Skip to content
    ← Podcast
    PERSONAL BRANDING
    Podcast 14 min read

    Why "Faking It" Kills Your Personal Brand w/ Chris Do

    with Chris Do

    Chris Do explains why personal branding starts with expressing real differences, not performing for approval.

    Chris Do

    Chris Do

    Founder, The Futur™ · May 27, 2026

    A personal brand can look successful while becoming harder to inhabit. The audience grows, but the person behind it feels increasingly out of place. Chris Do, the podcast guest whose perspective comes through advising a former employee and helping a friend connect her abilities with her professional identity, locates the problem before the content strategy: the distance between a person’s actual life and the identity presented for approval.

    The audience likes someone who is not there

    Do calls that distance the authenticity gap. It does not necessarily begin with an outright lie. It begins with adjustments: a different voice, a more acceptable appearance, an opinion softened until it no longer sounds like the person expressing it.

    Each adjustment can seem harmless. Together, they build an identity that requires maintenance. The creator is no longer deciding how to communicate something true, but how to remain consistent with a version of themselves designed around other people’s expectations.

    That distinction matters because the performance can produce the outward signs of progress. Followers arrive. Content gets attention. Potential clients respond. Yet the person receiving that attention does not feel recognized by it.

    Recognition and visibility are not the same thing.

    Do describes the underlying pressure as a desire to be accepted and loved. His argument is not that every polished presentation is dishonest. It is that accommodation becomes costly when the need for acceptance determines which parts of a person are allowed to appear.

    The consequences, in his account, show up in ordinary working habits rather than one dramatic collapse:

    • Making content leaves the creator depleted rather than energized.
    • Posting gets postponed because the work does not feel representative.
    • Tone, message, and presentation become subjects of constant second-guessing.
    • Followers and clients arrive, but feel like the wrong fit.
    • Growth remains uneven despite following trends and prescribed tactics.

    These are signals Do asks creators to examine, not proof that every difficult day comes from an invented identity. The relevant pattern is the relationship between the work and the person producing it. The effort goes into holding the character together instead of communicating the idea.

    That is a different problem from needing a better posting schedule.

    A schedule can organize production. It cannot resolve the discomfort of repeatedly publishing something that feels borrowed. More consistency can simply mean more frequent exposure to the same misalignment.

    There is also an audience problem. When a performed identity succeeds, its success encourages more of the performance. The resulting audience becomes evidence that the persona works, even when the creator increasingly dislikes the expectations attached to it.

    Do’s warning is therefore more demanding than a call to relax on camera. It asks creators to examine what their apparent success is rewarding. An audience built around an unsustainable presentation creates an uncomfortable choice: keep supplying the performance or risk disappointing people who were attracted to it.

    The starting point is not whether the content looks professional. It is whether the person behind it can continue standing behind what it asks people to believe.

    A small lie takes over the conversation

    Do makes the cost of performance concrete through a story about a young man who used to work for him. The employee still lived with his parents. On a date, he dreaded the moment when that fact would become relevant.

    When his date drove him home, the neighborhood complicated his story. It was a nice suburban setting, and she asked who lived with him. He described his parents as roommates, then hurried inside.

    The important detail is not the address. It is what protecting the address did to his attention.

    In Do’s telling, the employee spent the evening anticipating exposure. Every deeper question threatened to make the account harder to sustain. The date became a situation to manage rather than a person to engage with.

    The lie had acquired an operating cost.

    Do proposed a different response: state that he lived at home, then explain the decision. He was still figuring out his life and directing his earnings toward developing his career as a cinematographer and editor. The circumstances did not change. Their meaning did.

    One version concealed the facts to avoid judgment. The other made the facts available and supplied relevant context. Living at home could then be understood alongside ambition, investment, and self-discipline, rather than left to stand as an unexplained embarrassment.

    That reframing did not guarantee romantic success. Do’s point was precisely that it should not have to. A person uninterested in that reality was not someone the employee could win over sustainably by hiding it.

    The same distinction carries into professional positioning. A truthful account can still be selective, considered, and persuasive. It need not disclose every private detail. But the details it does present should not require an escape route when someone asks a reasonable follow-up question.

    This is where storytelling becomes useful rather than decorative. The issue sits alongside the subject of Storytelling Is A Superpower: facts need context, but context should make reality more intelligible, not replace it.

