So this site languished for a solid 3 or 4 months as I continued to work on other projects both at work and some projects I am pursuing outside of work.
Back in 2017, I spent a fair amount of time with a couple of different coaches, and in all cases the need for increased clarity was largely the focus of those conversations. I invested a bunch of time and money aiming to drive to the essence of my professional brand.
This was a fallacy.
Instead, it became a focus on what emerged as my underlying vision, mission, passion, and operating principles. Looking back, all of this had to happen first before I could TRULY have a brand worth establishing in any meaningful way. Perhaps the process is different for others, for me this is how it played out.
So in late 2017 – things ‘clicked’ in terms of establishing my overarching vision, and this process of chipping away the excess granite like so many craftsmen, including my grandfather, up in Barre, VT with Barre Grey Granite – is a story worth sharing down the line. So now I had the vision/mission/operating principles and truly a framework to unlock this for myself and others! Yet, I was missing something.
Want to guess?
The answer this time is not profound or ‘meaning of life’ like some other questions posed recently here.
I was still missing my damn brand! I spent over a year aiming at this type of clarity, and I still did NOT have it.
Well, I knew I had to take control of a few things before I could get there. One was my life, in terms of my energy, action, priorities, time, money, and direct all of that in an intentional manner. I knew I had to cultivate some discipline beyond the lifting and cardio that I had resurfaced as I used to in my early 20’s. I set out to do exactly all of this and direct the happenings in my life, and this would give me the space to cultivate the next level of conversation.
Today in my Self Journal – this is the quote sitting there – it is very timely given this post, in some ways – it has inspired this post:
‘If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.’ – Jim Rohn
This is pure gold, and one I took to heart over 7 months ago back in October. The Jocko post that I put up back on Memorial Day is of a similar theme.
So I persisted putting in the work in my various projects, and investing my resources based upon an intentional priority-based approach spanning all facets of my life. I knew I had to get my own domain name, even before I had the epiphany back in September – I purchased my own named domain. I did not want to get Jeb Bush’d by someone else. This was step one.
As I contemplated what the hell to do with my new domain, I continued to write for another project while balancing so much else in my life.
Eventually, I launched my site with minimal fanfare via a LinkedIn announcement, and the barebones site quickly went dormant with traffic. This was due to a lack of compelling content, and it was a benign outline of a site aimed at conveying my professional portfolio. This was my default mindset at work…
As I continued to refine my voice for another project, I began to manifest an increasingly true style online. This brought me back again and again to the question of a brand and a question of owning my own conversation online.
I began to realize that my brand was more than just my professional portfolio. It was NOT linked to my other efforts – rather it was absolutely tied to my make up. The online persona that was being portrayed on Facebook was partial and sometimes flashed an authentic moment or two that was independent of familial updates. The online persona on LinkedIn was so BORING, and not at all like the guy at work or even outside of work.
Around this time approximately 2 months ago, I also began to recognize that I had to take control of my online presence/brand as I had with my lifestyle towards the end of 2017. I had always known that I was the product for Facebook and LinkedIn.
The social platforms owned my content, owned my brand, and I was largely a variable in algorithm within Zuckerberg’s braintrust… There’s all sorts of analogies to be drawn here. The point is this – I am still within the algorithms of these platforms, as are you.
We are the product. We are being monetized. We are letting this happen, willingly. We all know this. On top of this – we willingly give over our most precious asset of all – many times without regard to what it precludes from our lives.
Any guesses what that most precious asset is?
If you or your loved one were jammed up in an ER clinging to life, I can tell you this – the Facebook and LinkedIn feeds would not mean shit. We give our TIME over to these platforms, and I’d argue you have no idea how much you gnosh on the Facebook/social media platform X cookies that taste so good. I know I am not tracking it at the moment, although I did late last year with multiple week moratoriums to keep it minimized…
So to recap – we give up the content of our lives and the connections to those closest to us in the hopes of greater value in our lives. We also give up our time to these same forces. We do so without regard to what the cost is in terms of time and the true value these platforms receive. Well guess what, they know exactly how much time we spend and they know what each of us is worth to them.
So we are the product.
And we are the consumer.
We are passive by default.
And to top this off – we do NOT own either end of the conversation as the product and as the consumer of the product, which is ourselves. Amazing gig, eh?
When I had this realization a few months ago, I felt compelled to begin coming up with my online plan, to begin finding my voice, to begin owning my own brand, to actively direct my participation in the algorithms of the online world, and to start producing my own content as part of my own branding efforts.
Based upon some research I’ve been doing – I think in three years or less, we will have a much harder time getting our own brands/voices established for such a low cost as the traditional media consumers/companies pour billions into the new media platforms. You will have to pay to get your content shared on things like LinkedIn and Facebook – unless you have a substantial enough audience.
Regardless of the predictions, I’m going to be as much of a producer online as I am in the ‘analog world.’ I’ll increasingly take control of the conversation when it comes to myself online, as I have offline in the past few years.
I’ll be sharing some thoughts on how you can start to do something similar in terms of owning your own message/voice without a ton of overhead. Practical step by step advice that I am still figuring out – that is worthy of sharing.