Why Building a Personal Brand Still Feels Optional (But Won’t for Long)

A fresh take on high-agency living, smart visibility, and quietly future-proofing your work.

Jun 20, 2025

Modern life got weird fast. We’re all working, thinking, reacting, and learning in public—whether we mean to or not. The internet already has a version of you. A trail of likes, follows, maybe a couple of birthday posts you regret.

But most of us aren’t actually contributing. We’re just drifting through the feed, collecting other people’s insights while quietly hoarding our own.

This post?

Me trying not to do that.

Why I’m Building A Personal Brand

Fun Fact #1: For TWELVE YEARS, I’ve helped other people build their brands.

That’s it. That’s my fun fact.

I’ve ghostwritten thought leadership, email sequences, website copy and brand positioning for founders, influencers, CEOs, pastors, e-commerce brands, and course creators. I’ve built out funnels, platforms, websites—you name it. I’ve built and shaped other people’s ideas into digital credibility.

I have decades of systems, frameworks, insights, and half-formed hot takes sitting in folders. Notebooks. iPhone notes. And I was still quietly waiting for a signal to start sharing any of it.

So The Sunday Edit is me, finally doing that.

If I’m being honest, it started to feel a little absurd to keep building for others and staying invisible myself.

This is me putting something out there. Just to participate.

5 Real Reasons to Start Publishing (Even If You Don’t Know What You’re Doing)

You're already online. You're already engaging with ideas, tracking trends, reacting to change. Publishing your thoughts is just opting into the part of the experience where you actually shape what happens next.

Here are five reasons I think everyone should start:

You’re the Only You—And That’s the Whole Advantage.
You’re a unique mix of experiences, values, curiosities, and opinions. No one else has your exact lens. That matters. Your presence makes the digital spaces you’re in sharper, richer, and more human—if you choose to contribute.
Writing Isn’t Just for Writers. It’s How Smart People Get Clear.
It doesn’t seem like it will. Then it does. Clarity, confidence, discernment—they all sharpen when you start putting words around your own experience. Whether it’s public or private, writing regularly helps you process what you’re learning and name what you actually think. That’s a win, no matter what you do with it.
The Fastest Way to Be Taken Seriously in a New Space? Say Something.
Sharing ideas online is one of the only ways to become visible in a new field without pre-existing credibility. You don’t need a title. You don’t need a fancy resume. You need curiosity, consistency, and a URL.
Being Online Is Inevitable. What That Turns Into? Totally Up to You.
Here’s how the attention economy works: (yes, it’s a thing! More specifically, it’s the whole thing.)

Say you’re working in admin or operations, but your real interest is HR. Instead of waiting for a promotion, you start writing publicly—once a week, short posts on hyper-relevant HR topics.

With the AI tools we have available today, anyone can quickly build a digital footprint that shows what you care about. What you notice. How you think. Then comes the leverage:

You apply for an HR role and include your Substack in your application.

You write in your cover letter that while your paid role has been in marketing support, you’ve spent the last two years learning, writing, and thinking about HR leadership.

Better yet: they reach out to you first.

Best yet: you take those articles, package them into a self-published book, and show up as a published author with a clear point of view.

No permission required. Just proof of work—because you hit publish.

I Could’ve Started This Sooner. But Here We Are.
This one’s not really a reason. It’s a note to self.
So if you’re reading this and thinking, “yeah, but not yet”…

Same.

Hot Take: Building a Personal Brand is Still Optional (But Won’t be for Long)

Right now, building a personal brand still feels optional. A someday project for when things slow down or get clearer.

But time does not ask if we’re ready and AI is reshaping the economy—in real time. The work we’ve trained for is shifting. Getting redefined. Work is adjusting to this new reality at different speeds. It may be slow at first. Like right now, you may feel “safe” because you work in a church or at a university.

But AI will touch all of our work and

So, what I’m saying here is that the personal brand is the best best way I know to find optionality, leverage and agency in the future of our work. Becoming visible for how you think will unlock opportunities for influence and impact in ways I don’t think most of us fully realize.

A personal brand gives our future collaborators, employers, readers— and AI algorithms—something real to find.

Fun Fact #2: I’m not worried.

I’m actually excited. Because this is the moment where we get to move early, build quietly, and opt into the kind of future that rewards clarity.

And that’s the POV I created my personal brand around.

P.S.
I'm getting ready to launch my Personal Operating System—built for people who want to think clearly, move slowly and live quietly in a world that’s designed to prevent all three. Subscribe to be the first to know when it launches.