ï»żSwitching from a Trade to a Corporate Job: Alex's Journey (00:00)
Brad Eather: Hello and welcome to the Selling Creative Podcast, a podcast exploring creativity's role in sales. I'm your host, Brad Eather, a digital communication sales consultant applying communications, media, and insights to help ordinary sales teams sell on social. Today, I have the pleasure of being joined by a man who transformed his career from being a carpenter by trade to helping people navigate their corporate careers.
If you're listening along today, we're going to be talking about podcasts, the stories and strategies behind the shows we host, and some of the things that Alex has learned along his podcast journey. Our hope is that any salespeople out there figuring out how they can build a brand as an employee can benefit. Welcome to the show, the host of the Brand My Career podcast, Alex Cuttiford.
Alex Cuttiford: Brad, thanks for having me.
Brad Eather: Pleasure. So, I want to kick this off: how did a carpenter make the switch out of a trade to become a manager of career development programs and a podcaster?
Alex Cuttiford: Good question. I was starting to reassess my priorities in life after doing some traveling in my mid-20s. Part of it was because my knees were giving out on me at 24. I looked at my boss, who had undergone multiple back surgeries, and thought, "Maybe I need to start thinking of a contingency plan if I'm already falling apart." But it was also a realization that the trade wasn't the right fit long-term, even though I really love building.
I had gotten into youth work and was doing it part-time alongside carpentry for a while. Eventually, I wanted to get into something more full-time and invested on the youth side of things, so I made the switch. It was only casual work at first, until a role came up that called for someone with both youth work experience and trade experience to mentor apprentices.
Throughout my life, I had followed various passions, and suddenly there was a role that bridged this dual element of the skills Iâd built. It felt custom-built for me. I jumped at it, and the guy interviewing me was shocked because they didn't expect to find such a perfect fit. That contract didn't continue indefinitely, but I stayed with that organization, moved into a career development role, and worked my way up from there.
How to Build a Personal Brand as an Employee with a Podcast (03:41)
Brad Eather: Going through your own journey, you've had to unravel some of the complexities of life as you transitioned from an outdoor trade into a more corporate role. You decided to start a podcast, and you've been doing it for a while nowâprobably over a year, right?
Alex Cuttiford: Yeah, just a bit over a year.
Brad Eather: Itâs called Brand My Career. My understanding is that it explores the idea of branding yourself as a career professional to elevate your trajectory. Tell me a little bit more about it.
Alex Cuttiford: The name came from tossing up what I am genuinely passionate about: personal branding and career development. I was debating whether to call it Brand Your Career or Brand My Career, and I went with "My" because I wanted the person listening to read that title and reflect it back to themselves. I wanted them to ask, "How can I take ownership of this?"
That has become the core message of the podcast: helping people take personal ownership of their careers. That's what I had started to do in my own life, and I became passionate about how empowering it can be to realize you can put yourself in the driver's seat of your career. Just because I became a cabinet maker at 16 doesn't mean I am locked into that for the rest of my life. You can reinvent yourself if you're looking to make a change; there's no reason you can't work through that process.
Digital Communication Strategies for Corporate Career Growth (09:29)
Brad Eather: What were your reasons behind starting a podcast? What drove you to explore this idea through that specific medium?
Alex Cuttiford: I had actually been pitching it at my previous job for about two years. It became a running joke that at every opportunity I got, I pitched that we should do a podcast on career development.
Where I initially got passionate about digital communications was through my wife. When we got married, she was at university studying for her PR and communications degree. At that stage of my life, I didn't think communications mattered at all. It felt like just talking about the thing instead of actually doing the thing. But as she was studying, I started picking her brain about strategic communications while she worked on assignments. I fell in love with the concept of organizational communication and the powerful role it plays in building culture, vision, and alignment.
I got excited about the opportunities that existed for us with the rise of social media and the internet. As I grew passionate about career development, I realized these two spaces needed to come together. I wanted to look at how digital communications could help people in their careers. At the time, I was thinking largely about young people turning to social media as their primary source of information. We need to get good information onto the internet so it's not just bad or ignorant career advice out there. Not to say that I can fully elevate myself above that; I'm sure there's advice I've put out that people disagree with.
Ultimately, I prefer long-form, meaningful conversations. I feel much more comfortable in that format than trying to do short videos directly to the camera. I love having deeper conversations where you can really get into a topic and share those insights.
Brad Eather: There are so many different ways to capture media and communicate online. You might not be comfortable pointing a camera at yourself and talking solo, but looking at it from a sales perspective, all salespeople should feel comfortable having a conversation. The podcast medium is a brilliant way to leverage those existing conversational skills and transfer them online.
