don't try to build a personal brand

This is the first letter I’m writing here from Thailand.

And I moved here for a reason…

Back in my home country, I was feeling comfortable:

• Living with my parents

• Making some money online with my digital products

• Playing sports with my friends

However, I wanted to level up my life.

Try something different.

Build a new online brand.

I thought…

How would it be to create a new brand from another country?

After 3 weeks of deciding to leave home, I arrived to Thailand ready to start from zero and see what happens.

I will be just talking to my younger self here.

I will share - in this and future letters - everything I wish I had when I started.

Not only that, but I moved to Thailand to apply and test this advice from zero.

For now, this initial letter would be a short summary of work I did on my first week here.

Before we start, why a brand?

Why a brand?

Because we are aware that Internet is the modern golden era.

And building an online presence is how we open opportunities.

There’s a problem though…

When people try to build an online presence…

They put too much importance on the end results:

• Views, engagement, metrics, conversions…

They then struggle because they focus on tactics, not principles.

On the other hand, the people who don’t “try hard” to build a brand, are the ones who end up building the best ones.

How?

They share their ideas without expecting anything in return.

They are not in a rush, they don’t have an agenda…

They just present their ideas to the world with authenticity, and people end up following naturally.

And this is the type of creators we want to become.

Now, let’s see how we can start in a simple way.

How to start your brand (easy & simple)

For this, we would need 3 things:

1. Free tools and resources to use

2. A clear Life Project

3. An effective Personal HUB

But first, we need to handle our survival needs.

Solving the survival needs (the non-needy online approach)

Here’s the thing - even though our focus isn’t on money - money is still important.

Here’s the thing:

If we need to pay our bills and cover our survival needs…

I don’t recommend relying on the business or brand you’re building for it.

We need to do something that makes us money now:

• Find a normal or part-time job (I used to do this)

• Live with your parents and help them (I was doing this)

• Or do what I’m doing now: find a host in a country + work for them

I found a family in Thailand who would give me accommodation and food in exchange of Spanish lessons to their children.

However, it’s been a week and I found another couple who needed help with marketing and content for their business.

They happily gave me accommodation at their villa in exchange for my work.

And I’m buying my food and other stuff with the money that’s still coming from digital products.

Once we are able to handle the survival part, we can focus on growing a brand with peace.

Of course, if the work you have is not so good, this would be the initial motivation to keep building the foundation of the brand.

Once the brand has traction and we’ve managed to serve an audience…

We will be able to create offers if we want - and potentially monetize.

But first, the focus is to build the foundation of a brand that people want to follow.

With that clear, we can move on.

1) Free tools and resources at hand

One important thing:

We don’t need to start fancy.

All we need is to accept the situation we have…

And be willing to start sharing our ideas from that situation.

Here are the tools I’m personally using to get started:

• To create content → iPhone 16, MacBook, OBS screen recorder, Miro boards, CapCut free

• To organize content → Kortex writing app (by Dan Koe)

• To post content → Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Beehiiv (for newsletters)

Simple, free, start with what you can.

I think this is the best ways to start because this way you really make people highly relate with your ideas and beliefs, not your fancy looks.

Later on - as we improve overtime - we can definitely get fancy.

2) Build a clear Life Project

A lot of people move through life without a clear project…

Without a clear reason of why they’re doing what they’re doing.

And this is one of the reasons why most people get stuck (it happened to me).

The solution to this is really clarity and direction.

And having your own project is the smartest way to have them.

What’s a Life Project?

A Life Project is the main guidance of your life.

• It directs your actions

• Your actions gain intention

• You are able to see the big picture

To create one, we simply take a look at 3 things:

1. Your story

2. Your vision

3. Creating a game plan based on those two

Your story will help you discover your unique situation, experiences, lessons and more things you can be creative with.

Based on your situation, you create a vision to move towards, a North Star to follow.

And finally, you put together a game plan to start taking the necessary daily actions to get there.

I will definitely talk more about this in my future content.

For now, I’m showing what I’m personally doing to build a brand that isn’t generic.

3) Create an effective Personal HUB

Cool, we will:

• Build an online presence

• Have a Life Project for guidance

But how do we organize all of this?

I have tried a lot of organization tools before…

But the best thing I found is building a simple Personal HUB.

It’s basically a digital space where you organize everything:

• The notes you take from videos, books, courses

• The ideas you catch from your mind

• The place where you build and update your Life Project

• A place to turn the ideas you have into content

The key is to have all in a digital space that you can review and work on every day.

I explain more in detail here → Your notes are power, don’t lose them

Finally, move with Truth

I finally posted a video talking about what matters.

You see, true fulfillment is not about making money, but knowing that you also have:

• Good relationships

• Good health

• Good reputation and peace

Becoming a student of truth, practicing it for life and sharing it with other people is where real fulfillment is found.

For more context, check out this video → Truth

I will also explain this concept more in detail throughout my future content.

That’s it for this letter, thanks for reading!

See you on the next one

Pablo.