Terry Rice talks about dropping his curated persona on major media platforms and connecting with audiences through his real struggles and values instead. He argues that authenticity in branding means showing up as yourself, not a polished version.
This is going to be a interesting answer because I would recommend people not to do what I did initially. Because even when I was on Good Morning America, Wall Street Journal, like, all these things, I was not being my true authentic self. I was playing a character, someone I thought would be likable by my audience. And, like, I was giving out good information, obviously, stuff like that. But it was almost soul sucking because it's like I was getting rewarded for being someone that I wasn't. So what I would ask anyone, can I ask what wasn't authentic? A few things. One is, I came off as way more, like, affable than I actually am in public in real life. Like, I'm just kind of a jerk sometimes. Like a, like a sarcastic person, not like a mean person. But, like, I would hold back those things. And then beyond that, and I know we'll get into this more like, there was a lot of tragedy going on in my life that people that were not aware of. So, like, I'm hiding all this pain that I'm in, showing up as this guy, like on TV or whatever, smiling, hey, everyone, like, here's how you do some stuff when really in the background. Like, things were just, like, not well emotionally at times. Like, like financially doing good enough, but emotionally, like, going through it. So my advice for anyone building their brand is like, get clear on who you are first. Get super clear on who you are, your identity, right? Like, what lights you up, what are your ethics, your values, your morals, so on, so forth. And it wasn't until about two years ago that I went through that journey myself. I did a few exercises, like the Ikigai thing, you probably heard of that before. I didn't do any of the strengths finders because those all seem kind of silly to me for whatever reason, no shade to anyone who likes them. But that's when I was like, no, I gotta show up as the true version of myself. And the true version of myself has been through some shit. And I think that alone is just admirable to some people who just need someone to look up to and say, okay, if that guy still achieved all this while going through that, well, heck, maybe I can too. So that's the first time I actually felt comfortable showing as the full version of myself. Yeah.
