You've Got Personal Branding Totally Backwards

It’s January 7th of 2022.

I’m scrambling to get home, and my heart is beating fast with excitement.

“Oh my god — it’s finally here!”

I reach the doorstep of my flat, enter, and immediately throw my bag and everything else into a corner.

While I fumble around to get my headphones out, I close the door of the living room. Then, I sit down and take out my phone.

After waiting for DawnFM (an album by The Weeknd) to drop for over a year — the time has finally arrived.

I have not heard a single track yet, but I know that I can expect nothing short of pure excellence.

And rest assured, it does not disappoint.

What an interesting phenomenon, don’t you think? Why is it that we get so excited about certain things and not about others?

Well, in essence, it’s an intense feeling of positive anticipation.

What causes that?

In this case, it was me trusting on The Weeknd to deliver something amazing.

I absolutely loved his prior work, and that comes with expectations.

Why am I telling you this? Well, because that’s exactly what personal branding is about!

Here are two quotes that summarize it well:

If you think about it, that’s exactly what was happening with me! The Weeknd’s music is nothing short of addictive (IYKYK) — and DawnFM was a banger to me even before it came out.

That’s an important thing to become aware of, because it’s an ideal that you might want to strive towards.

Don’t you want to produce that effect in your audience?

Sadly, the reality is that very few people in the creator space are actually achieving such an effect. I am not entirely excluding myself from this (which is why I’m working on personal branding.)

Mediocrity is spreading through Money Twitter like a virus.

Everyone is copying the best “tactics”, the laziest ways of using ChatGPT, and the most simple and dumbed-down ways of looking at things — at their own expense.

Almost no one is highly strategic about their approach to Twitter (and life in general; these are deeply connected).

Almost no one cares about discovering and living their life purpose.

And then they wonder why they fail to get above-average results.

Why is that? Well, avoidance of discomfort (e.g. laziness) plays a role. But I believe it’s lack of vision + lack of awareness + lack of inspiration.

They just don’t know any better.

Let’s not kid ourselves: Most of us (if not all of us) came here to build a thriving one-person business so we can quit our jobs and do something we actually enjoy doing.

That requires you to build a strong personal brand.

Personal branding has many facets (as we will discover) — but if you want to build a business, the reputation aspect is especially important.

I love the analogy that Daniel Priestly made:

Your personal brand is the Eiffel Tower, and your products and services are the shops and cafes that you position around the Eiffel Tower.

While the Eiffel Tower itself doesn’t make much money, the shops and cafes around it make huge amounts of it.

You can see this in action with creators like Dan Koe.

Everybody knows him, his personal brand is huge, and he gets paid accordingly (expected to cross $1M+ in revenue in 2023).

All he has to do is to position his products around himself and his content, and the money comes flowing effortlessly!

“Okay… so what?”

Glad you asked! This presents a problem.

Most creators, especially beginners, have incredibly weak personal brands.

And what’s even worse is that, they’re not being strategic about it whatsoever.

And then they wonder why:

• they get ignored by big accounts

• their work on Twitter feels frustrating

• their audience is growing painfully slow

• they blend in with the mediocre masses

• their personal brand is all over the place

• they don’t make any money, or barely any

• they feel unfulfilled, unmotivated, and uninspired

• they keep spinning their wheels despite putting in massive effort

Please see the depth of this problem. If you are not being strategic, the natural consequence is that you are leaving things to chance.

What results can you expect from that?

See, from an outside perspective there’s no reason why someone should follow you and buy your products and services.

The only way is to make them want to do it — you need to give them a good reason.

You need to become an interesting person that’s actually worth following.

Prime examples for this that you can study are Julie Ahrens (@thejulieahrens), Valeria (@HelioHype), and Joshua Geelen (@thejoshuageelen).

They’re just… interesting.

Still not convinced?

Alright then… (*cracks knuckles*) let’s talk about the benefits.

A strong personal brand that is built right(!), will:

• get your audience hooked on your brand and content

• set you up for massive success with building your audience

• enable you to build a thriving one-person business effortlessly, almost like you’re not even trying

• open doors as if by magic, for networking opportunities and collaborations with your peers and larger creators

Here’s another quote that I love:

What does this mean?