Alex Cuttiford: What I really love about it from a strategic content point of view is the content stack you can create. A video podcast gives you the absolute best platform to generate other forms of content. I distribute the full episode on Spotify and other platforms, but then I can cut up short clips for LinkedIn and other social media channels. You can extract a five-minute video or a one-minute video all coming from that single anchor piece of content. You get to keep the deeper, heartier discussions, but you can also create mountains of micro-content. I can easily create more videos than I actually want to use in the timeframe between episodes. It gets to the point where I just have to choose which ones not to share.
Overcoming Career Shame and Taking Ownership of Your Career (16:52)
Brad Eather: Going back to when you started Brand My Career, you've talked about your personal aims of exploring your story and personal branding. What were you trying to achieve from a personal perspective? And from an organizational point of view, what have the results been for you in terms of business development or professional growth?
Alex Cuttiford: Largely, the goal was building my personal brand and putting myself out there so people could see who I am and what I'm about. I wanted broader exposure within the industry I'm passionate about.
Directly speaking, it's funny because the podcast doesn't perfectly align with my current day job, but it overlaps. What it has done is create an immediate connection point with people in my professional sphere who resonate with the message. You might kick off a conversation with someone at a networking event, and they'll say, "Hey, I checked out your podcast the other day, it's really great." It creates a connection point where you understand each other a bit better, and opportunities unfold from there.
I didn't map out too many hardline, rigid goals at the start. I just knew that doing something like thisâpartly because I genuinely enjoy itâwould create unplanned opportunities. It generates serendipity simply because you took action.
Brad Eather: Let's talk about some of those opportunities that have unfolded for you. Without a rigid strategic plan at the beginning, what has the result been?
Alex Cuttiford: The big thing has been how the conversations have helped build and shape my own perspectives. The relationships you build and the ideas that generate have a massive impact. In terms of my day job, it has deepened certain work relationships, allowing us to collaborate on new projects.
One thing we're working on at the moment is a pilot program to get Net Zero Careers education into the school curriculum. Thatâs a project we've been driving through work with someone I originally connected with through the podcast ecosystem. We built a great relationship off the back of it.
Brad Eather: I've been following you since relatively early on in your podcast journey. From the outside, it is clear you have significantly elevated your personal brand within your industry. Is that fair to say?
Alex Cuttiford: I would have to say yes, largely because I didn't have an online presence before this. It has drastically broadened my network. I moved to Newcastle from Bathurst. Out in the central west, I was living in a small town working in programs that supported young people disengaged from school to get into employment or education. Having grown up in that town, I had a built-in network. One of the school principals we engaged with used to be my sports coach when I was a kid. I relied heavily on those organic relationships.
When I moved to Newcastle, I realized I was moving to a place ten times the size where I knew absolutely no one, apart from a couple of friends. I had zero professional network. I needed to do something to cut through that noise so I didn't just fall into a black hole of isolation. That's when I got intentional about getting onto LinkedIn, finding connections, and starting conversations. That's how you discover a national network of people doing incredible work in this space.
The podcast is a powerful vehicle to strengthen those connections. By inviting people on, having a chat, promoting their work, and being a champion for them, you seamlessly embed yourself into their ecosystem. You chat with one person, and they say, "You know who would be brilliant for you to talk to next? This person," and they link you up. It absolutely establishes you in the ecosystem.
Brad Eather: Itâs funny because when I was a guest on your podcast, one of our commonalities was that I transitioned from Sydney to Adelaide. Part of the reason I started on LinkedIn was exactly the same: the community I had from growing up was gone. I needed a rapid way to reach people. You can't replicate decades of growing up in a place, so you have to step out of your comfort zone and get creative about how you build a network.
At this point, you've interviewed around 30 to 40 people surrounding the exact same topic. Can you share a bit about the types of roles your guests hold?
Alex Cuttiford: I have had about 32 episodes so far. I try to bring on a diverse range of people. I use "taking ownership of your career" as the centering anchor point, but I invite people who look at it from entirely different angles. Someone might come at it through a wellbeing lens, a psychologist lens, personal styling, career coaching, or school career education.
I've interviewed career coaches who specialize in working with women, and others who focus on helping middle management break into the executive level. I've had LinkedIn ghostwriters and personal branders on. We both interviewed Joe; I was listening to your chat with him the other day and realized Iâm definitely going to have to download the Gladiator soundtrack. It's getting to the point now where I look at different sectors and ask myself who I haven't spoken to yet so I can get them on the show.
The Career "Self, Others, and Actions" Framework Explied (20:34)
Brad Eather: You're in the pivotal role of interpreting all these different signals to refine your core message. What are some of the key insights you've pulled from these diverse perspectives that directly relate to branding a career?
Alex Cuttiford: The most common theme that cuts across every industry is that people feel a quiet sense of shame about how they built their career. I bet you see this a lot with people in salesâhardly anyone in sales plans for it from day one. Almost all of them start the sentence with, "I fell into it."
