The Way of Work explores stories of where we fit in the world of work. This is part of the series, How to Be Irrelevant: creativity and identity after the hunger to be impressive wears off.
In the beginning of the Internet, someone created the idea of a “personal brand.” This has made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Unfortunately, it works. A bit too well.
There’s a lot of terrible advice out there, folks. Of course, I’ve never given any. But as I’ve descended further into the depths of hell to write things on the Internet and build out an audience (i.e. you), there’s one idea that I detest above all:
“Create a personal brand.”
Now, I’m not here to trace back the origin and etymology of this phrase, as that feels like possibly the worst way to spend an hour. Instead, I’m going to spend my time telling you why you should absolutely NOT want one.
You get a personal brand!
You get a personal brand!
Everyone gets a personal brand!
How do you create one?
Well, you take this precious, amorphous thing called a human being and stuff it into a box. You take its head and awkward appendages, the personality and quirks, the interests and fishy obsessions, the embarrassing contradictions and all the paradoxes that come with it, then you hammer it down until it’s flat.
You make it so fucking flat.
Then you take that thin layer, roll it up, stuff it in a box, slap a logo on it, and start a podcast.
Congratulations. You’ve now got a personal brand.
Sign me up!
With that box, comes something incredibly valuable:
Legibility
(legibility is a pretentious way of saying: people understand what you are)
And wow, how nice and comfortable that legibility is. That weird, pitiful, insecure human you used to be now is somehow cleaner. Tidied up. Parents like it. Future in-laws love it. All that unfortunate stuff? Tucked away out of sight.
People know what to expect from you. They know how to hire you. Most importantly, they know how to pay you, which in the grand scheme of things, is kinda a big deal.
We need legibility to create an exchange of value. I give. You give. You know, markets and stuff.
I wouldn’t hire you to fix my toilet unless I knew you were a plumber. I wouldn’t let you fly me somewhere unless you were a pilot. This one I’m pretty firm on. I wouldn’t subscribe to your newsletter if you jumped around topics like a maniac (career, money, freedom, fiction!... seriously WTF, Rick?).
The market must understand what you do.
Don’t sink your career with too much weird. Just because I’m blowing up my life, doesn’t mean you should too.
Even if you’ve got a diverse/non-linear career, like a portfolio career, what you’re selling must make sense. The whole does not need to be legible, but the parts do.
The Downward Cycle
The problem, however, happens when you get stuck on this downward loop, that we all know too well:
The world rewards a version of you →
you produce more of that version →
that version becomes valuable →
you shape yourself into that version →
deviating from it becomes more costly →
soon enough, you have no idea who the fuck you are, and how did I get here, and why did I give up so much of myself along the way?!?
Congratulations. You’ve managed to merge your self with a product. Intertwined. Connected. One with each other.
Ommmm….
I call it: “Career Capture.”
It’s when the professionally successful side of you starts colonizing the rest of your humanity. You built yourself to fit a career. Then, the career rebuilt you to fit itself.
I know because I’ve tried. Ho boy… how I’ve tried. I tried hard to become someone I wasn’t, fusing my identity with my work. Then, when I left that work, I tried hard to find a new box to insert myself into.
So I used to be a startup guy… okay, what am I now? Writer? Creator? Author?
I keep fighting and trying to flatten myself, again(!), abstracting all those intricacies into some wider generalization that becomes easier for others to understand. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right?
Turns out, I’ve been doing it wrong.
Illegibility
Because you’re not really like that, are you? Admit it, you’re strange. Or at least, you used to be before you got flattened out. Or maybe you have some kooky interest that definitely is not cool, but you’d really like to try it, except your mom wouldn’t approve.
And you change your mind. A lot. You have different parts of yourself. That part of you that shows up at work ain’t the same part who shows up at home. Once, when I was dating my now-wife, she wanted to meet me for lunch during the work day… oh boy, bad idea. She got to see the intense, work-side of me — the machine — and started wondering which version I really was.
When you try to merge these different parts of yourself, believing naively, there’s some bullshit Venn Diagram fantasy where you demand that all your different selves resolve into one harmonious identity, you will find yourself in the uncanny valley of human-ness.
Think about it: when you encounter a cringey fucker (usually online, though not required) and something seems off about them, like they’re trying a bit too hard to seem a certain way, what you’re experiencing is not a real human but the performative proxy of one.
(by the way, the ones who seem normal are just great actors)
Then when you try it too, because you guess you should, right?, it feels wrong. You may get away with it for a while, slowly descending into an inhuman blob, but try long enough to create this separate persona, no matter how successful it is (especially when it’s successful), and you’ll stop trusting yourself and who you really are. When the canyon becomes so vast between you and this other you, then, well, <insert existential crisis>.
So no, don’t bring your full self to work. Don’t try to merge your self and career or product into some “personal brand.” Some percentage of yourself needs to remain illegible. Keep those quirks for yourself. Everyone, including you, is better off for it.
Hold onto that interest no one understands.
Make something that doesn’t matter.
Have a hobby you’ll never monetize.
Change your mind without requiring a rebrand.
Hell, write a post-apocalyptic survival thriller like a real weirdo.
Remain uncaptured.
Now, don’t become SO illegible that you become social kryptonite. It’s freeing all right, but maybe a bit too freeing, like going outside without underpants on. Go inside, lock the door, and keep that shit to yo-self.
Build a career that makes sense.
Make products that make sense.
The market needs to understand what you do.
It does not need to understand who you are.
See you next time,
Rick
| Appendix: Status Foe |
Big news: My debut novel, FORGET THIS TO SURVIVE, is officially coming Spring 2027.
It’s a dark, pulse-pounding post-apocalyptic thriller about the psychological cost of survival - and the lies we need to keep going.
(fans of The Last of Us, Silo, and Chaos Walking will feel at home)
Early readers said:
“Holy crap… a serious page turner.” - Noah
“I woke up still thinking about it.” - Brian
“Strong themes that are profound and engaging.” - Celia
“Had me crying, from a book, the first time since high school.” - Diego
“Hard to put down, so I didn’t.” - Mark
“Asks us who we truly are and what we hide away.” - Sara
“I don’t usually read books this fast.” - Austin
There’s more coming... the cover, the release date, and a few other things I’m cooking up for early readers. Check out my new badass website, and follow along:
More from the series, How to Be Irrelevant:
