I’m the kind of person that needs to feel coherent in anything I’m doing. I've lived my life by continuously learning about myself and making aligned, and often, difficult choices.
The pain of doing something, or staying somewhere, that wasn't aligned with my values and strengths was always greater than the pain of dealing with the uncertainty of figuring out my path.
This was my drive when I moved countries, cities, and jobs.
I knew what felt wrong for me, while still not knowing exactly what was right.
In my journey of building my own brand, it wasn’t any different.
I've started building my online presence many times in the last 7 years, and every time, I stepped back because I felt like a part of me was left out of the equation. I struggled bringing different parts of myself together to present it in a coherent way.
Even though this is the problem I solve for people, I was too close to see myself clearly.
So, I went looking for help.
I worked with 3 or 4 people over the years with hopes that they could tell me how to position myself in a way that felt whole.
But the common problem was that they saw only the business, not me - the person behind it.
They wanted to force me into a formula.
They wanted me to niche down.
They were trying to solve a problem on the outside, without ever asking “how does it feel?”.
My frustration deepened over time as I helped more people to communicate their brand, but I couldn’t see how this puzzle would come together for myself.
Until Now.
Your voice is your niche
What I discovered in this journey of trial and error is that your voice is your niche.
Your voice is the intersection of themes in your life that makes your message, your work, and your view of the world unique.
The mistake people make (and I also did) is that they focus too much on the topics external to them, instead of the value they have to offer through their experience of these topics.
Here’s an example:
You can be either someone who is interested in yoga, skate, tech, and in hosting people in your house.
OR
You can be someone who is passionate about bringing people together (creating community) and the way you do this is through wellness and sports activities.
Note: Sometimes, some of our interests are not what we actively want to talk about, but still, leaving them out of our digital identity feels wrong. If this resonates with you, it means that this interest is HOW you use your voice, not WHAT your voice is about.
For example, in the scenario above, yoga and sports are the "how" you bring people together. You may not want to talk about the benefits of yoga or create courses teaching yoga philosophy. Instead, you might want to run retreats that focus on forming connections and building community, with yoga simply being one element of that experience.
How I found my intersections
Once I got clear on my voice, everything changed. I finally saw my next steps with clarity.
I always loved studying psychology, and I’ve worked with brand and business strategy for 12 years. But I never knew how to bring both together. Until I asked myself this question:
Why am I interested in psychology? And how does this show up in my lived experience over my life? (the pattern reveals the theme)
I’m interested in psychology because I’ve always been invested in knowing myself. Growing up, I never saw myself in the people around me and in the lifestyle they had, which led me to a life long quest and adventures to discover “who am I?”.
That’s when self-discovery emerged as a theme.
Why am I interested in brand strategy? And how does this show up in my lived experience over my life? (the pattern reveals the theme)
From the very beginning I chose to work as a brand strategist because I love understanding things and communicating in a way that others could understand too and see the value of it.
And later, what sparked my joy for this work again, was realizing how communication gives power to people to live a life more coherent with who they are.
That’s when communication emerged as a second theme.
That’s how I gained clarity that my voice was at the intersection of self-discovery & communication.
Speak your voice based on your strengths
The best place to start building your brand is the place that is the easiest for you.
Why? Because doing so will help you be consistent, and consistency helps you build confidence.
How do you feel most comfortable expressing yourself? Is it through speaking, writing, or creating videos?
For me my strongest point was always writing. Not writing tweets, but writing to unfold a thought process using as many characters as I require.
So, I decided that I would start with newsletters.
Create an ecosystem of you
I first started with a newsletter called Dear Self, in which I write personal essays on building a better life and relationships with ourselves and others.
At first, I had no other goal but to be consistent with it.
I’ve published every two weeks for over a year now.
I built trust in myself and fell in love with communicating again.
But over time, it felt incomplete, there was so much of my work I care about that wasn’t showing up there, and I also wanted to help more people to build their brand and their one person business.
However, it felt weird to talk about my work in that publication. I knew that the people who were there were interested in learning about themselves and in having better relationships. Not necessarily in building a brand and business.
So, I created a second publication.
The Diary of a Brand Therapist (here you are), to talk about figuring out your identity, finding your voice, and building your brand and one person business in a way that is aligned with who you are.
These two publications are tied together by the one thing they have in common: ME.
And I can speak my voice with different focus in each one of them.
On Dear Self: I talk about self-discovery and communication for better relationships.
On Diary of a Brand Therapist: I talk about how to build a communication that reflects who you are.
It feels whole.
There’s a hidden belief that you need to fit all of yourself into one channel or front, that your audience must consume everything you have for them, or nothing at all.
I don’t believe in this. I think different people can consume different parts of you have to share depending on their interests and which moment of the journey they are on.
Connecting the pieces of your ecosystem
I already have a small audience in Dear Self, so what I did was to add a p.s. at the end of each essay letting people know that I also have this other newsletter, and if they are interested in building their brand and business, they will enjoy this one too.
People coming from there, already know me (deeply), and connect with me because of my vision of life, my values, and vulnerability. If they are in the journey of building a brand and growing their business, they are likely interested in this newsletter too.
At the end of each post of the Diary of a Brand Therapist newsletter (as you will see), I share my free resources and ways you can work with me.
Distributing it in small pieces
Since I already have the long form content from my newsletters, I share small bites of it in TikTok, Threads and other platforms I’m still learning how to feel comfortable at.
And depending of the type of content I’m sharing in a short-form piece, I invite people to subscribe to one of my newsletters. That’s how they enter my ecosystem and universe.
If it worked for me, it works for you too
I say this with confidence because this is the method I used to gain clarity about positioning for every single client I worked with in the last 2 years. But it took me years to apply to myself because I was too close to see it clearly.
With each client, we focus on first understanding their story, interests, and work, to find their voice. And once their voice is revealed, the next steps to execute on their brand and business becomes obvious.
And it can look different for you compared to how I structured mine. The execution of your ecosystem depends on your strengths, goals, and focus.
Your voice also influences what how you create your products and services, and this is what makes you unique in your offers.
The bottom line is, is that discovering your intersections is more powerful and fulfilling than focusing on your different interests individually.
And it will help you not just to shape your brand and communication, but also your business structure and offers.
Because I know how hard it is to do this work by yourself, I’m creating a resource more in depth, integrated with AI, with exercises to help you find your voice, and feel confident in talking about who you are and what you do.
If you have any specific challenge, or struggle, around building your brand with multiple interests or focus, please let me know in the comments, I would love to invite you to try this resource once is ready.
Warmly,
Nathalia
P.S. I help shape your one person brand and business to reflect who you are and communicate your value to the world. If you’d like support with that:
I created a FREE brand clarity tool (Reflective prompts combined with ChatGPT) to help you start uncovering insights from your own story. You can download it here.
And if you’re ready to build a brand from the inside out, you can:
💫 Subscribe for more ideas and frameworks…
to help you discover more of yourself, communicate who you are with confidence, and build a brand that supports a fulfilling life.