Before finding their niche, people often feel like they spent years in the wrong place, and they harbor shame thinking, "It took me so long to figure it out." In reality, all of those seemingly disconnected skillsets and insights were building blocks that brought them to where they are today. It's a necessary part of the journey.
Another insight is that there is no single, templated way to build a personal brand. You have to lean into your unique strengths and personal preferences, especially when starting out, rather than forcing yourself to do something you hate just because you think you have to. For example, the personal stylist I interviewed spent 20 years in sports management before transitioning back into styling, even though she wanted to be a stylist since she was six years old. You have to find what works for you, start there, and let it gradually unfold.
Brad Eather: I find that shame piece fascinating. It sounds like it stems from a feeling of being temporarily lost in your professional purpose.
Alex Cuttiford: Itâs driven heavily by comparison. People look at others and assume everyone else has it entirely worked out, while they are the sole person struggling. But when you sit down and talk to people deeply, they all tell the exact same story. They all say, "Yeah, I did these three random things before I finally worked out what I wanted to do." There is a societal expectation that you finish school, go straight to university, and lock into a job. It feels like everyone else follows that linear line, but in reality, people wander all over the place just trying to find their way through.
Brad Eather: If someone out there is feeling professionally stuck, what are some of the most valuable strategic concepts you've discussed with your guests to help them navigate that terrain and find their niche?
Alex Cuttiford: On a macro level, the framework I always come back to is Self, Others, and Actions.
When you are assessing your career, you have to break it down into these three buckets:
* Self: This is about doing the foundational inner work. It involves building a positive self-concept. If you are constantly engaging in negative self-talk or hold a toxic self-concept, no amount of outward career grinding will bring you fulfillment or comfort. You have to start with the inner self, identifying your actual skills and intrinsic strengths.
* Others: None of us can succeed in total isolation. We require a strategic network of mentors, coaches, and professional sponsors around us. Do you have a community of people who genuinely know you and believe in you? Do you have an inner circle you can trust with the more intimate, vulnerable parts of your career anxietyâlike when you feel like you've failed or let people down? Having those close people is vital for long-term career support.
* Actions: Once the inner work is addressed and the network is in place, you can strategically focus on career-enhancing actions.
Right now, for instance, my personal objective in my day job is working toward a promotion. I am thinking through my actions strategically. In the performance agreement I review with my direct report, I am intentionally inserting goals that demonstrate my ambitions and showcase what I am doing above and beyond my formal description.
But you cannot execute those tactical actions effectively if you are internally disoriented. When we first moved to Newcastle, I felt unmoored, so I sought out counseling to find my feet amidst a new lifestyle, changing relationships, and fresh stresses. If you don't take care of that foundational layer, small micro-strategies won't move the needle on your larger goals.
Finding Self-Actualization Through Professional Creativity (24:35)
Brad Eather: When you walked through the "Self, Others, and Actions" framework, it immediately triggered Maslow's hierarchy of needs in my mind. For context, Maslow's hierarchy is a psychological pyramid starting with basic physiological needs at the base, followed by safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization at the peak.
In the Western world, basic physical safety and shelter are generally covered for corporate professionals. But your framework maps perfectly to the upper echelons of that pyramid. Seeking "Others" satisfies the deep human need for love and belonging. Unpacking the "Self" addresses self-esteem. Finally, mapping out intentional "Actions" allows an individual to scale the peak of the ladder to find self-actualization. No one can give you a simple cheat code to achieve it; it is an deeply personal inward journey, but putting a structured framework around it is incredibly powerful.
Alex Cuttiford: What originally informed that framework was reading the Australian Career Development Blueprint. It's a foundational document that formal career development courses must align with, and it outlines 12 core career management competencies. Of course, nobody can remember 12 distinct things on a daily basis. But as I studied it, the overriding themes distilled clearly into self, others, and actions. If you scroll back to my very first LinkedIn post, it's literally a picture of that blueprint booklet, my notepad, and a coffee. I sat down right after finishing my previous job to prep for the podcast, and that's where the foundation of the idea crystallized.
I think a lot about that psychological hierarchy, particularly regarding what it actually means to build an impactful, positive career. It's something I am grappling with at the moment. I don't think we can have a profound, meaningful impact on our community through our careers until we reach that state of self-actualization and self-transcendence. We have to do the inner work to clear our personal insecurities out of the way so we can focus entirely on the community we want to serve. Whatever your job role, you need to reach a place where you aren't completely consumed by your own self-preservation. Only then can you look at the people around you, see their struggles, and deploy your unique skillset to serve them.
Brad Eather: Through the act of launching this podcast and driving your career forward, how do you feel this initiative has helped align you with your own self-actualization?
