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Most people get this wrong.
Personal Branding is not about starting with audience.

When people think of personal branding, they think of asking themselves, “What does the audience want?”
Not the right thing to start with.

What if we start with what kind of content we want to create, and then let the audience come in?

I never started with taking care of audience first.
I started sharing what was authentic to me – about my mistakes, about startups, about my experience in hiring, etc.
Over time, that brought in the audience which connected with that content.

My authenticity with content brought in authentic audience.
Just like everything else, right inputs invariably bring the right outputs.

I love stories!
Stories of people, their life lessons, their world view.

Every story is a different world.
And sometimes it’s the same world with just another story!

Which is why not spending time with people who are like you, sets you free from your world.
And helps you see a different one.

Wouldn’t you want to see who could you become?
A different you? In a different world?

A simple example of what’s called second-order thinking.

As humans, we are all hard-wired to respond to the immediate result of our actions. The first-order consequences.

Eating chocolate will make us feel good – Immediate result.
Watching Netflix will make us feel good – Immediate result.
Someone lied to us and we feel hurt – Immediate consequence.

It’s only when we go beyond the first-order consequences that we begin to see the true impact of our actions and of those around us.

I will feel good if I eat the chocolate. But it will deteriorate my health in the long run because of excessive sugar.

I will feel good if I binge-watch. However, I would not be able to get enough sleep. I won’t be at my best the next day.

You lied to me. Now I can’t trust you. I will second guess everything that you say. And that will shift into a habit that I will apply to others. And I will find it hard to trust people.

Thinking in second-order is not an exaggeration!
It’s a superpower that helps you see through the long-drawn process of compounding.

There was a time when content was not democratic.

The TV shows were decided by someone else.
Their timings were decided by someone else.
Their content was decided by someone else.

Noone could choose what to consume.
Either you consume all of it or don’t.

Then came the biggest technology intervention – Personalization.

Content today is a reflection of your interests, your reactions and your engagement.
It’s to get you hooked!
It’s all about what you know, what you want and what you care about!

Technology was meant to help us see things from a different perspective.
Instead, it’s making us more and more enclosed in our worlds.
It’s making us believe that it’s the entire world!

Personalization is not creating a better version of ourselves.
It’s only creating a bigger version of ourselves!

We are taught to admire the extraordinary.
To be inspired by them.
To want to become them.

But…

We are raised to become ordinary.
To follow a template.
To take the path already taken.

To admire is easy. To get inspired is easy.
To become extraordinary is not easy – because we haven’t been taught how!

Today’s generation is under immense pressure.
It’s the pressure of self-doubt more than anything else.
This self-doubt is led by the view that everyone else, except them, has it figured out.

People seem to be eating the nicest looking food.
Wearing the nicest looking clothes.
Clicking the nicest looking selfies.

We think the other person’s life is sorted.
We think that we are not good enough.

What we fail to realize is that others are going through the same anxiety as we are!

At times, all you need to know is that you are not alone in feeling what you are feeling.

There is a kind of debt that is rarely talked about.
That’s emotional debt.

I cannot leave this job, because I had promised my boss I will stay.
I cannot leave this job, because I have dreams to fulfill for my family.
I cannot go back to work, because I had promised my kids I would be around.

Emotional debt is intangible. It doesn’t exist.

And because we don’t pay for it everyday, we keep on accumulating interest on it.

Here is what helps.
Treating emotional debt as financial debt.
Take it only when you need it.
Take it only when you can pay it back.
And pay it in monthly installments.

Emotional debt has killed more people than financial debt ever will.

At 29, I was jobless, with no money, recently married, confused, clueless.
Had no idea where I will be in life.

To all those who think they haven’t done anything in life, and have wasted so much time.

It is not about the years gone by. 
It is about the years still left!

A famous sculptor wanted to sculpt his final masterpiece on top of a hill and he wanted it to be his best work ever.

He worked, day and night, creating patterns and bringing the mountain stones to life.
And when it was all over, he asked a friend to come and see the end result.

The friend saw a stunning piece of art, from the foot of the hill and knew instantly that this was indeed the sculptor’s best work ever!

And so he climbed the hill, to congratulate his friend.
Once he reached, the sculptor insisted that the friend take a closer look and admire the finer aspects of the sculpture.
The friend noticed a crack and reported the same to the sculptor.

The sculptor paused for a minute. Stared at the crack.
One could see his expressions changing.
Without any warning, he took his hammer and destroyed the entire sculpture.

The friend was shocked. What just happened!

“Why did you do that?
No one would have noticed that crack from such a distance.
People would have still liked it!”

“But I noticed the crack.”

Most often we ask ourselves, “Will people like my work?”
But we often forget to ask ourselves, “Do I like my work?”

When we have choices in front of us, we also have a preferred one.
We always know of it.
Accepting that we know that choice, is the first step.

Step 2.
The next step is imagining the worst-case scenario once we have taken the choice.

Step 3.
And then, all we need to see is, if we are comfortable with that worst-case scenario.
Once we realize that we are comfortable, even with the worst, we are mentally prepared to go for it.