The worst way to upgrade your life is to upgrade your lifestyle.

Buying expensive things will not make your life any better. Spending your money for convenience will.

You may think moving to a new place will change your reality. But ultimately, it’s how you spend your days that will upgrade your life. You can be in a new place with new people but could return to your old patterns. It’s building new habits that will transform your life.

The door will not open unless you’re the version who can walk into that door.

The problem is people don’t know what they want. They just get jealous of what they see from others. They see someone acquiring material possessions and they want it for themselves. They see friends moving to a nicer place and they want it for themselves.

People watch life happen to them.

They'd rather be mediocre than achieve the highest version of themselves.

Because it takes time, effort, inconvenience to level up.

The good news is you don’t have to sacrifice your life right now for the bright future you’ve always wanted.

You don’t have to sacrifice feeling good to build discipline.

You don’t have to be a monk to learn how to focus.

You don’t have to be miserable to work hard.

Learn how to make it fun by turning your life into a fun project.

Enter Personal branding.

We are now in the digital era - it’s free to start one on social media.

A personal brand lets you get paid by being YOU

Oprah gets paid for being Oprah.

Tony Robbins gets paid for being Tony Robbins.

Tim Ferris gets paid for Being Tim Ferris.

You get the idea.

If you’re trying to be someone else, you’ll never succeed. What makes you special are all the things that make you, YOU. No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be good at being Oprah. And that’s not because she’s more superior than you. That’s just because she’s different from you. And similarly, Oprah can never beat you for being you.

So embrace being you.

Determine your values and what you want to be known for.

Then learn how to monetize your uniqueness.

You can be into self-improvement like Oprah. You can be into bodybuilding like Arnold Swarcheneger. You can be into writing like Stephen King. All these things combined make you unique. It’s what makes you special.

And that is what will draw people to you.

They may not want all these interests, but you will attract people who are similar to you.

This is why you don’t admire certain people only for one thing. You like them as a whole. These are the types of people who make a difference in your life.

This is what you should be to other people.

You don’t need to change a million lives. Just be yourself and inspire a few.

A personal brand evolves with you

It’s quite impossible not to stack skills when you’re building one big project.

To start a business, you must learn how to create a good product. To sell the product, you need to learn how to get attention and get it in front of people. To sell the product, you need to learn how to appeal to people’s pain and desires.

In the digital age, the skills can be:

• Writing

• Persuasion

• Marketing

• Designing

The list goes on and on.

If you don’t keep improving, you lose customers.

You don’t earn money.

Your business dies.

And imagine if your business is yourself - you can’t let it die.

It forces you to make continuous improvements. But unlike a normal business, growing yourself is in itself a motivation.

The monetary rewards are not what you’re after.

The fulfillment from the daily progress will keep you going.

A personal brand makes you an interesting person

Whenever I start a new job, I would always look for “interesting” people to make friends with.

I’m conscious of who I spend my time with because I know I tend to be influenced by them. It’s easy to lose awareness while having fun with the wrong people.

Interesting people make life interesting. It’s usually the older people that are interesting to me. They can teach you a lot of things and save you from many mistakes.

But I’ve only really met a few in my younger years.

As I got older, I realized maybe I’m not meeting interesting people because I’m not interesting myself.

Maybe I have to be the interesting one.

Truth is, all of us are interesting, just like all of us are unique. We all have a story to tell - the one that honed us into what we are right now. When you dissect a person’s life, there are lessons you will learn that you can’t see on the surface.

When you build a personal brand, you do the dissecting for other people. You bring out the good stuff that otherwise won’t be revealed if you don’t express yourself.

There’s something special hidden inside you.

You got to let it out.

Entertain people.

Educate them.

Show them.

That’s how you become interesting.

A personal brand lets you discover things about yourself

The end result of a personal brand is money.

Byt money is a shallow pursuit.

That’s why there are a lot of rich but evil people. They’d rather make money from unethical ways. They rob others of their money. They seek more money rather than more fulfillment.

Building a personal brand is not about making money in a traditional way. It’s about monetizing yourself.

You have to sell yourself (your skills, passion, interests) to others. And you can’t do that without being aware of what people want.

Ironically, you learn more about yourself when you study others.

A personal brand is a positive sum game

Have you ever noticed why the people you admire are all somehow connected?

Networking is not a gimmick. It’s part of the game.

When you all have your uniqueness, no one has to lose and no one has to win.

It’s why you see Dakota Robertson’s testimonial for Dan Koe’s course, even if they could be selling the same type of stuff.

It’s why Tej Dosa appears in Danny Miranda’s podcast even if they both have their own shows.

It’s why you Kieran Drew commenting on Dickie Bush’s content.

It’s not a coincidence that they’re friends with each other.

In a traditional job, you have to “beat” others to win. One person gets the promotion, the other one doesn’t. You have to “do better” than the rest to stand out.

When you have a personal brand, you all can win at the same time. One person can support two creators at the same time. One creator can support the other creator.

Nobody loses.

That’s the game you want to play.

To End

With all this, I’m no longer just interested in building my “side hustle”.

I’m more focused on building myself -- and a personal brand is a great way to measure my progress.

It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

That’s it for today, my friends!

I hope you’re having a great Sunday.

Whenever you’re ready, you can start writing online here (FREE).

And if you need accountability, check out 30DaysTo1K to book a call with me. I’ll give you all the strategies that worked for me and help you with implementation.

Talk to you soon.

-Maa