    The employee did not need a more elaborate persona. He needed a way to explain an actual decision without surrendering his dignity.

    Do extends the lesson to the creator who fears being exposed as a fraud. A constructed identity makes ordinary curiosity feel dangerous. Questions that should deepen a relationship instead become tests of whether the performance can survive another round.

    His example offers a more grounded alternative to projecting confidence. Confidence can begin with removing the material that must be defended. A truthful explanation does not eliminate rejection, but it changes what rejection means.

    Not everyone accepting the story. The right people understanding it.

    The offline meeting tests the online promise

    An online identity does not stay online. Do points to talks, workshops, meetups, and chance encounters as places where a public presentation meets ordinary behavior. Eventually, the audience encounters someone who is not working inside the controlled conditions of a post.

    That encounter can confirm the brand or expose the work required to maintain it.

    At a marketing mastermind, Do recalls, a woman named Molly praised him for being the same person in real life that he appeared to be online. He appreciated the compliment, but found its significance troubling. Why should that consistency be unusual enough to celebrate?

    The episode is useful because the praise concerns neither expertise nor production quality. It concerns continuity. The person someone expected to meet was the person who arrived.

    Do’s objection is that a basic standard has started to look exceptional.

    He sharpens the point with the example of someone who publicly promotes kindness, empathy, or generosity, then behaves in ways that contradict those values. The problem is not merely that the person has limits. It is that the audience has been encouraged to expect something the person does not deliver.

    In his comparison, a plainly transactional person can set a more credible expectation. Someone who acknowledges having only five minutes to give is making a smaller promise, but one that can be kept.

    That creates several distinctions worth preserving:

    • Claimed generosity is a promise. Actual availability determines whether it holds.
    • A stated boundary gives people usable information. A generous persona can conceal that boundary.
    • Online warmth creates expectations. Offline conduct determines whether those expectations were justified.

    This is not an argument against aspiration. It is an argument against treating an aspirational trait as an established fact about the self. Wanting to be generous and being consistently generous are different positions from which to communicate.

    The distinction also keeps authenticity from becoming an excuse for carelessness. Do’s comparison is about accurately representing conduct, not declaring every existing behavior admirable. The brand cannot do the ethical work on the person’s behalf.

    The pressure surrounding public identity is also the subject suggested by The Costs of Being Internet Famous w/ Jodie Cook. Here, Do concentrates on one specific cost: the obligation to sustain expectations that the person’s actual behavior cannot support.

    That obligation grows more visible as access increases. A post offers a narrow encounter. A workshop or conversation gives people more information. If the additional information contradicts the original impression, polish becomes less persuasive rather than more.

    The durable standard is not that every interaction must feel identical. It is that the difference between formats should not reveal a different set of values. A personal brand should survive the end of the performance conditions.

    Normal is a weak positioning strategy

    Do’s argument takes a sharper turn when he considers the pressure to appear normal. For him, normality becomes a shorthand for occupying the middle: removing the unusual elements until the presentation feels familiar enough to avoid resistance.

    His objection is strategic as much as personal. A creator who works hard to blend in is also making it harder for an audience to recognize a meaningful difference.

    “Branding is intentional differentiation,” Do says.

    That definition makes intentional differentiation a task of identifying and expressing real distinctions, not adding eccentricity as decoration. The material already exists in the person’s combination of training, interests, experiences, and abilities. The difficulty is deciding which parts have been unnecessarily excluded.

    A professional category can make that exclusion seem sensible. People learn what someone in their field is supposed to sound like, which references appear credible, and which personal interests should remain outside the frame. Eventually, category membership can become the whole presentation.

    Do pushes against that narrowing. A person’s usefulness does not have to be presented separately from everything else that makes the person recognizable.

    But his position also creates an apparent tension. If authenticity is the goal, why spend time constructing a brand at all? Why not simply appear without strategy and let the audience make sense of whatever happens?

    The answer lies in the difference between construction and fabrication. Do advocates deliberately assembling truthful material. His proposed exercise asks people to look closely at themselves, then decide how their actual traits can work together.

    The decisions are intentional. The ingredients are not invented.

    That distinction keeps the argument from collapsing into either extreme. A manufactured persona hides the person behind a marketable character. An entirely unconsidered presentation can leave the audience unable to understand what connects the person’s abilities or why those abilities matter.

    Do wants the connection made visible.

