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Stop Showing Up As Your Authentic Self
Or, “How I Earned $20K in 7 Days After Reinventing Myself Online.” An essay about personal branding, curation and the surreal nature of reality
I attended a personal branding webinar: “How I Earned $20K in 7 Days After Reinventing Myself Online.” I know how much that title screams clickbait, but some car crashes are too fiery to miss.
As soon as I heard the sad origin story — every one of these struggle-porn entrepreneurs has one, and I do, too — I knew I was in the presence of unapologetic excellence. Ripped from the transcript:
“It was so hard. I had to ask my boyfriend to financially support me as I re-tapped into my why. Then, I went to a breathwork training and had a major revelation. I knew I had to take bold action to start reinventing my brand. So, I booked a photoshoot that I felt better aligned with my current brand.
This Profile in Courage centered around a Facebook post that started with:
“I feel like I haven’t been fully honest with you … I’ve been misleading my audience … I haven’t been showing up as my fully authentic self”.
Written in nearly pitch-perfect sales copy format, the treatise generated 400-ish likes and 140+ comments.
The pivot netted the instructor growth from “being a six-figure entrepreneur” to “becoming a multi-six-figure entrepreneur.”
She concluded:
“People could tell something was wrong behind the scenes, so I showed up with transparency and vulnerability.”
Sweet Mother of VSCO… I can’t. In the words of New York Poet Laureate Shawn Carter, “Don’t make me do it to you, cuz I’ll overdo it.”
“If I have to hear one more skinny white bitch say “You know … I always say ‘just be authentic’”, I’m going to cut someone.” My partner said that to me at SXSW, naturally.
The genesis of this comment was not a latent stabby streak — but a day-long series of panels featuring a murderer’s row of “skinny white bitches” covering everything from personal branding to personal branding.
