It’s very tough for me to pretend, and I'm a terrible liar. Traditionally, these were appraised traits. Increasingly nowadays, I believe it less and less. I write this to document my low days, and my fight to get through them. If I become successful someday (becoming successful means different for everyone), I, and people, can look at this and learn. If not, people's opinion of me stays the same, so there's nothing to lose really.
I've been struggling to maintain an online presence – or make a personal brand – as such. I'm a very private person. I've never been the one to bask in the glory of fame, or even at the very least go out and seek it. I've been a quiet, normal, introspective kid, who believes in the virtue of hard work.
One might say I'm an introvert – though let me take a moment here to explain what introverted-ness means since there has been a lot of misconception about it on the internet. Introvert isn't your typical shy, nerdy guy you see in movies. To me, and I believe I speak for all fellow introverts when I say this, we simply do not derive energy from socializing, especially with the wrong crowd. That absolutely doesn't mean we don't like to socialize, or even that we're bad at it.
Our energy grows inversely proportional to baseless, unimportant talk. However, we deeply enjoy meaningful conversations and look forward to it. We enjoy company of such people.
Now, coming back to the main talk – it might stem from a fear of failure (what if I put out something and I'm not able to do justice to it and people point fingers), or even a fear of success (if I become successful, there'd be too many eyes on me), though I'm not sure.
I'm starting to believe the modern world doesn't reward it. With increasing capabilities of AI, it is becoming increasingly easier to develop products, and naturally, the next most important thing is marketing and distribution. To do that, you need to be loud, and you need an audience to shout at.
Creating a personal brand is like having a fleet of people who recognize you, somewhat trust you, and can help increase your visibility to people who you'd like to pitch your product to – doesn't matter what the product is.
Though I understand the importance of maintaining an online presence, it's tough for me due to the aforementioned reasons. Most people I see on X, the content influencers, are pretenders. They pretend to portray a different identity than who they are as a person. I say this from personal experience, and so, I might not be inclusive of all cases.
To build viral posts or content, you have to follow a certain structure. You need hooks, to bait people to stop and look at your post, some interesting story to keep them engaged, and usually, a call to action at the end to direct them somewhere to one of your products.
You can't just simply write "I learnt this today, and I tried making this. I thought about this stuff for a while too." It's plain, it's boring. People could argue "just be yourself", but what if you live a very monotonous life, or are just a beginner and don't know much? You might not have a lot to talk about.
Speak you truth, even if your voice shakes. - Maggie Kuhn
I'm at a point in my life where I've started thinking independently, and am sufficiently technical to build products on my own, which I can naturally post about. But, the Arvind from 2 years back, would not have the knowledge or the skills to write anything meaningful that others can derive value from.
I still feel the same about the value part, but I think that has more to do with my imposter syndrome.
As much you might have noticed, I'm not reaching a conclusion here. I'm simply putting my confusion into words. This is a very "me" thing – I recognize the importance of marketing yourself, and yet can't seem to get out of my head and start doing that.
Maybe the real challenge is figuring out how to show up without selling out. Maybe someone else out there feels the same, and knowing they’re not alone might help. It definitely helps me.