    This is also why his argument belongs beside, rather than inside, a purely commercial discussion such as You Don't Need a Personal Brand. You Need an Offer. An offer clarifies a transaction. His concern here is the identity and difference that remain when no immediate transaction is taking place.

    Not every interest needs to become a service. Not every unusual trait belongs in every piece of content. The question is whether the professional identity has become so narrow that valuable parts of the person never enter it.

    Do’s answer rejects imitation as a shortcut. Borrowing another person’s delivery can make a creator legible quickly, but it does little to explain why that creator should be chosen. Familiarity supplies a recognizable shape. Differentiation supplies a reason to remember who occupies it.

    The work, then, is not becoming stranger for attention. It is becoming more specific without making anything up.

    The inventory comes before the identity

    Do turns that principle into a practical exercise built around four columns. Rather than beginning with a polished statement about who someone wants to be, he asks for an inventory of what is already present and what the outside world requires.

    The first instruction is to generate possibilities without judging them. Editing too early would reproduce the original problem: allowing an assumed standard of acceptability to decide which parts of the person deserve consideration.

    The columns use four questions:

    • What are you good at? Record training, practiced skills, education, and abilities developed through work or apprenticeship.
    • What are the things that you love? Include deep interests, hobbies, quieter curiosities, and activities that would occupy free time without financial pressure.
    • What does the world value? Identify abilities or contributions that are in demand and that people will pay for now.
    • What does the world need? Look beyond payment toward larger problems that need a solution.

    The arrangement matters. The first two columns look inward. The second two look outward. Personal branding, in this formulation, does not begin and end with self-expression. It connects the person’s actual material with a context in which that material can matter.

    The distinction between value and need is particularly useful. Do separates what attracts payment now from what answers a larger problem. The exercise therefore leaves room for both commercial relevance and a contribution that cannot be described only through immediate demand.

    It also prevents the skills column from monopolizing the answer. Formal training is often the easiest information to retrieve because it already appears in professional biographies and service descriptions. Interests can be harder to defend, precisely because they have not yet been assigned a business purpose.

    At this stage, they do not need one.

    After generating the lists, Do asks participants to underline anything that produces joy or excitement. Then comes the difficult part: finding an intersection among the selected words and designing an expression of the self that uses as many genuine traits as possible.

    The exercise is not a promise that every entry will fit neatly together. Its purpose is to enlarge the available material before choosing a direction. Without that inventory, a creator can mistake a familiar professional role for the full extent of what they have to offer.

    A broader treatment of the category appears in Personal Branding Masterclass w/ Daniel Priestley. Do’s contribution here is deliberately personal: the raw material for differentiation should be found before the presentation is optimized.

    The resulting identity should be recognizable to the person living it, not merely impressive to the person evaluating it. That is the practical test embedded in the exercise. If the final expression excludes everything that made the inventory exciting, the old performance has simply been given a new design.

    The overlooked skill changes the whole picture

    Do illustrates the exercise through work with his friend Uma. Her professional abilities, as he describes them, include helping women navigate transitions in professional and personal contexts, feel seen, and address experiences that are often treated as taboo.

    Those abilities already suggest a coherent professional role. But the inventory uncovered another part of her life: she had learned piano as a child and loved music.

    Do asked whether she was good, then pressed for what made her good. In his account, her answer was not simply technical competence. She described being able to draw emotion from the instrument rather than merely play the notes.

    That distinction changed the conversation.

    Music was no longer just an unrelated hobby that happened to appear in the second column. Her account of playing revealed an emotional capability that sat alongside the sensitivity already present in her work with women.

    Do’s question became how those parts could be integrated. The exercise did not require her to abandon existing strengths and start over as a musician. It made a previously separated ability available to the professional identity she already had.

    This is a more concrete version of being authentic than simply speaking more casually or sharing more personal details. An overlooked skill can change the form of a presentation, not just the biography attached to it.

    Do imagines the possibilities through performance. Someone who can sing can bring singing to the stage. Someone who can dance can bring movement. His constraint is equally important: the expression must come from abilities that actually exist.

    Admiring another person’s gifts does not make them usable material for a truthful brand.

    The distinction protects the exercise from turning into another aspiration trap. A creator can look at an engaging performer and decide the missing ingredient is that person’s style. Do instead directs attention back to the inventory: which genuine ability is being left unused?

