chances are that people will like you more than the other person who doesn't have a brand itself.

Lia:

Say it again for the girls in the back. I always tell people, so for my day job, for the job that makes me money, we'll say I train sales teams and executives how to use LinkedIn. The biggest thing that I always tell people is, yeah, as a salesperson or as an executive, as a thought leader, you go on LinkedIn, you're not looking for a job. That's not what the platform is for most of the time. But people are more likely to hire you if you are showing proficiency at the job that they want to hire you for one day. If you're a salesperson, if you're a marketer, if you work in finance and you're going out there providing value, having conversations, showing up online, building your personal brand, maybe you're not even looking for a job. And all of a sudden you get offered a better job or you lose your job because layoffs happen and now you've got people fighting over you, that's the best place you want to be.

Urmi:

Yeah. I remember when I was looking for a job, like two years ago, a year and a half ago. I remember that was the first people look me up on LinkedIn, but during the interview was never like they were more fascinated about the extra work that I was doing more than the actual work experience. Yeah. And they like me when you apply.

Lia:

For college and they want to see your extracurriculars, they don't care if you have good grades, they don't care if you can do the function. We want to know culture, fit. We want to know what you do outside of work. We want to know that you have a robust set of skills that can add quality to the work environment.

Urmi:

Yeah. And I think it shows a little bit of your personality, too, because during an interview, it's hard to know someone 100%. There is only so much that you can know of someone. But I think if you do extra work, it shows what you stand for, it shows your values, it shows your personality, shows a little bit of your attitude. And I remember going to interviews and talking about this, and they were telling me, you do good work outside of your work. And I was like, yeah, those things bring me a lot of fulfillment. I enjoy those more than doing the nine to five job.

Lia:

Yeah, well, because what was I watching? There's a TV show on Netflix. This is the TV that I watch documentaries. And there was a show called have you seen 100 Humans?

Urmi:

No, not yet.

Lia:

Put that on the list. 100 Humans. I watch it with my son. Write it on your to do list. Thank you. But they talk about time and the concept of time and just how perception is. And it's like, yeah, the amount of time that you have in your day working is so small compared to the rest of your world. And to have your entire life and identity surrounded by this concept of work, and it's only 40 hours a week. You have so much other time to do things to bring yourself fulfillment. I'm stalking here at LinkedIn right now, and it's like looking to learn Italian or how to improve it. Check out this video. How to learn Italian, how to an interview with someone talking about purpose through voice. And it's like, amazing. How to break into finance. Right? The diversity alone.

Urmi:

Yeah, I do like adding diversity and talking about time. I just listened to not apartheid. I watched the Ted Talk About Time, and they were saying how time is very elastic. And she was making this calculation that we have this many hours in a day. We have this many hours per week. We work this many hours, but then these hours, we can devote them towards doing something for ourself. And she was saying about this that often people find an excuse and say, okay, I don't have time. But reality is, it's not that you don't have time, you just have other priorities. So you can rephrase that and say, okay, I'm not available at this time because I'm doing something else, or I have other commitments. But when people say, I don't have time, it's just an excuse. Honestly, it's really just an excuse. It's because they're not doing something that matters to you. You just feel like sitting down and not do anything. I used to say before, I don't have time. But now when I think about it, I'm like, no, it's not true. I have the time. It's just I don't want to do.

Lia:

It because I have it's not a priority.

Urmi:

It's not a priority. It's really about priority at the end.

Lia:

You have unlimited time, but you do have limited amounts of priorities. Yeah, because I can do everything, but I'm not going to prioritize certain things. Like, right now, it's work, podcasting, fitness, relationship, mom, could I prioritize and scrub my house spotless and do home repair projects? Of course I could I have time for that? Do I want to do that? No. Am I going to prioritize it? Absolutely not. I'm asleep first. Higher priority.

Urmi:

Yeah, exactly. And that's how I feel about it. So why not use your time available to actually do something good for yourself? Like build your personal branding by doing some personal growth stuff and self development things like, I'm all up for those things. I think there is the nine to five job, but then they talk about the five to nine. And I think the five to nine, you should really use it to dedicate it for your own growth. Whether it's like reading, whether it's like self care, whether it's like starting a new cooking class, language class. I'm all up for it because it just adds so much diversity in what you can do for yourself and also for the others.

