A Note on Personal Brands

Last week, I was on an X Space on ‘authenticity’. The irony hit me when a speaker shares his thoughts that sounded copy-pasted straight out of a psychology book I’ve read a million times.

Made me think about our personal brand.

Does this sound familiar:

• Playing detective on TweetHunter for trending copy formats

• Scrolling podcasts and articles to regurgitate content

If that sounds familiar. The goal is to connect — while simultaneously cutting out what is personal about our brands.

Frustrated, I half jokingly DM'ed a creator (Topher) I loved to tell me his strategy. 5 minutes later we were on a call.

Then he said something any aspiring solopreneur like myself need to hear:

So many people want to be an entrepreneur but spend hours on social media. I get marketing yourself but spend your time learning how to leverage the platform than on your business.

Unless you are trying to be a social media manager it’s not helping you.

As someone whose done this for 6+ months — it looks like:

‘I don’t know what I’m going to sell, but I’m going to talk on X and figure it out.”

and end up with posts like:‘5 ways to X’ even though you’ve never tried them.

The last place you want to be is platitudes and speaking from zero experience. How the fuck will that build trust?

Don’t get me wrong, people make a killing at that. I started X with a guy who does that. He now has 60k followers and I think a business.

But here’s the million dollar question: How do you want to show up online? And why isn’t your story good enough?

Anyway, something magical happened the day I spoke from experience, content didn’t feel like effort.

It’s easy to write because it was hard earned. The only fear is if your honest thoughts and experience will be torn to shreds because it’s all YOU.

inspiration is my life, the work I’m doing, and my experiences.

Need convincing, think about what you laugh about and follow.

Comedians make humor of the most mundane things — all be it sad if you pay attention. I mean hell one of my favorite creators of all time just talks about being a dad.

So if you leave with anything today: Share your story. It is the only thing that can’t be replicated.