    Uma’s example also shows why a useful intersection is more than a pile of traits. Music and professional support are not connected merely because one person happens to do both. The meaningful connection, in Do’s telling, is her ability to work with emotion.

    That is the difference between displaying personality and integrating it.

    The transcript does not establish that Uma launched a new format or achieved a measurable business result from the exercise. The example is valuable at an earlier stage. It shows a method for discovering a possible distinction without borrowing one from someone else.

    Her overlooked ability gives the identity more material to work with. It does not guarantee an audience, a fee, or a successful presentation. The result is a more grounded creative decision: build around an existing strength that makes the professional expression more complete.

    For a creator exhausted by imitation, that is a significant change in the assignment. Less effort spent becoming credible as someone else. More attention paid to what has been excluded from the real person.

    A funnel can sell what a brand cannot sustain

    Do’s final distinction concerns the business being built around all this work. He challenges personal branding advice that is, in practice, instruction in attracting prospects and moving them toward a purchase.

    That activity has a legitimate purpose. He explicitly recognizes the role of performance marketing in generating revenue and supporting cash flow. His criticism concerns the substitution: treating short-term content performance as though it were the whole work of building a personal brand.

    Performance marketing and long-term brand value are different priorities. In Do’s account, overemphasizing the former can come at the expense of the latter. Content can be effective at producing an immediate response while doing little to clarify what makes its creator distinct.

    His example is bottled water. He uses the familiar product to argue that a label, a story, and an account of origin can influence perceived value. Strip away those signals, and the distinction becomes harder to recognize.

    The example is an illustration of his argument, not proof that every price difference comes from branding. Its relevance is the role of meaning. The product is not presented only as a substance, but as something with an identity.

    Do applies that observation to people who have real abilities but no clear account of what connects them. Their problem is not necessarily insufficient substance. It can be insufficient expression of the substance already there.

    The water analogy also exposes the limit of packaging. A more compelling label cannot resolve the mismatch at the center of the authenticity gap. If the story makes promises the person cannot sustain, the presentation only makes the eventual contradiction more visible.

    His practical sequence therefore runs in the opposite direction from persona design:

    • Inventory actual skills and interests before deciding what the brand should look like.
    • Connect those traits with present demand and needs beyond money.
    • Underline the material that creates genuine excitement.
    • Build an expression around the intersections, rather than copying another person’s gifts.

    The work is specific enough to begin without a new platform, a larger audience, or a more elaborate production setup. It requires attention to the creator’s existing material and honesty about what has been suppressed to appear acceptable.

    The next piece of content becomes a test of that work. Does it make an actual strength more visible, or does it ask the creator to keep defending a character? Does the story explain the person, or protect the person from being known?

    Do’s standard leaves room for commercial ambition. It simply refuses to make approval the organizing principle of identity. Revenue has a role. So does reach. Neither can make an invented self easier to inhabit.

    The strongest label is the one the person underneath can live up to.

