Creator-Entrepreneur Deepak Pareek on why students should start building their personal brand

“What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I talk about Nike or Apple? That’s their brand. Now when I talk about Virat Kohli, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? That’s his personal brand”, said Content Creator & Entrepreneur Deepak Pareek at AIESEC Youth Speak Forum organized by AIESEC in Noida. The event witnessed speakers from various domains and every speaker shared their thoughts on topics like personality development, personal branding, quality education, entrepreneurship, and mental health.

Deepak Pareek participated as the keynote speaker at the event and he spoke about personal branding. “I came across the term ‘personal branding’ very late in life. In fact, it happened when I was running Career Keeda, my first venture, and I realised that people didn’t know me”, said Deepak during his talk. He used to face a lot of difficulties while running the company because his personal brand wasn’t strong enough. It was in 2018 when he started taking personal branding seriously, he started creating content online and started putting out his thoughts in the open. Soon, he realised how important personal branding is and as a result, a lot of opportunities started opening up. “I had always dreamt of giving a TEDx talk growing up and it happened because I put myself out there, all thanks to personal branding”, said Deepak Pareek who is an Entrepreneur, Content Creator, TEDx Speaker, and Creative Film Producer hailing from Kolkata and now based in Mumbai, India.

One of the common questions that Deepak was asked was, “how to speak confidently on stage and how to fight the stage fright?” to which he said, “you need to get up on stage, participate in events and keep doing it. Sure, the first event will be a flop and so was mine. Remember one thing, confidence comes from the progress you make”. He then continued speaking about how his life took a complete 360-degree turn just because he started focusing on personal branding. Deepak also went on to state that it is imperative for students to start building their personal brand because of two important reasons – credibility and visibility. He said that when one puts themselves out there, they start building their audience and hence start building credibility.

The keynote session ended on a good note and Deepak Pareek, who pursued his schooling from Don Bosco School, Kolkata, graduation from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, and completed his Masters in Management & Entrepreneurship from the University of Southampton Business School, UK, was felicitated by the core committee members of AIESEC in Noida. Deepak also had an informal chat with the audience members after his speech and interacted with them on various relevant topics/issues including personal branding, social media, etc.