Creating content and building my Personal brand has completely changed my life:

• I have been able to make more money than lawyers and engineers just through branded deals

• I have been invited to colleges I dreamt of getting into as a student

• I have been able to build a community of people who follow me for who I am

• I have been able to build a business on top of it

I get paid to speak my thoughts on the Internet and share my journey.

It almost feels like I found a glitch in the matrix.

If you are reading this today and are confused about what skills to learn, what career path to choose, and are just stuck - I will say keep figuring it out but start building your Personal brand on the side.

“Brand yourself to escape mediocrity”

Warning - This is going to be a detailed in-depth post. If you are just fucking around, close it right now and go back to your usual reel scrolling

THE BIG CONFUSION

Branding as a concept dates back to 2000BC and it is only after all the social media platforms emerged, we started talking about personal branding.

A lot of people confuse being a content creator with personal branding.

There is a massive difference between a content creator and a personal brand and I want to talk about it to clarify things for you!

All personal brands are a result of creating content but not all content creators have a personal brand.

• Branding is telling stories

• Branding is making your customers part of your story

• Branding keeps a company relevant for centuries

People want to buy iPhones because of the story, because of the branding not because of the utility of the iPhone - Every other phone in the market offers the same utility more or less.

So what is it about the iPhone that people stand in queues to get their hands on it when it launches?

It’s about how it is branded - People want to be a part of it the community.

Unfortunately, majority of the people forget to translate the same thing to a personal brand and they just stay a creator.

“People will always follow you for providing valuable information and resources but they will stay for stories.”

A personal brand makes your viewers interested in your story, your journey, your failures, your thoughts, and your perspective of looking at life.

Following your journey becomes valuable for them!

And that’s the beauty!

You make their life better one content piece at a time and you build trust at the same time.

This trust can now be used to completely transform YOUR LIFE

• Brands would want to sponsor you - Money

• You can create products that solve problems of your community - Money

• You can leverage it to network - More money

• You can get invited to speaking events and on panels - Status and brand compounding

• You can get clients - More money

Personal Brand VS Content Creation

Do not forget the difference and the fact that you cannot build a personal brand without becoming a creator first.

First, let’s talk about how to start the journey of becoming a creator and then we will talk about how to build a personal brand on top of it.

HOW TO BECOME A CREATOR?

Becoming a creator is the easiest thing if you do it the right way.

• Good creators do not run out of ideas

• Good creators do not become a duplicate version of another creator

• Good creators share their curiosities with the world in a unique way

You just need to think about 3 fundamentals to become a creator with a foundation for building a personal brand in the future:

1. A Curiosity

What are you curious about?

You might answer ‘nothing’ but that is just a lazy answer without thinking twice because as humans we are built to be curious.

Music, Dance, Travel, Business, Art, Growth, Self-improvement, Fitness, sports, social media, sales, marketing

Think about it and see what naturally makes you excited - Explore different things if you are not yet getting the answer.

Or you can just be curious about finding your curiosity at the start.

The key word is “curiosity”

2. A Defined goal/project

With the curiosity you have - decide a goal to move towards

• For an artist, it could be creating 10 art pieces in 3 months

• For a business owner, it could be building a product

• For a dancer, it could be around creating 30 videos on dance

• For a fitness enthusiast, it could be to get lean or gain muscle.

A defined goal is essential so you can work towards it for 90% of your working hours.

For me it was - I just wanted to get good at recording videos and I was mad about marketing and online businesses.

This goal should make you obsessed and excited to wake up every day and work towards it.

Once you get in the flow and you know you are learning, improving, and making your life better as a result of it - Now you are eligible to create content.

At this point, creating content will be easy because…

3. Share the journey

This way you don’t have to go on the internet and find viral content ideas like a fool!

You don’t have to copy others around you.

You just need to share your life mission and your journey with people on social media and the ones who are interested in the mission and have similar goals will start following you.

“If you are not getting the ideas to create content, you are not doing cool things in real life.”

You need to be relentless in real life about achieving a goal so people can sense that energy on the internet and become a part of your mission.

As you share your journey, part of it is about making it valuable and resourceful for people who follow you.

BUT..

Remember they are here for you!

You don’t have to become robotic and read the script in front of a camera - You just share your mission.

My mission is to help people escape mediocrity using the internet & social media as a vehicle.

Everything that aligns with that mission is shared on my social media profiles.

Don’t become a creator who just shares resources, tips, and hacks - It is boring and very short-term. You will not sustain as a creator with this strategy.

Now that you know how to become a creator, let’s talk about personal branding.

How to make a brand out of yourself through your content?

Let’s dive deep!

HOW TO BRAND YOURSELF?

You see branding is about aspiration, it is about polarity, it is about community, it is about status and a feeling.

But to simplify it - there are 5 pillars that you should create content on to brand yourself:

1. Authority

You need to have your own strong opinions about the world. If everyone agrees with you that means you have not built a brand - You have built a feel-good B.S.

A great brand always has people on the left and the right

People who support it and people who try to take it down - that’s why you will find discussions about iPhone vs. Android all over the internet.

Once you get confident as a creator you must share contrarian takes - This helps you build authority and makes your brand refined.

There should be people who are with you and the people who are against you.

Ideas of a contrarian take for my brand would be

1. Networking is a scam

2. Selling is the truth

3. Why selling courses is good for the world

4. LinkedIn is the worst platform ever

You got the point!

2. Aspiration/Lifestyle

To build a brand there has to be a separation between your followers and you.

• If they don’t aspire to be like you

• If they don’t aspire to live the life you live

• If they are not inspired by your lifestyle

Then they don’t have a reason to follow you.

Doesn’t matter what you do - In the end, people follow you because they aspire to be like you in one way or another.

Don’t forget to show them the life you live.

You must create aspiration in your viewer’s mind.

Without aspiration, you will become yet another creator that people follow for information and when they find someone else sharing better information they will unfollow you.

3. Share the struggle

Humans connect on a deeper level in hard times as compared to good times - that’s just evolutionary psychology.

The more vulnerable you are on social media, the more failures you share with your audience the more you connect with them.

Why do you think the picture of Jeff Bezos sitting in a small room with an Amazon board in the room is so inspirational?

Because it shows the struggle and where struggle can take a person - It is inspiring!

• Share your failures

• Share your mistakes

• Share your struggles

You are building a brand - Make them a part of your story on all fronts not just in the good times.

This is one of the hardest things to do because humans don’t like to display their faults!

There are a lot of other things that go into building a personal brand but this should be enough for you to get started.

Let’s not make it complicated!

The idea is to make content creation effortless and brand yourself.

As a business creator if you post a video of dancing and people go all excited about it - that’s when you know you have built a personal brand.

As an Entrepreneur, if you launch a t-shirt company and people buy- that’s when you know you have built a personal brand.

“Brand yourself to escape mediocrity”

You can’t imagine the opportunities it will bring your way.

-Akshat

When you are ready this is how I can help you:

1. From Scratch - the course built to give you the utmost clarity and understanding about how to start building your career on the Internet

2. PSB Portal - Notion template I use to manage and grow my content agency