    TRANSCRIPT

    Everything that you think you know about personal branding is wrong and you will not grow until you learn this one core truth. And I'm going to break it down in detail, so let's not waste any more time. Let's just get right into it. So what is the authenticity gap and why is it hindering your personal brand? The authenticity gap is this invisible distance between who you really are and the person that you show to the world to be accepted. You might not be faking anything, but you're definitely performing to a degree. You're adjusting how you speak, how you dress, how you express yourself, how you show up in the world to fit in to what people already think and want from you. And over time, this creates a personal brand or impression of you that looks right on the outside but feels really wrong on the inside. And here's the danger of this. If you pretend long enough to be someone else, you forget who the real you is. And this all comes from a deep -rooted fear of not being loved, not being accepted. And this is the root cause of why we show up not as ourselves. So here are five common signs that you might be in this authenticity gap. Number one, you feel drained after making content. You're like dreading it and after you're done, you're just like exhausted, depleted of energy. Number two, you procrastinate posting because it doesn't feel like you. Because it takes a lot of effort to pretend to be someone else. Number three, you're second -guessing your tone, your message, your vibe, everything. It's just like, are people going to like this? Are they going to ignore this? Are people going to like me? Are they going to think I'm a fraud? Number four, you attract clients' followers that feel like the wrong fit. And although at the beginning it might be nice to get the followers and the attention and the reach, after a while you're like, this ain't my tribe. Number five, your growth is inconsistent. Even though you're doing all the right things, you're following all the trends, you're doing as prescribed, but it's just up and down the peaks and the valleys. Now this authenticity gap might feel small, but let's see how it all... After a while, you're like, this ain't my tribe. Number five, your growth is inconsistent, even though you're doing all the right things. You're following all the trends you're doing as prescribed, but it's just up and down the peaks and the valleys. Now, this authenticity gap might feel small, but let's see how it all snowballs and gets bigger and bigger. The longer you operate from a misaligned place telling an untruth, the more your brand starts to suffer quietly. And I'm not suggesting that you're intentionally creating an untruth or lying. It's just these are survival mechanisms. This need, the desire to fit in, to be loved and to be accepted is so overwhelming that we might even be doing this subconsciously. So what happens when you stay inauthentic? When you're not being yourself in your content, it starts to wear on you. It's exhausting. You're going to burn out faster. You're going to feel less motivated to get up and do things. And when the results start to wane and they inevitably will, you're going to feel really disconnected from your message, from your brand, from how you've been showing up. And unfortunately, you're going to lose the joy of creating. It's going to rob you of that excitement that you initially had because it feels like you're pretending to be someone that you're not instead of just showing up as yourself. I'm going to try to make this as clear as possible. If you're stuck in this inauthenticity gap, you're going to suffer mightily. I'm going to lay out some of them for you right now. Number one, you're going to be constantly doubting who you are and how you show up. You're just feeding the imposter monster that you're a fraud and you can just keep showing up waiting to be discovered. And this is going to come at your own self -confidence, your self -worth. And anytime somebody asks you a question that pushes a little bit beyond the surface, you're going to fall apart like a house of cards. I've seen it happen many, many times. When people get that whole pause phase when they're asked a question, this is what's happening. Their brain is breaking. They don't know how to respond. Do they continue the lie or do they finally come clean? And most often, they choose to continue the lie. You know that expression, the truth will set you free? I think there's deep wisdom in that statement. If you show up as yourself and stop pretending, you won't have to work overtime to think about the story that you've created for yourself. I'm going to give you a real life example right now. One of the guys who used to work for me, young man, he was still living... depression, the truth will set you free. I think there's deep wisdom in that statement. If you show up as yourself and stop pretending, you won't have to work overtime to think about the story that you've created for yourself. I'm going to give you a real life example right now. One of the guys who used to work for me, young man, he was still living at home. And when he would go out on a date, the question that he dreaded the most was, where do you live? Should we go back to your place? The goal of most young people dating is to finalize that deal. And I remember him telling me the story and she's like, where do you want me to drop you off? He's like, oh yeah, I live here. Just drop me off here. So she takes him back and she's like, who do you live with? Because it's a really nice neighborhood, right? It's like a really nice suburb. I mean, he goes, oh, my roommates. And she was looking at him like, this is really weird because your roommates have a lot of money and you're living in like a family place. She drops him off and I think he kisses her and he kind of runs his door and kind of disappears knowing that his mom and dad are behind that door. So throughout dinner, he has to maintain this story and he's dreading having deeper conversations about this. One small lie leads to another lie and it just starts to snowball. So the whole time he's not present. He's not attentive and attuned to what's going on because he's afraid of being discovered. And as I was talking to him, I said, hey, why don't you just tell her the truth? He goes, my God, she's going to think I'm some kind of incel total loser and not going to get anywhere with this. I said, well, how did your lie work out? It didn't work out, did it? Here's how I would have answered it. He goes, tell me, Mr. Smarty Pants. So she asked me, where do you live? I