If you want to build a thriving one-person business, stop building the business. Start building the personal brand, and then build the business. You will have so much more leverage.

I hope you understand how powerful this is.

But let’s take a step back now…

What even is a personal brand? What is personal branding?

Well, there’s actually no simple answer.

There are many different angles and perspectives that you can take. Many nuances that create depth.

“Brand Or Be Branded”

There are a few things that personal branding is not:

• creating a website

• designing a banner

• optimizing your bio

• making a profile picture

Yes, those are tiny parts of the big picture. But even all of them together do not create a cohesive brand.

Because a cohesive brand requires real strategy.

See, most creators out there are not strategic with their personal brand. They leave it to chance, and so their reputation ends up being questionable at best.

And even if they are strategic, they’re most likely not serious enough about it.

You are actively shaping how people perceive you, and this will influence their perception of you for the rest of time! Do no take this lightly.

If you don’t make this process conscious and intentional, you will leave things to chance (by definition). And this means you will take on whichever qualities come to you on the path of least resistance.

So now we understand what personal branding is not.

Now we can dive into what it actually is.

I have collected a list of insights that I had while researching and contemplating personal branding. It will help you to understand it more.

Here it is:

1 ) Personal branding is about creating a story that is unfolding in real time (think “hero’s journey”), and that your readers can follow along with. They want to see you go from “nobody” to “somebody” because it is exciting and inspiring + they can say “I was there when it started”. They also gain status merely by being associated with you.

For example: If I were to become a successful music artist, people would probably love to come along and see me go from unknown to successful, right?

2 ) Personal branding is about how much wisdom and value you can bring to the table. That means being able to help people with solving their problems, and being able to help them make better, wiser decisions.

Wisdom is accumulated through learning from other people’s lessons and mistakes, and from life experience and making mistakes yourself.

3 ) Personal branding is about leadership. People want someone to lead them. Create a compelling vision of the future that you can lead them towards. Imagine it, communicate it effectively, and then show your readers how to get there (faster).

Know what you stand for and against, and voice that.

4 ) Personal branding is about keeping your readers on their toes. You cannot build anticipation for the future without building and releasing tension. What does this mean? It means dropping hints, teasing things, etc.

Julie Ahrens is a master of this.

So those are my insights.

Now I want to introduce you to my way of looking at personal branding.

I want you to think of your personal brand as your music catalogue — that being the collection of all your songs and albums that you produce and publish as an artist in your entire music career.

And you know what? Stop putting out random ass songs.

How would you feel if your favorite artist would bounce around between pop, country music, rock, R&B, classical music, and trap?

Not very good I imagine.

While you can produce great singles as a random ass musician, you’re most likely not going to produce great albums — let alone a great legacy.

That’s what being unstrategic does to you!

You can not produce excellent albums if you’re not coming from a higher place. You can’t come from a higher place if you don’t have a compelling vision for life. You can’t have a compelling vision for life without constant self-development and strategizing work. You can’t have that if you’re closed-minded and if you can’t give up your vices.

In this case, your “albums” are whole collections of your long-form content and how cohesively their “songs” (videos, newsletters, threads etc) fit together.

But it gets worse, because if you are all over the place — all of this is shaping how the world is perceiving you in the long term!

If you are mediocre with building your personal brand, you will be seen as exactly that — a mediocre person. Mediocre people get access to mediocre pay, mediocre networking opportunities, mediocre collaborations — and every other mediocre thing in life!

We want to think on a high level here, and we want to look at the big picture.

You become an excellent creator by working from the top down, not from the bottom up:

Think of your favorite music artist for a second — are they banging out random music, or is it following a progression pattern? When their next album is announced, are you excited for it? Are your expectations met when it finally does drop?

When you listen to it — does it have that characteristic voice that is typical for whatever artist you’re listening to?

Go look at their albums in order. Their music catalogue traces a story, doesn’t it?