Lia:

And then talk about it. Yeah, put it apart. Oh my gosh, right? I love that. You got your nine to five. That's your job. Your job, nine to five. And then you've got your five to nine, which is the youest you that ever you'd. And it's like, what are you doing in that? Are you J-O-B and then Netflix and chill and then sleep and then repeat? Or how many things can you sit in there?

Urmi:

Exactly? I'm definitely not that type of with the Netflix here. My day is so structured that I don't have a gap for anything else. I do. Like, I'm writing an article. Maybe I'm writing an article for an organization. I'm creating content from my YouTube channel. Maybe I'm creating content for the organization I volunteer for. Then I go for boxing. I do so many things. I need to make sure that my day is fulfilled, but also productive. That's how I like my days to be productive. And I want to maximize the whole use of the hours per day. Even the sleeping hours. I get 7 hours of sleep. I'm good. I'm functioning. I don't need to sleep 10 hours.

Lia:

You're lucky. I have to hit 8 hours minimum or else my brain won't work. And that's just my body. But now I know it. So I can be like, okay, what time am I getting up? And it's these little time leaks that happen. I noticed I've fallen this bad habit of scrolling through LinkedIn or scrolling through Instagram when I pick up my alarm. So I'll pick up my phone to turn off the alarm and then I'm scrolling, and all of a sudden it's been 20 minutes. I'm like, well, there goes my morning hot girl walk that I'm not doing because I wasted. It not thinking. But I think you're totally right. You have to make a plan and then have the discipline to stick to the plan.

Urmi:

Yeah, it is about discipline.

Lia:

I do agree, because that is the hardest part. And I think you can work into it just like personal branding. You're not just going to one day have all of the willpower and all of the know how to start showing up with an intentional, authentic, personal brand. It's like, okay, maybe start structuring just your morning. Maybe start just putting out one post on LinkedIn maybe. Right, start slow. So what are your tips? If I was like, okay, I want to optimize my time, and I want to build my personal brand with more intention. What should I do?

Urmi:

So definitely, I think if you want to optimize your time, I use a lot Google Calendar. It's like my best friend. I use it to block off my time. That's the first thing that you have to do. Every single thing that I'm doing, like working out, taking classes, everything is blocked off in my calendar. No one touches it because those are my priorities. So that definitely is something that you can do when it comes to also with optimizing your time, when you start doing something, it's good to be in an environment that it's clean with no distractions. So no cell phone, that's very important. No cell phone, no TV. Because you know what, if you have your cell phone somewhere near you, chances are that you're going to pick it up. And like you said, next thing you know is that you spent an hour looking at scrolling over Instagram or stuff like that. You have to keep away those distraction. And that's how you can start working towards personal branding or developing yourself. And I would say that with personal branding, it's a trial and error. I have to say it's a trial and error. Yeah. Because everyone has a story that we can bring. Everyone has an expertise that we can share. And the one thing that you want is that when people hear your name, you want it to be associated to something. Like when we think about Steve Jobs, we think about Apple. When we think about, let's say, Elon Musk, we know that it's about Tesla and what they're trying to do with the electric car and so forth. It's the same thing with you, right? That you have a story that you want people to associate you with. And I think with personnel brand, especially when you start the first time, you have to start slow and you have to start with the thing that you're most comfortable with. Because I started with the blog, but it was a lot of work, I have to say. I remember I spent days and nights trying to figure out how to build a website. It was such a struggle.

Lia:

Yes. Luckily now there's like hosting platforms and stuff that make it a little bit easier, but such a struggle.