said, you know what? I still live at home because right now I'm still trying to figure out my life and I'm using every dollar I make to invest in my career as a cinematographer and as an editor. Now I say that because I know this. If she ain't into you, then she ain't into you. And I want to date somebody who can look past that and say, like, I might not have what you may want right now, but I got that one thing that I know is going to work. It's called ambition, drive, and I have a lot of self -discipline. And if she's not impressed by that, she's not worth your time. So how does this relate to you showing up online in your personal brand? It's not very different. You pretend to be someone, but eventually these people will meet you at a talk, at a workshop, at a meetup, or bump into you in this. And I have a lot of self -discipline. And if she's not impressed by that, she's not worth your time. So how does this relate to you showing up online in your personal brand? It's not very different. You pretend to be someone, but eventually these people will meet you at a talk, at a workshop, at a meetup, or bump into you in the street. And you don't have your makeup on. You don't have your game voice on. And they're going to discover like, God, this person is nothing like the way they pretend to be. Let me tell you this. I was at a marketing mastermind with some of the most successful marketers in the world. And there's this woman, she raised her hand and says, you know what I like about Chris? And I'm like, oh shoot, my name is being called. And her name is Molly. And Molly says, I met Chris a while back while we're both speaking or attending Atomic Con. And she goes, you know what's refreshing about him? He's exactly who he is online. And everybody was like, wow, that's so cool. And then I said, you know what? Molly, that's very kind of you to say. But I find it sad that you have to say things like this because I wonder why is this the exception? Why are we applauding people for being who they're supposed to be? But this sadly has become the exception, not the norm. That people are so caught up in trying to be somebody that they're not, that they will eventually be found out for who they really are. You know that person that pretends to be nice, to talk about kindness or empathy or generosity or any one of these traits. And then when you see how they act, they're not consistent with that. is a bigger fall from grace than if you just told people, I'm a transactional person. I got five minutes to share with you and that's the extent of what I can do. They're going to respect and appreciate that way more. It is better to be hated for the person that you are than to be loved for the person that you're not. Play that back again. So I find this a strange phenomenon that people, when they're posting things and it's a little bit off -center, they're like, oh, that's not normal. You shouldn't be doing that. And I kind of think about this word normal a lot. Like, what does normal mean? Normal means average. It's in the middle. It's the statistical average of things. And I don't know who's going around telling each other that I want to be average. I find that to be super insulting. If you were to look at my content and you'd say, Chris, I love your content because it's average, I'd be horribly offended. But that's kind of what we're saying. I want to be normal. This is normal. So what we're doing is we're playing to the middle. telling each other that I want to be average, I find that to be super insulting. If you were to look at my content and you say, Chris, I love your content because it's average, I'd be horribly offended. But that's kind of what we're saying. I want to be normal. This is normal. So what we're doing is we're playing to the middle. We're working really hard to hide in plain sight, to blend in. That's what we're doing with all of our content. So here's how we need to solve this. Here's how we get out of being normal or being average. You have to focus on what makes you different. Branding is intentional differentiation. So we have to really ask ourselves these questions. What makes you different? What can you celebrate that is truly authentically you? Because when you look at all of who you are, it's a very rare combination that very few people are going to be able to claim. This is your superpower when it comes to your personal brand. This is how you close the inauthenticity gap by doing the most simple and natural thing. You see the solution at least twice a day. Once in the morning when you're brushing your teeth, once in the night when you're washing your face. It's you to be you. The most powerful thing that you can do to be authentically yourself is to be more you. And your job is to be the USU you can be. Because the more you you are, the more you are. Now you might be thinking to yourself, great, Chris. Rah, rah, ah, be me. The me is me. I can be. What am I going to do with that? Give me something concrete to hang my hat on. Here we go. I want you to create four columns. On each column, just write this down and then try to generate as many ideas without judgment. This is the critical part. Krishnamurti says this too, by the way, that the highest form of intelligence is observation without judgment. So let's be really smart when we do this exercise together. So here are the four columns. What are you good at? What are you trained to do? What are you skilled at? Usually this is what you learned in school, how you've apprenticed, where you put your 10 ,000 hours in. Number two, what are the things that you love? What do you have a deep passion for? Or even a feigning interest? What are your hobbies? What kind of isyncratic things do you explore when no one's watching? And if you had all the money in the world, what would you be doing in your free time? We need to explore that. Number three is what does the world value? What is valuable right now? What is something you're going to be paid for that is in demand at this moment? And the fourth is probably the hardest thing is what does the world need? Beyond money, what does it need? a solution to a much bigger problem? your free time. We need to explore that. Number three is what does the world value? What is valuable right now? What is something you're going to be paid for that is in demand at this moment? And the fourth is probably the hardest thing is what does the world need? Beyond money, what does it need? Does it need a solution to a much bigger problem? And what you want to do is write all these things down. The first two are really about you. The second two