Initial Vent
So many times, I try to listen to tips about personal branding, ways to create compelling stories, all that. And yet, I can never get the “strategy” to NOT go over my head.
Listen. I’ve been making stuff on the internet since…. 2009, or something. Have I been successful? Well. Depends! Leaning towards, no, though. But you know what. It’s not what matters to me personally.
And yet, it is something that really calls in some envy in me, because, I see these people out there “content creating” and getting results (even worse so, making stuff that feels similar to what I would and could do) and then I look at my own stuff and I wonder… why is that not me?
A part of it is just some number envy, yes.
But a part of it is that as soon as someone tells me to do things a certain way…
I.
Do not.
Want to do it that way.
Curse my stubbornness!
There is an exception to this and it’s only if I genuinely feel like there is something that sets an example for me, which inspires me, which feels REAL.
And I think that is why… The way people talk about “strategy”, I’m sure it is real in it’s own way and it works, but if I have to think about it that way whenever I make things… then it is just too exhausting and overwhelming.
That is not worth it, to me.
But it sucks, because a little sad voice tells me, that it wishes I would, so that I was seen.
Gotta keep on trucking on, though. Doing it the way I think it is worth doing.
Self Response in March 2026
Dusting off this digital garden after a year of a hiatus it was a little fun to come across this note. I think a year and a genuine investment into LinkedIn later, I still do agree with this, but maybe with a different perspective.
Fun how things change but not entirely, huh?
I still do feel some bit of envy. I think a lot of it is more connected to having connections rather than making numbers on a social media platform, now, though!
As for strategy and following advice… yeah. I still consider myself quite contrarian. If it doesn’t appeal to me, chances are, I will not do it cause I want to do it differently! … Which is why I am here, writing on a personal page nobody knows about, instead of on social media 👀
I do sometimes wonder though how it’d be nice to go all out with the advice people give.
But then again. I have a full time job. And projects to juggle. And a chronically ill body to take care of. So who knows whether I even could go ‘all out’, realistically.
I hope the “aha!” moment comes through soon enough, though.