Alex Cuttiford: Thatâs a big question, because it's hard to pin down the exact day-to-day mechanisms. Waking up at 5:00 AM to edit audio files doesn't always feel like a grand leap toward self-actualization. But the magic is that it continuously exposes you to high-level conversations. It forces you to step back, look at the bigger picture, and reflect on what you are trying to achieve. It acts as an activity that provokes deep thinking around your goals and the ultimate footprint you want to leave on the world.
If you aren't actively creating something or taking a risk, you don't tend to ask yourself those massive questions. It's a healthy, cyclic process: you take an action, see where it leads, and then challenge yourself on whether that outcome moves you closer to your ideal self or further away. It mirrors the planned happenstance theory in career developmentâtaking an intentional action generates unpredictable ripples that expose you to entirely new opportunities and ways of thinking. You can never trace a straight line saying, "I did X and explicitly got Y," but the trajectory shifts completely.
Brad Eather: I love that. It's a phenomenal answer to a massive question. Bringing it back to the sales profession, I want people to understand that launching a creative project like a podcast isn't just about generic marketing metrics. It should be aligned with seeking deep insights and building authentic expertise.
In your case, you are forming original opinions around career ownership. On my show, Selling is Creative, I am unpacking what it means to apply creativity within sales. By centering your project around a core question, a professional is essentially developing their own intellectual property. That unique IP is an incredibly high-value asset. There are fantastic secondary organizational benefits like brand awareness, but developing your own IP builds personal credibility and allows you to progress your career in ways that simply weren't possible in the past.
Alex Cuttiford: Absolutely. It establishes a profound level of credibility within your workforce. The things I learn through these interviews are insights I can bring directly back into my workplace to share with my team. It demonstrates a high level of competencyâit proves you can conceptualize an idea, start it, and drive it to completion. It showcases your ability to operate across different domains.
For example, having this show gives me a real baseline of credibility if I want to sit down with our internal marketing department to pitch ideas. If I were acting purely as a standard program officer without this portfolio, my ideas might hold less strategic weight in their eyes. I often look at this podcast as a tangible bridge into a marketing director role if I ever chose to pivot there. Even without formal marketing degrees, I am building and demonstrating a verifiable, practical skillset. It opens doors for transferable skills.
Brad Eather: I had a question written down asking how your podcast goals have changed over time, but it sounds like the show simply acts as an engine that generates options, allowing you to stay in total control of your career's future direction.
Alex Cuttiford: Thatâs exactly right. Rather than letting a rigid, pre-planned goal dictate your every move, you focus on the creative output and allow unique opportunities to unfold naturally.
Brad Eather: I agree completely. Building a podcast is an incredibly creative vehicle for broadcasting a message. To wrap up our discussion today, based on your evolution over the last year from a carpenter to a corporate professional and podcast host, what is your personal definition of creativity?
Alex Cuttiford: I have two core thoughts on this. I recently interviewed Marion Power, and we dove deep into this concept. Firstly, I view creativity as a fundamental core value. It's not just an isolated action you perform; it is something deeply embedded in who you are. I have realized that human life simply feels significantly richer and better when you are operating in an active state of creativity.
Secondly, I've been reading a book called Bullshit Jobs, which takes a highly critical look at our modern employment systems. It highlights a brilliant psychological concept termed "the pleasure of being the cause." The phrase was coined by a German psychologist named Karl Groos. His core definition is beautiful: humans play because we love putting an action out into the universe and watching it create a predictable, corresponding effect.
You see it from infancy. When a young child realizes they can grab a pencil, scratch it across a table, and leave a physical mark, they start laughing with pure excitement. It taps into a primal human urge: the joy of being the direct cause of an effect, completely separate from any grand commercial purpose. Having total creative control over a process is the closest thing to absolute freedom we can achieve. Conversely, being forced by a system to perform an action you know is entirely pointless and meaningless is the closest thing to professional torture. "The pleasure of being the cause" is a magnificent way to define creativity.
Brad Eather: That is an extraordinary answer. Alex, it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a guest on your show when I was early in my business journey, and thank you for returning the favor today. Where can people find you online?
Alex Cuttiford: I loved having you on my show, Brad, and jumping onto yours has been incredibly fun. LinkedIn is easily the best place to connect. I had a website running, but Iâve temporarily taken it down because I am currently designing a work-integrated learning program with the University of Newcastle. I'm hoping to get a cohort of students to collaborate on a comprehensive rebrand of the show and the website architecture, so that is safely on hold while the project comes together. Find me on LinkedInâI'm always down for a deep chat, and you can access the podcast directly via the link in my bio.
Brad Eather: Perfect. Thank you so much, mate, we will chat soon.
Alex Cuttiford: Cheers.