are about what the world wants. So column one and two is looking inward. Column three and four is looking outward. And what you want to do is after you're done, go through your list in each column and underline anything that gives you a little joy that sparks a little excitement in you. And then this is the hardest part. Find the intersection of all those words and design the perfect version of yourself. The one that plays to as many of your unique traits as possible. Let me give you an example. I'm working with a friend right now. Her name is Uma and we made this list together. So she's like, what are you really good at? And that's the easiest part because we know what that is because we went to school for it. It's usually what we get paid to do. But the interesting part was as a child, she learned how to play the piano. She loves music. And I said, are you good? She goes, yes. And I asked her, what makes you really good? She goes, I know how to draw out emotions by playing the keys. Some people play the song. I play the emotions. Like, wow. What could you do that integrates the things that you're really good at, which is helping women in the corporate space transition from business to business in a professional context or from business to personal? She's very good at that. And she's also very good at helping women feel seen and to normalize things that are typically taboo or demonized. She makes it safe for women to show up as themselves. But she's missing this other component of music. So I told her, if I could sing, I would sing on stage. If I could dance, I would dance my butt off on stage while I'm giving my presentation. But what I have to do is lean in on the gifts that I have, not the gifts that I want. And that's the big difference there. Put in as much of you into this stuff as possible. And that's how you show up truly authentically as yourself. This next part is going to hurt some feelings, especially if you feel called out. But if you feel called out, it's because you're doing something wrong. Let me just tell you that much. There are a lot of people in the personal branding space talking about how to build personal brands that they're so -called quote -unquote experts at this. how you show up truly authentically as yourself. This next part is gonna hurt some feelings, especially if you feel called out, but if you feel called out, it's because you're doing something wrong. Let me just tell you that much. There are a lot of people in the personal branding space talking about how to build personal brands that they're so -called quote -unquote experts at this. Most of them use the word personal brand because it's on trend, it's popular, it's in demand. But what they're really talking about is how to build sales funnels or marketing funnels. This is really what they're teaching how to do. How do you create content to attract people because they're concerned about the short -term performance of the content that you create? Now, there are reasons why you need to do this because performance marketing helps to bring in money. It helps to support your business and cashflow. But the more performance marketing you do comes at the cost of building long -term brand value. Historically speaking, we've not had quantifiable ways to look at measuring brand value, but that's old thinking. Because I'll tell you this, brand has tremendous value besides awareness and reach and sentiment. Because when you take the logo or the mark of a brand that's very valuable and you apply it to something else and it increases the value of that thing, you now can recognize how much brand is worth. And the classic example I love to give to people is water. One of the most ubiquitous available resources on the planet. Things that literally come from the sky that if you're in a place that it rains enough, you can collect for free. Yet there are companies out there who sell you this free resource for a little bit to a lot of money. And most of it is built on brand. This is critical for you to understand. And so here's something that I'm going to tie this one together for you so stick with me. Now, I don't know the exact ratio depending on how old you are, if you're a man or a woman, but we're mostly made up of water. That doesn't mean we're 90 % water, but the majority of our body is made up of water. So if you're walking around and looking at packages of water and each one communicates a different sense of value, there's a story to it, there's a provenance meaning where did it come from and Fiji claims untouched by man filtered through a thousand years of lava rock. That's its story. That's its provenance. Those brands command premium price. All you have to do to prove this is to pull the label off the bottle. And what's more is if you... value. There's a story to it. There's a provenance, meaning where did it come from? And Fiji claims untouched by man filtered through a thousand years of lava rock. That's its story. That's its provenance. Those brands command premium price. All you have to do to prove this is to pull the label off the bottle. And what's more is if you take that water and you open it and you pour into glass, you've completely devalued that water at this point because you've removed any story or anything that makes it different. And then you look at yourself and you look at your content. If the majority of who we are is water, what is the package? What is the story? What is the brand? So are you unintentionally walking around without a label, without a story to devalue who you are? That's the big question to think about. So my perspective is counter to what most of these personal branding experts. And I say that with a lot of like tongue in cheek, because what I want you to do, instead of looking at this as a marketing platform to go get more customers to fill your pipeline, is to learn about who you are and to connect with it authentically and express that in the purest form to the world. Because in the long run, that's what's going to make you different. That's the thing that's going to create value for you. And it's going to be exponentially more valuable than what you can make by trying to sell your services through the label of brand.
    Download transcript

    Enjoyed this? There’s more where it came from.

    Get insights on creativity, business, and design from The Futur.

    You can unsubscribe anytime. By submitting, you agree to receive communications and to our Privacy Policy.

    “Branding is intentional differentiation.”

    — Chris Do

    Key Takeaways

    Details

    Topic
    PERSONAL BRANDING

    Share