88. Navigating A Personal Brand And A Day Job with Officer Kenny Dean
Showing Up When You Have a Day Job
It’s increasingly common for people with traditional jobs to be building their own businesses and brands outside of their regular working hours.
Whether you’re trying to build a platform or make yourself more attractive to the next career move you want to make, when you have a traditional job, it can sometimes be difficult to assess how and where to show up publicly. This can be especially true if you work in a field like government or law enforcement.
Officer Kenny Dean joins India to discuss how he started and evolved his social media presence and developed his podcast while actively working in law enforcement.
Listen on your favorite podcast player or keep reading to learn:
Why Officer Dean felt that it was the right time to clarify and demystify police work for the public
How he approaches hosting his show while balancing the needs of his department
Officer Dean’s advice for building an audience while respecting your day job
A Career and a Calling
On the Flaunt Your Fire® podcast, Officer Kenny Dean (he/him) details his career journey as a law enforcement officer, starting with joining the Baltimore Police Department in 1996.
“I call it a calling for it because it just stood out to me that…you could really help people.”
In his over 25 year career, he has worked in the Baltimore projects, on a street crimes unit, in Southeast Washington DC, has received dispatch and K9 training, and now works in a department in Maryland.
During his career, he has been involved in two shootings, both of which were cleared. “During that process, I learned the civil part [of the system], cuz I was like, I don’t want to be in this position again, and if I do, I’ll know more about it.”
That experience also inspired his desire to share his experience and perspective on police work with a wider audience.
“The media sometimes doesn’t tell everything about what happened on this particular scene, and that became something very close to me and important based on the two shootings I had gotten in that the truth, the truth wasn’t told on either of those.”
He says that “the public would benefit from hearing…the law enforcement view…so that’s where my podcast idea came up.”
An Opportunity for Authenticity
His current department chief gave Officer Dean the go-ahead to share his expertise, “because he knew what my motives were.”
His podcast, Let’s Talk Law Enforcement Period, hosts a variety of guests from former police chiefs to crime analysts and more, “people that come on and give their story of the things that they do.”
Between his social media presence and the podcast, over the last two years, his followers have grown from around 2,000 to over 17,000.
Officer Dean started by posting on social media, sharing videos with his commentary on police situations and why certain events may have played out as they did based on his experience.
After repeated requests for more detail and information than could fit in social media posts, he started his podcast, but it was an idea he’d had for the last four or five years.
“The way that law enforcement has gone to being transparent…I looked at that as an opportunity.”
Whether it’s demystifying the process surrounding body cameras or use of force or just countering the social messages the public receives from media about how law enforcement works, the podcast is Officer Dean and his guest’s opportunity to let people in on the real and authentic experiences of people in law enforcement.
He occasionally gets negative responses to his videos and podcast episodes, but he says the feedback he gets is overwhelmingly positive and he now has people asking him to be guests on the show rather than having to do the asking himself.
Rules, Requirements, and Values
India says that a lot of people don’t start projects like a podcast or social media presence because they are afraid of negative feedback, particularly if they’re discussing topics as polarizing as law enforcement.
This can be especially true, she says, when your workplace may also have additional requirements and rules around what you can do in the public eye.
Office Dean says that because of the nature of his job, his first step was to have a conversation with management about what he wanted to do. He also eased into the content that he was creating in terms of what he depicted or explained.
“I started with training videos because I was a field training officer…I eased into, this is what happens on day one when an officer gets on the street. That brought me a lot of positive feedback.”
He was aware of things that he could not say as a police officer, particularly around expressing any kind of bias. “For me, it was just saying, I’m going to treat everybody fair on my podcast.”
He also has firm boundaries around behavior that he won’t tolerate from guests and expectations of a respectful environment.
He says that if you want to have a social media presence or podcast and you work in a sensitive field, “It’s not frowned upon if you do it in a way of, hey, I don’t bring shame or anything to the department that I work for…That’s what the departments really care about.”
India adds, “There’s a happy place between the two of being compliant and also being honest with your own values.”
Officer Dean also adds his co-host, a retired female Baltimore detective, also brings balance and perspective to the podcast.
“I’m not there to set you up…This is, hey, this is information I want to share with my audience.”
Surprises and What’s Next
Officer Dean says that the biggest surprises he’s had so far have been the number of people listening from Canada, as well as the number of women who listen to the podcast. He’s also happy that his audience extends outside of fellow law enforcement officers and out to the general public.
He’s also delighted to have sponsors and to be approached by companies who want to sponsor the show, though he’s not willing to accept all offers. “I look into who’s this and what’s their motive of wanting to be on this show?...All money’s not good money.”
He says that for guests, he would love to get someone who has no experience with what happens when you call 911, particularly a woman, as women are statistically less likely to have interactions with law enforcement.
“That’s the person you want to say, hey, you know, this is what happens when you call 911. That’s why it takes this, or that’s why three officers show up, or things like that.”
He says he would also love to have a local radio host on the show. “I wanna go head to head with them.”
Time to Start
When it comes to advice for anyone who’s holding on to a dream as well as a day job, Officer Dean’s advice is to just start.
“Time is valuable. Do not give up on that dream…I’m not gonna say it’s not hard, but it’s worthwhile when you see things grow, when you see your dreams grow, when you see things that you have put your work and sweat into and it blossoms.”
He says that if you are in a workplace where there are concerns about your public persona, “the main thing is you do not put your job in a position where they have to defend you for anything.”
But really the key is to just get out there and start. “We make things hard because we overthink things, and a lot of people are afraid of failure…Follow that dream, cuz that’s all we have in this life, to be honest. You got a short time and a bunch of dreams, at least accomplish one or two of them.”
India agrees and adds, “Take one small action today to make [your dreams] a reality…Take the small action. Every small action leads up to your dream becoming a reality.”
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