Have I ever told you my story?

Or I should ask, have I ever told you my brand story? The path between music industry exec and #MusicSermon, journalist, NYU professor, etc? No? Gather ’round.

During the Christmas holiday of 2017. I resigned from my very prestigious, well-paying job almost on a whim.  But it wasn’t a whim – it was everything in my body sending off alarm bells in the middle of a phone conversation with my then-boss, hours before I had to go to a funeral, during the one period when the entire business shuts down, about something that wasn’t as important at the moment as she was making it. I became acutely aware of how unhappy I was, and eventually interrupted the convo to give my notice.

I knew it was the right decision, but I didn’t initially have a plan. The next obvious step to me was to start a marketing consultancy. I had the experience, I had the relationships, I had the reputation. Easy, right? I was going to focus specifically on cultural…something. Messaging? Branding? I was writing copy for the one sheet and website I rushed to create, but it didn’t feel strong, or true.  I had a clever name, a logo, and some brand messaging that sounded good but didn’t say anything; it was just jargon-heavy.

As I said, I had an idea, however, I didn’t take the time to clarify it, to properly identify my niche, or to incorporate my unique abilities in this brand  I called myself creating. The reason the website copy didn’t quite hit right, and the reason I wasn’t able to talk to people about the company with confidence was that I was still missing one key word: storytelling.  I had cards, socials locked, a homepage, an aesthetic, but couldn’t explain the heart of the brand. I hadn’t realized it myself! So I never pushed this consultancy. I just let it sit (it’s still sitting, by the way!) because fortunately the space where I was using my unique talents in a way that married my career journey and my passions, #MusicSermon, was creating opportunities for me as a storyteller. That led to journalism, to research and commentary, and now to being a whole a** college professor. But it didn’t happen overnight.

My story isn’t unique, but it was a couple of years early. Between 2020 and 2022, the rate of self-identified entrepreneurs and creators surged in the US. The abrupt changes in day-to-day life created opportunities for some—and the necessity for others—to pivot and/or take a new direction. People were creating, launching, doing, making, and founding left and right. There are so many launches, experts, and creators that there are creators who just make content about how to be creators.

Some found sustained success after a pivot, but I’ve noticed an increasing number of creativepreneurs (I love that word) now sharing the difficult realities of working to stand out in a jam-packed field while being at the mercy of the algorithm.

I think we’ve now realized that serial launching, pivots, etc., aren’t automatically the answer to income or fulfillment. But we’ve also become conditioned to chasing the algorithm and vanity metrics, measuring our success in clicks, views, and followers. The crazy part is, we’re chasing these numbers without asking ourselves if they’re the right measures of success for our goals, or if the content we’re creating, or the services or goods we’re offering (or considering offering) align with our passions and talents. We’re skipping the essential steps of clarifying who we are, who we’re serving, and what makes us stand out.

I teach marketing to college students who are at different stages of their creator or entrepreneurial journeys, and they often have their product ready to go—content made, images shot, websites live, all of that—and THEN they say, “I don’t know how to find my audience,” or “I don’t know how to describe my brand.” I see that same issue mirrored in others trying to figure this all out: they didn’t start at the beginning.

I get the obvious appeal of social metrics—more followers, more engagement, more eyes on your content. And sure, more awareness can lead to more revenue. But with so much noise out there, the bang for your buck comes with being crystal clear on your brand identity and knowing exactly who you’re talking to. And this isn’t just an independent or small business thing. Even large companies are having to adjust how they message, and they’re leaning into loyalty and connection with consumers and fans. For example, record labels are shifting their marketing gears to superserve the “superfan”. Independent creators have gotten caught up in the content industrial complex and forgotten to figure out what we’re serving the public and why people should care.

I’ve been working with my students to help them figure this out, and I uniquely understand what they’re facing because I had to figure it out myself. For about two years, I tried a little bit of everything I do well, which had me spread very thin at points. People would ask what I was doing and working on, and the answers sounded so disconnected that I would sometimes leave things out because I didn’t know how to explain them. Eventually, I realized that I shouldn’t be spending my energy in places that made such little sense for my career, life, and the brand I was building I didn’t even want to acknowledge them in conversation. Towards the latter part of the second year I could finally articulate the through-line in all of my work, the unique skills and talents that I stacked and applied in different ways in different roles, and gave it all language that made sense. After that, the story of my experiences, skills, talents, and passions came together, and I was able to see my brand clearly. Now I want to help others do the same, so you don’t have to spend years of your time and energy in places that don’t ultimately serve you.

The Craft Your Story and Define Your Brand mini-course and the products in The StoryPower Suite are born out of my own journey, the strategies I’ve crafted for clients, and the lessons and materials I’ve created for my students. My goal is to give you tools to do exactly what I did— bring all your brilliance together and figure out your superpower. Because once you do that, everything else starts to make sense.

Let’s build something that’s true to you.