Have you ever wondered what if your personal brand story just isn’t compelling enough to even talk about? Have you ever felt shame around it?
When I first started my journey, I saw women that had such powerful stories about…
- Body confidence
- Sexual abuse
- Homelessness or extreme poverty
- Childhood abuse
- Domestic violence
And when I looked at my life, it was pretty vanilla.
I grew up in a middle to upper-class home. I went to college to study Business, Psychology and Neuroscience. My credit score was like 10 points away from 800. And to be honest, for the most part, I felt pretty privileged to have grown up as an African-American with generational wealth.
And while I have had my share of hardships — battling depression, anxiety, childhood bullying, falling into debt and overcoming domestic violence, it never once felt authentic for me to intertwine this with my actual story.
Because for me, even though I’ve gone through stuff, none of these inspired or awakened my desire for Entrepreneurship.
I became an Entrepreneur at the age 8, the day my father sat a computer in front of me. He showed me a website, HeadBone, that this teen had created for kids to keep in touch like digital pen pals.
I just remember how cool and colorful it looked. There was a pig that was like your online therapist. And each page looked like it was extracted from a coloring book that had been perfectly filled in.
Then my father showed me an article that broke down the numbers. The teen girl that started this site was making millions.
I asked him how and he pointed to the ads at top, so seamlessly ingrained into the page.
My eyes grew. I couldn’t BELIEVE it. Someone actually gets paid to do their art?
This was genius!
She had successfully convinced others to monetize her passions. And I wanted a bite out of this too.
[sc name=”Lead Magnet”]This was the year 1997. My first true realization, that you could actually get paid to be yourself.
Here this girl had taken her desire for more human connection, for more friendships and had put it together in an artsy way on the WWW for kids like us around the world to connect and she had found a way to get paid for it.
The moment I saw this possibility, it became my mission to make it possible for me—and my obsession for tech and art bloomed.
I had to find a way to create forever because creating is what I love to do and if this girl figured it out, well I would create freely or die trying.
And so, I started my business because I wanted the freedom to be able to create 24 / 7. I wanted unlimited income so that I could…
- Write books
- Create YouTube videos without depending on adsense for income
- Travel the world and interview people from different cultures and make beautiful travel films.
- Create music
- Invest into creative projects
That’s why I became an Entrepreneur.
But sharing this truth was not easy for me at all.
It made me feel guilty as I pit my story of seeking creative freedom against others stories of real life, traumatic stuff.
I felt selfish. I felt vapid. And I felt insignificant.
There was no way my story was worth sharing.
At first, I tried to change it.
I kept trying to figure out how I could craft my story from pain, and intertwine my hardships into it. There was no way I was going to tell people I became an Entrepreneur just because I wanted to be creatively free.
And that the more free that I became, the more I felt pushed to help other women obtain that same freedom.
So I looked at other Entrepreneurs stories. I studied other Coaches About Me pages.
And I put together a story about myself that I thought would make me more relatable because like many of you, I just wanted to be liked and I so badly wanted to inspire.
I’m here to tell you that If you’re feeling any shame around your story, don’t be no matter how dynamic or vanilla it may seem.
When we hide behind our brands, it makes it so much harder for us to connect with our audience because you’re putting up a wall and blocking people out.
Your story is your story. And out of the 7.6 billion people on this earth, there is a whole community out there that can relate to you. That desperately needs you. That is praying for you.
Once I started opening up and truly telling people the truth, I attracted women that were like me that had similar stories.
We all had different journeys, painful or not, but we all wanted the same thing: freedom to get paid to do the things we want to be known for.
Since you’re still reading this, I want to send you off with this simple call-to-action or better yet, call to your true identity
Find your voice, go full force with your Personal Brand and attract the audience and customers that need you the most.
Who cares about how crazy your idea or story is.
Imagine this:
Won’t it feel good to finally be around YOUR PEOPLE?!
To be championed for who you really are?
To turn your message into a movement that 1000 other women that feel like your business besties actually are proud to be apart of?
To get paid at your highest creative vibe?
I think we need more of that. I think we need more of you.