Urmi:

Such a struggle. And so I started with that. And I remember not being comfortable with sharing my story, putting my pictures out there. And it takes a little bit of work, I have to say, but it takes time. It's not that overnight you're going to wake up and be like, okay, I'm a confident, bold woman. I can do all of this now. It's not going to be like that. It's really like a slow process, but it's a conscious efforts towards that, that you're taking little actions to make sure that you're working on it and having habits. And so for me, it was like, okay, I had to find the right tool. So I used my blog, and then little by little, I shifted towards other things, and then I started to see, okay, what's working best? So I use Instagram, I use YouTube, I use LinkedIn. But I would say the LinkedIn is probably the one that attracts most of the people. And I think that when it comes to posting things, you have to go slow because then you're going to burn out. Especially like, okay, first time I remember thinking, maybe I can post once every week. But it was like, I couldn't even for my article, especially because I have a full time job. You have to go slow, but you have to be consistent.

Lia:

That's it.

Urmi:

Yes, you have to be consistent with it. If you post once and then five months later you're posting again, it's not even going to help the algorithm. It's not going to help with the search engine. Nothing exactly.

Lia:

When it comes to LinkedIn. So I support I have to go, look, I have a list, but it's like 20 different high level tech executives and leadership executives on LinkedIn. And I help support them, and I help write their content, and I help optimize their stuff on the profile and build thought leadership. And the single thing I was actually on a call with a woman today. She's like, Well, I have all this content. And I trained her on how to develop the content for the algorithm, how to make sure that she was encouraging, commenting, all of these things because she wants to promote her business. And I was like, Great, you're doing awesome. She's posting three to four times a week, which is a lot, but it's also her job, so that's professionally, she's trying to drum up business. So you need to get your message out there. And she was like, okay, well, what can I do to take it to the next level? To get more, to do more, to have more, to be more? And I was like, Baby girl, that's it. There's no booster injection that you can give that time can't give you consistency over time. You just have to keep showing up. And I told her, Provide value and then tell people. I mean, LinkedIn is about two things, so they know you and so they trust you. And people can't know you if you're not putting out content. People can't trust you if you're not providing value. And that's it. And it's like, it's so easy, but it's so hard to be consistent.

Urmi:

Yeah. So I have a friend who messaged me once because she started to promote about some of the things that she does on her Instagram page. And she's like, I'm not getting any followers. No one is following my content. And I looked at the stuff. I said, you provide excellent stuff, but you have to be patient because it's also about that you cannot expect that overnight you get 10,000 followers. It's really about being consistent, I would say, being disciplined with the things that you post, giving valuable content, and then with time, you will see people following you. Indeed. Now, she had few more followers. I told her, did you see? Now you're having few more people. It's the same thing with me, too. Initially, even with my YouTube channel. Not that I have that many, but initially, when I first created it, I would complain to my friend, I was like, I'm not getting any followers.

Lia:

Nobody cares.

Urmi:

Nobody cares. And I'm like, what the hell? And she's like, no, you have to keep posting. And honestly, the more I post, the more I get people to subscribe to my stuff. Maybe I get one person, but it's more than enough.

Lia:

I would say, yeah, one more person. Well, and this is what I tell people. It's like, if I told you that you had the opportunity to stand in a room in front of 30 people and share one quality message with them, would you do it? And for the most part, it's like, yeah, 30 people in a room. Yeah, I would absolutely do that. But then it's like, I only got 30 views on my reel. It's like, Girl, that's still 30 people you don't need. I had one reel go viral and hit, like, 2 million views. It was awful. It was the dumbest thing I've ever posted. It was one of those I'm sitting in the car, I'm in, like, a stupid coat. And it's one of those, like, what is 2023 going to bring for you? And it was like, click. And then it was like financial independence. And I was like, Hell yeah. That's the whole video. 2 million views. Stupid, stupid. All of the things that I provide value on. I'm like female empowerment and being your best self and living your bliss life and bliss magic and blah, blah, blah. No, 200.

Urmi:

You know what? Something like that happened to me when I first posted my first YouTube video.

Lia:

Oh, yeah.

Urmi:

It's just me talking to the camera. I don't do any editing, nothing. I just have a nice thumbnail, a nice title. That's it.

Lia:

Yeah.

Urmi:

After a couple of months, I look at it, I have 10,000 views. I'm like how I don't even say anything.

