The Titanic Syndrome is something I’ve created to explain what we do when we go “all in” on our personas and forget about the Ice Cream Sundae approach to all areas of building our business, brand and career.
Content Personas are an important part of building out a smart digital strategy — and it is also a smart way to build out your business and career.
Careerpreneurs, especially creative careerpreneurs, often struggle with negotiating their salaries, compensation packages and job responsibilities. In 2016, I wrote an article for
Levo League on 5 Fierce Ways to Increase Your Salary. In that blog, we talked about building out a mastermind, talking to people in different stages of their career and more, but what we didn’t discuss is the ability to create different compartments of your personality to separate the happy, fun creative self from the no-nonsense business self.That’s partially how Vix came to be. You see, I love being the fun, creative person but, as you build a business, you need to also be the billing department.As a solopreneur, I found it easier to compartmentalize the different parts of who I was in order to fulfill the roles I needed to build out as I built my business.These days I’ve got a full team to support billing and client tasks but before I did? I built out separate emails for the individuals who I would eventually hire. I had an assistant and a billing coordinator account that I managed.This concept works… for a while. And then? Then you start to compartmentalize so much that you end up blocking off your story, your purpose and your passion in a way that actually takes away choice in your life, business and career.
Related: Sell Your Skills and Get the Salary You Deserve Here are 3 ways to combat this to have compassion for yourself and to accomplish all of your goals.
Define Your Boundaries
Understanding your unique boundaries is key to creating a business and life you love. Boundaries in business range from hours of operation to the way in which you communicate with your client. Defining your boundaries allows you to share your personality without compromising YOUR unique and valid goals.
Understand Why You Titanic
Getting to the root of your compartmentalization techniques — as in what past story you’re still telling yourself around why you HAVE to keep the walls up — is another part of unlocking the true keys to your success. This takes
a LOT of self-work, tears and all of the journaling (and sometimes, the help of a mental health professional plus an amazing support group of fierce friends) but it is SO worth it.
Determine If SOME Compartments Are Key to Your Success
There are some things that even this digital expert likes to keep private. And that’s ok. You don’t have to share every aspect of your story with every person you connect with. One tactic that really worked for me? Testing the waters — seeing how far I felt comfortable floating in a sea of uncertainty when it came to what I shared online, with clients and in my business and personal relationships.Life is a journey — and I firmly believe most of that journey is on a river — don’t sink your ship before you hit the sea, that’s when the journey truly gets interesting.
