Your perspective is one of your most valuable professional assets and key part of what people will remember about you (or what they should remember about you).
Anyone can share information. Anyone can repost sector news. Anyone can list their credentials. And anyone would be boring and forgetten.
But your specific perspective, the way you see the sector, the problems you think are being ignored, the solutions you believe in, the things that make you frustrated or excited… that’s uniquely yours and much more interesting.
A clear perspective is what turns a professional profile into a professional brand.
What a perspective is not
- It’s not an opinion on everything and everyone. That’s annoying.
- It’s not being controversial for the sake of it. That’s rude.
- It’s not performative outrage or positivity That’s inauthentic.
- It’s not whatever you think your audience wants to hear. That’s pandering.
What a perspective is
- A consistent point of view on the issues that matter in your field and to you.
- A set of beliefs you’d defend in a room full of people who disagree with you.
- A lens through which you interpret and respond to what’s happening in the sector.
- Something that may occasionally make people uncomfortable.
How to find your perspective
Answer these questions honestly:
- What’s the biggest lie the sector tells itself?
- What’s the most important conversation nobody is having?
- What do most people get wrong about your area of expertise?
- What would you change about the sector if you had the power to change one thing?
- What do you believe now that you didn’t believe 5 years ago?
The answers to those questions are your perspective, or at least the start of you finding your perspective. It may not come to you immediately. That’s fine, sometimes you can find your voice and get more specific as you go.
Perspective vs controversy
Having a perspective doesn’t mean picking fights. It means being willing to say what you actually think, clearly and consistently, even when it challenges comfortable assumptions. The goal isn’t to make people gasp, it’s to make them lean in to understand your alternative viewpoint. People are savvy, and they know when someone is just tying to get attention as opposed to someone wanting to put new ideas forward. Aim for the latter.
Exercise
Answer all five questions above. Then distil your answers into three sentences that capture your professional perspective. This becomes the lens for everything you publish and say.