Lia:

It's so stupid. Exactly.

Urmi:

I'm literally bullshitting. And it got, like, 10,000 views. And I think it's one of my most popular videos. I'm like, I don't even know what I did, literally. And I tried to recreate that and it's not working. But that one, it's somehow it got so many views. So many.

Lia:

I don't even mess with YouTube. I actually got this job that I have now because of YouTube. So here's a great story to tell your point. Before I got this job working as a LinkedIn sales trainer during COVID I was posting motivational YouTube videos where I would just talk to the camera in my living room because I couldn't leave my house and post them onto YouTube. And it got seen by enough people and the right people, because it doesn't matter the quantity, it's the quality. Like, the right person saw my videos enough times that made the suggestion for me to get this job. It was like, yeah, she doesn't know anything about LinkedIn and she doesn't know anything about the sales process that we teach, but she's good in front of a camera and that's what we need.

Urmi:

I had something similar, and I think it goes again with my personal branding. My YouTube channel, again, is not that big. It's really not that big. But for some reason, I think it reached some important people. And then they contacted me and they were like, oh, would you like to do a collaboration with us? And this man is like, big for this company. So I was like, yeah, why not? So I was surprised that he actually reached out, but I think it's because they saw those few videos of me that just got their attention. So little work really matters at the end. It's like, yeah, you might not have a million subscribers, but it really doesn't matter. It's really just showing up and making sure that you have valuable stuff and people will notice. People will see and notice.

Lia:

Yes. So the takeaway here is don't waste your time on Netflix and chill. Spend time putting yourself out there. Even the littlest teeniest bit can make a difference. And I always say.

Urmi:

You have to.

Lia:

Know what you want and you have to take action towards what you want, but you have to release control of how it happens. Right? You couldn't have said, I'm going to make a YouTube channel and then I'm going to have somebody reach out to me to do a collaboration, and this is how I'm going to be successful. You just start doing the thing and let the universe kind of fill in the gaps.

Urmi:

Yeah, because I think when you start doing these things, it doesn't cross your mind. It really doesn't. Like, it never crossed my mind that someone would reach out to me. I was like, I couldn't care less. I was like, I just want to do my stuff, create content. That's it. And so when he reached out, I was like, okay. It does add value.

Lia:

It's a pleasant surprise. I love this.

Urmi:

Yeah.

Lia:

Oh, my gosh. Well, we're going to have to like I already added you on LinkedIn. We'll chat more about it because I'm going to give away all of the LinkedIn secrets. That'll be a different episode. You all, but this has been so fun. So this is my plan with the podcast. I was like, I need to find more people that are the same as me, that are in my same brain, that are in the same world. And I was like, you know what? I'm. Going to do, I'm going to start reaching out to people for podcast guests and I'm going to make brand new best friends on podcasts. So here again, this happened. It's a great life. I am so glad we got to do this. This has been so fun.

Urmi:

Yeah, we're very similar, so that's why I feel like we connected so well.

Lia:

So well. I love it. So all of you, hot girls, hot guys, hot couples, everyone out there doing your look, get on LinkedIn, add us on LinkedIn. I will in the show notes, add links to all of our LinkedIns, Instagram, YouTube pages, everything. So we'll make sure we get that and we'll get connected. Yeremi, anything else you want to leave everybody with?

Urmi:

No. Honestly, I don't even know what to say. This was so much fun. I would say yeah, good. It was so much fun. Honestly, you have such a good energy.

Lia:

Oh girl, you got good energy too. Like attracts like. That's how energy works.

Urmi:

Yes, it's such a good energy. I love this. And hopefully we gave very good, valuable tips for anyone who's listening. I think they will get a lot of things from it and hopefully it pushes them to get out of the comfort zone and start doing a bit of personal branding.

Lia:

Yes, get out of your comfort zone, do personal branding. Come and find us. I love you all. We'll see you real soon. Bye.

Ending:

You have been listening to Master Your Bliss Life. Make sure to check out the show notes for any relevant links and follow Kiera and Lia on Instagram and LinkedIn.