Now, this poses an important lesson:

Your personal brand extends far into the future. It should be so consistent that people know they can expect great stuff with the next drop, and that’s what they are going to line up for.

But enough of our little foreplay here. Let’s get into the juicy stuff now, and I’ll show you how you can actually build a real personal brand.

1. Discover Yourself

Personal branding, first and foremost, is a self-discovery process. Secondly, it is a communication process.

You cannot effectively communicate something when you don’t even understand it in the first place. Does that ring a bell?

If you are not:

1. Crystal clear about who you are and what you want

2. Intentional about making your dreams a reality

3. Focused on your goals and vision

You will have an incredibly hard time getting your point across, because you don’t actually have a point in the first place.

This step is about getting to know your values, principles, and life philosophy.

It’s about gaining a general understanding of how your mind works, what your strengths and weaknesses are, what you want to accomplish in life etc.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking this will come easily.

You could spend weeks on trying to figure out just one single bullet point in the list above. I will soon be taking a whole course just to create my own life purpose (not an affiliate btw).

Now, I’m not a fan of telling you what you “should” and “should not” do — but, doing this work is not optional if you want to live a life that’s actually, truly worth living.

If you are not growing as a person, your life will stay exactly as it is right now — which you probably don’t want, or do you?

Your life reflects who you are and what you do, and your personal brand amplifies it for the whole world to see.

Without self-development, you are amplifying your immature and inauthentic current self.

This is the essence of what it means to build a personal brand.

You are your personal brand, but you are not you (yet). You are in the process of becoming you.

Personal branding is an effort that’s only meant to amplify who you are deep down. That means if your life sucks, your personal brand will also suck.

Surprise, surprise!

If you are selfish, childish, and immature, that’s what you will communicate to your audience through your personal brand.

Do you want that? I better hope not, because you only get one chance at building a personal brand.

If it goes wrong — that will make things very very hard for you in the future.

Here’s the ideal succession:

1. Build yourself

2. Build your personal brand

3. Build your business

Don’t skimp out on any of the steps above. If you do, that’s going to come back to bite you in the ass hard.

And then — there’s a smaller succession within that succession.

So how do you “build yourself”?

Your foundation is built from knowing yourself, from doing self-development work, and from creating your life purpose.

Here’s a great analogy for you:

Imagine you had two people that are writing.

Person 1 has ideated, prepared, and outlined his writing. He starts writing with a clear goal in mind. After he’s done writing, he carefully edits the whole thing.

Person 2 on the other hand? He just sits down, writes for 2 hours, and then publishes the writing.

Who do you think is going to produce a better result?

Or, imagine you wanted to build a skyscraper. If your foundation is made out of sand, the building will collapse eventually.

You will waste painful amounts of time, money, energy, and resources — perhaps even your entire life on doing that (and not even realize until it’s way too late.)

And the worst part? It could have all been avoided if you hadn’t tried to cut corners.

If you try taking shortcuts, you will ironically end up taking much longer and spend much more money and effort on it than if you just did the f*cking work.

Start from 0 — and I mean rock bottom 0.

Start by questioning your whole life, are you even chasing the right goals? What are you doing? Why are you doing it? What do you want to get out of life? Where are you going? Is it even worth fighting for or do you need to rethink it?

What are your limiting beliefs? What are your biases? What are your addicitions? How do all of these screw with, and distort, your perception?

You need to get crystal clear about all of this stuff.

If you skip steps or half-ass them, or if you ignore them all-together (like most people do) and just start at whatever random step of the succession — you’re shooting yourself in the foot. You will end up mediocre.

You won’t understand yourself as a person, you will make rash and immature decisions, and you will optimize towards all the wrong goals.

Things DO NOT start with your vision.

Because if your whole worldview is corrupted, your vision will be too!

That will lead you down a horribly wrong path in life, and before it’s over you will suddenly be wondering… what have I done with my life? Why did I waste all of it chasing something that has no real value? Why did I go after meaningless shit like sports cars, and not after making a real impact and fulfilling my life purpose?

Or, who knows… maybe you will be so unaware that you won’t even see what you have missed out on. You will only feel it as a sense of deep, painful regret.

