I am a personal branding, influencer, social media guru and I hate it… (here’s why it’s a fools game)
Personal branding isn’t a new idea. It’s been around for thousands of years.
I experienced big personal brands in my youth, and what I saw led me to hate 99% of them.
My story today begins in my 20s in the very strange world of Christian ministry….
Hi, my name is Luke, I’m 39 years old, and I work remotely from South America, building my online LinkedIn marketing business.
I spent years working in construction and, prior to that, spent years in ministry work as well. I grew up learning entrepreneurship from my mom and have, for the most part, always been a contractor/self-employed.
Anyways, back to the story…
I spent my early 20s in Christian ministry and it’s where I encountered the dark truths of personal branding.
I was a part of the Pentecostal denomination, and well, it was quite extreme as far as Jesus believers go.
We prayed for healing.
We studied the bible obsessively.
We had extreme values (no sex until marriage)
But we also would go to grave sites and sit on the graves, meditating, believing that we could collect the spiritual power of the dead prophet that passed away.
It was called “soaking up the anointing”
Ya we were pretty fucked. Just look at this nutjob…
Anyways…
The church is where I first learned about personal branding because, in actuality, the leaders of the church had personal brands.
Pastors, speakers, and teachers are the heroes of the Christian church.
I observed them working one or two days a week (all they had to do was preach the Bible to their church attendees and meet some people for coffee).
Funny eh? Sounds a lot like the 4-hour work week we are promised now for building our personal brands online….
/
It sounds like the live-off-passive income dream that soooooooooooooooooooo many of us millennials were sold…
Escape the 9/5 and build a bullshit scam. Ye, why not?
Look, it was the same thing back in the day. If you were a young Christian in this movement you wanted to be a traveling speaker.
The best of them would travel the world as well. Preaching from the bible and being paid to speak and share their teachings.
Church attendees would sit in the audience and listen to the guy/girl on the stage. Let’s just call the person on stage a “guru” and make it easy.
The guru taught all the “secrets” from the bible, and these people were lucky to learn from them; that was the vibe anyway.
Every speaker had their own style and schtick.
Every speaker had a fee for what they shared.
Every speaker had a book or an audio series.Sound familiar?
These motivational speakers claimed to care about people and god and be all about kindness and love, but in actuality, the power, money, and clout from their personal brands corrupted them.
Every single guru would start to change their message and their keynote as they grew popular.
Yeah, disappointing, I know..
Why did they do this?
Because they learned what message/keynote would bring in the most book and course sales and what keynote didn’t sell.
Like any good personal branding expert, they analyzed the data and pivoted to what sold well. They changed their message to appease the crowd and generate more sales.
This disappointed me greatly because I value truth, and I saw these gurus for what they were.
Frauds, fakes, and wolves.
Every guru I observed sold out and took the clout and the money.
They changed their message and stopped speaking their truth.
Fast forward almost two decades later……..
I am no longer in the Christian church; in fact, I am agnostic now. I left religion ages ago because I lost faith in ministry and in the god they represented.
But I find myself here at a crossroads again.
Except now, I’m not in the crowd anymore.
I am at the top of the pyramid scheme.
I am one of those people with a huge following.
I am surrounded by influencers who change their message.
I am one of these “speakers” and “gurus” now.
I am tempted daily to break my values.
I really wish I could sell out.
I have tried to sell out.
In the last year, I tamed myself down really… became robotic and stopped speaking from the heart. After my seventh ban on LinkedIn, I had to pivot and focus on sharing what works.
Couldn’t risk a following over 100k and a remote business now could I?
So what I did was…
Educational content, platform growth content, AI, and fun memes.
It all worked and kept the machine moving. I did my best to keep my personality in other areas like live streams, calls and in the Linkedin comments but….
You know what?
I hate that what“works” on these platforms is so basic and top of funnel.
Nobody wants to read a real thought anymore.
They just want clickbait and to be lied too….
That disssapoints me greatly.
I’ve realized over the past month as I struggle to finish my own guru course…
I have a deep hatred of personal brands.
This despite having one of my own.
I hate that doing the work (actually writing and having a real business) pays less than talking about the work.
Luke (yeah, why not quote myself while I’m at it)
99% of what I see in the personal branding space is valueless, void of soul, and sells a false dream.
What sucks is that typically you, the reader wants a shortcut, so you fall for cheap lies.
My experience in 8+ years of making money on Instagram and LinkedIn is that most of the top of the personal branding industry is corrupt and full of morally bankrupt cheats.
All I see is flowery words and deals with devils behind the stage.
It all deeply upsets me so much …
Why?
Because it hits what I found to be true in Christianity and in humanity. The top 1% is corrupt, and the rest love it.
The business world and Religion is no different. It is the same.
The 99%, aka the sheep, buy from the wolves, aka the gurus.
The wolves lie to the sheep, and the sheep love it.This is the cycle of human life.
So yes, I realize I hate a lot of things, and this rant may cause you to unsubscribe, and I accept that.
But I’m not alone. I know many of you feel this way, but you don’t say it.
What’s even more discouraging for me, is I’m one of the few I know who has put in tons and tons and tons of real hours and real time.
Yet I’m accused of being the cheater.
While the people I know are cheating and lying get away with it.
So I’m left feeling like.
What’s the point?
What is the point in posting on these platforms, making the empty money and/or taking all of this on?
That’s what I ask myself every day.
I don’t know anymore.
I really don’t.
So I guess that’s why I’m here on Medium now….
Getting back to my roots….
Just gonna run my mouth and talk shit.
At least it’ll feel good.
Woo
