You don’t need a personal brand; you need THIS.
You don’t need a personal brand; you need THIS.
Over the past couple months, I’ve connected with a handful of rad women who complimented me for my “personal brand” and then asked for advice to build their own. Of course, I’m flattered and grateful for kind words — and I love to share my experiences to help others — but I’ve also found myself bristling a bit at that term… personal brand.
It sounds like Digital Biz School 101: “Just identify your ICA, set up a sales funnel, own your niche, and commit to a personal brand!” (Feels very Amy Porterfield circa 2022 IYKYK)
But in my fifth year of full-time self-employment, and after working with dozens of other entrepreneurs, I’m rolling my eyes at a lot of the conventional small biz how-to out there. And I don’t think that 101 curriculum is gonna build a business that fuels your soul in the way it could. 🤷♀️
I don’t think you need a “personal brand.” I think you need this:
A point of view, rooted in your lived experience
A body of work to explore that POV
To put in your reps and let it unfold over time
A personal brand is designed, static. A body of work is accumulated, a living thing.
A personal brand asks: What do I want people to think about me? A POV asks: What do I actually care about and how do I want my creations to make a change?
Yes, the second question is harder! It doesn’t have a 5-module course you can take and be done with. If only life were so easy.
What gets you to a soul-filling business or creative platform is putting in your reps: Making a claim, saying it again but differently, sometimes being wrong, changing your mind, un-censoring, and repeat. Over years.
The women whose work I find most compelling don’t have tightly managed brands. They have a nuanced perspective (that may be counterculture or inconvenient!) and they’ve been putting it into the world long enough that people can finally feel the weight of it.
My advice: Name the questions you can’t stop asking. Build a platform to explore them publicly. Put in the reps. Stop trying to make it all look like one coherent Thing before it even is ready to be one Thing. The throughline will appear on its own time, in its own way.
So you don’t need a personal brand. You need a point of view and enough courage to keep building a body of work around it, allowing it to shape itself as you go.
Suggested Resource:Read this: 🧪 The 3 Elements That Shape Our Most Meaningful Work — and then message me to let me know which element you struggle with.