Your choice, pal.

Your mindset and perspective should be on the entirety of your life. That’s how you get the most out of it (by definition)! If you only plan 1 year ahead, that’s way too shortsighted.

2. Create A Compelling Vision

You want to have something that can guide your personal branding efforts, otherwise that’s pure chaos and you will change course 10000000 times.

Of course you will iterate, don’t get me wrong, but that will be because of evolution and personal growth, not because of lack of clarity.

So how (and why) do we create a vision?

Well, vision comes from purpose. Can you see why I told you not to skip steps?

We create a vision because it’s an incredibly powerful tool for framing your focus.

This goes really deep into human psychology — if you frequently visualize your dream vision, you will start to experience a shift in identity because your ego will try to survive that new identity.

Fun fact: Your mind literally can’t tell the difference between “fake” and “real” — because in reality, everything is fake (including what you think of as “material reality”.)

But that’s a pretty advanced topic.

My spiritual bros might know what I’m hinting at.

If you visualize every day, you will start to deprogram all of the toxic and limiting beliefs that your psyche is impregnated with. And please — I know some of you are like:

“Ehh. That seems dumb.”

I know how you feel, because that’s exactly what I used to think for a long time. I used to be against anything that seemed “irrational” or “illogical”.

But here’s the trick: Humans are neither rational nor logical creatures. In fact, we are governed by our emotions.

Let me tell you that I tried visualization for myself. And oh boy, is it powerful.

Here’s a great video that talks about how to do visualization.

3. Build Strategic Resources

To build an amazing personal brand, you need a handful of skills.

They all play together to create a solid foundation on which you can build.

Here they are:

• Writing

• Strategy

• Planning

• Speaking

• Spirituality

• Meditation

• Organizing

• Philosophy

• Social skills

• Psychology

• Networking

• Copywriting

• Brand design

• Graphic design

• Contemplation

• Critical thinking

• Communication

• And many more

Remember:

Personal branding is a lifelong thing, you are the brand(!), and your brand is your life, these are all the same thing!

That means you’ll be building these skills for your whole life, and they will serve you for the rest of your life; if you want to build an amazing life as a creator or one-person business — these skills are necessary.

4. Personal Branding Strategy

This is a whole can of worms that we can only scratch at.

I will write a whole newsletter about it in the future once I go through the whole process myself, so don’t worry.

But right now, I just want you to know how personal branding strategy fits into the context of what we were just talking about.

Personal branding strategy is a focused plan on how you’re going to build your reputation and visibility in the world.

It includes things like your values, your message, and your differentiation and positioning strategy.

In the process of creating a personal branding strategy, you will be answering questions like:

• Who are you?

• Why are you here?

• Who are you here for?

• How are you different?

• Who do you want to be seen as?

• What do you want to be known for?

• What do you want people to think of you?

• What do you want people to associate you with?

• What message do you want to be connected with?

• How do you want people to feel about you when they hear your name?

• What do you want people to feel when they see your profile or graphic design elements?

In essence, it is about gaining clarity on what exactly you want to communicate to your audience — and writing that out so you have a strategy that you can use for orientation.

If social media is the terrain, then personal branding strategy is the map and the compass that you can use to navigate that terrain.

It ensures that you are always being intentional with your actions, and that you don’t stray from the path too much.

Some Final Words

You may have noticed that the actionable section was kind of short in this one.

And yeah — this one was a little less practical, and geared more towards giving you a big picture overview of what personal branding is all about.

I also got so into the flow that I kind of mismanaged my time a bit 🤣

But anyways: I believe that getting the theory right first is extremely important, especially with personal branding. After all, your personal brand is like your life! You only get 1 of those suckers, so you better not screw this up.

I want you to remember that personal branding is not something you want to leave to chance — unless that’s what you are aiming for?

And also, you’re not going to build a great and strong personal brand without a lot of deep, intimate self-discovery. It’s just not going to happen!

We will talk about this more as I progress through the levels, but for now — this article is something you come back to and re-read (even for me!)

Thank you for reading as always, and we’ll see eacher other next time around ;)

— Tym