Career Advice: Elvis Duran On Building Your Brand

Dan Schawbel with Elvis Duran

Dan Schawbel is a bestselling author, speaker, entrepreneur, and host of the "5 Questions with Dan Schawbel" podcast, where he interviews world-class humans by asking them just five questions in under 10 minutes.

According to Business Insider, he recently interviewed Elvis Duran, host of the "Elvis Duran and the Morning Show".

Elvis Duran started his career as an on-air personality at WIOQ, Philadelphia's top music radio station, and eventually became the program director before getting fired back in 1990. A year later, he became the program director and morning show host of KGSR in Austin, Texas. From there, he had a stint at Z-93 in Atlanta and 104 in Houston, before finally landing at Z100 in New York City. As the daily host of the "Elvis Duran and the Morning Show," he and his team grew to 30 stations in a single year. Today, the show is America's most listened to Top 40 morning show and one of the 10 most listened to programs in all of radio, heard live by nearly 10 million people in more than 80 markets across the country.

Dan Schawbel: Looking back when you were a teenager, what are some of the biggest mistakes you made, and how did you overcome them?

Elvis Duran: I think the biggest mistakes I made were the ones I needed to make — where I didn't communicate well with management or I partied a little too hard when I should've been focusing on my work. I was way into my career until I realized that you really should go to work sober. But I was in college and that was a long time ago. I made a lot of mistakes, but, you know, I don't feel like I should be ashamed of them or regret them because every step forward and every step backward we lose is important to make us who we are.

Elvis Duran: "You have to learn that you know you're not everyone's cup of tea, but you are many people's cup of tea."

Dan:  What do you recommend for people who want to build and elevate their personal brand?

Elvis: I say be true to yourself. People have BS detectors. If they don't hear you being original or true to yourself, they're going to move on to something else and not everyone's going to like you and you have to learn that really fast. You have to learn that you know you're not everyone's cup of tea, but you are many people's cup of tea. You will resonate with a lot of people, and so stay true to who you are and eventually the map you're following, they'll follow it too.

Dan: What's your best piece of career advice?

Elvis: Stay true to who you are. Don't lie. Be honest. You can lie about mini little surface fun things about where you had dinner last night. Maybe you didn't, but you ate there three years ago, but it sounds more interesting if you say you ate there last night, that's a little lie. That's okay. But staying true to your character and what makes you tick. I think people totally, totally lock into that and get it. That's why I love Howard Stern. He really gave us all license to be honest on the radio, which is for some reason on the radio that's a very rare thing to find. So be it, we ripped him off. We're honest and I think people like that.