Should you start a personal brand?

So a few years ago I was on a meeting with Iman Gadzhi and I was meeting with him because I had some questions about growing my business. I was in one of his programs. I was excited to continue growing my agency and at the time we were doing around, I think, $30,000 to $40,000 a month in revenue. And On that meeting, I was expecting Iman to give me a bunch of ideas, a ton of secret magic sauce that would grow the business and that I would get off that meeting and it would be 10 times bigger and I'd be a happy kid. And I remember about halfway through the meeting, we were, we were talking And he said to me, well, what do you want? And the question kind of stumped me. I was like, well, I was like taken aback. I was like, what do you mean, what do I want? Like, I want to just grow the business. And he was like, no, well, like, what do you actually want? And the question pissed me off. I remember getting off the meeting and being quite frustrated at the concept. I was like, hang on a second. I I joined this meeting to, I don't know, get some magic secret sauce. But I left the meeting annoyed. And the reason I was annoyed was because I didn't actually know the answer to that question. I didn't know what I wanted. And it leads me to today's topic, the thing that I wanted to talk about today. Which is starting a personal brand. I've seen so many people talking about starting personal brands and the importance of it and why you should be posting 17 reels per day on Instagram and every other social media platform. And I've been told this a lot over my life as well. You need to start a personal brand. You need to be posting. You need to be telling the world everything all day long. And this is not a criticism in any way. I think it's a great thing to do. But I think the first thing that anybody should know when starting a personal brand is that everybody already has a personal brand. And a personal brand isn't based off of the amount of videos that you post online. It's, it's your reputation. Your personal brand is what people think about you and you could only know one person. You could live in a cave and you'd still have a personal brand. So I think everybody already has a personal brand and people get very caught up with this idea of starting a personal brand and I'm not exactly sure what it is. Maybe it's getting lots of views, maybe it's getting more customers for a business. I think there is a lot, there are a lot of reasons why somebody would start a personal, personal brand. But one thing that I find lots of people that talk about personal brands don't seem to understand is the goal of the personal brand in the first place. And there's a lot of people that will say, hey, start a personal brand. I can't talk. Start a personal— start a personal brand because it's going to get more customers, for example. And that's a great reason to do it. Dance on YouTube, get some crazy hooks and thumbnails and get everybody excited about the product or service you're selling. Sure, that's a great reason to go ahead and start a personal brand. But I think lots of people truly want a personal brand because they want to be known. They want some sort of human validation, or they like the idea of being famous. And I think, again, these are great things, but you really need to start with defining the goal of your personal brand. And it's the same reason why Iman asked me, what do you actually want? Because I was like, hey, I just want to grow the business. But he was like, why? Like, what do you actually want to grow the business for? Is it, is there, do you want to like look after your friends and family? Are you looking to inflate your ego further? Like what actually is causing the desire to want to do this in the first place? And most people don't seem to know the answer to that question specifically. So if you're starting a personal brand because you think it's gonna be a great way to get customers, for example, then maybe it's not the best way to get customers. There are plenty of ways to do marketing. You can run ads, you can do outreach, you can, you can go cold calling, you can go door knocking, you can put flyers up all over your local city if you want to. And these are all great ways to get customers. So I think before you go and do something like starting a personal brand and posting content online, you should first understand why you're doing it. And what you're looking to achieve from it. And me posting these videos, I just want to talk to a camera. I just want to get my thoughts out there. I want to kind of document this as this process of life and leave a bit of a trail that I can go back and watch and take a look at. And right now, that's my intention. That's my goal for starting a personal brand. 10 people could watch this video. 10,000 people could watch this video. I don't really mind, but I just want to film it and I want to get my thoughts out into the abyss. And as time goes on, this channel will continue to develop. I've spoken about that lots of times in previous videos, but currently I know what my goal is, and that's why I'm sat down filming this video right now. However, I think lots of people like the idea of things and they, they see other people doing something, so they really, really, really love the concept of going and starting a personal brand or having lots of views or followers on Instagram, for example. But I think people need to dive into why that is. So that's my, that's my rant for today. It's relatively short, but yeah, think down to the root of why you're doing something or why you want to do something in the first place and then explore other options. Maybe maybe there are 20 different ways to achieve your goal. And oftentimes there are lots and lots of paths and it doesn't have to just be one thing that you've seen other people do to achieve a goal. So make sure to bear that in mind. If you're looking to start a personal brand, first know that you already have one, that you already have a personal reputation, and then define your goal and your reasoning for it and see if there are other ways that you can achieve your goal Asides from filming videos all day long. However, it is a great thing to do. It's super fun. I'd recommend it if you want to get your thoughts out. Peace.