How To Build A Better Personal Brand Than 99% Of People

I never thought that I was going to have

a personal brand. Back in 2016 or so, I

was a freshman in college and my friend

and I who lived on the same floor

started a YouTube channel. It's actually

this YouTube channel that you're

watching right now, but all of the

videos are deleted. So, I've had this

channel for that long. And in the past

we made like videos on calisthenics. We

did eating challenges, like a 10,000

calorie challenge and other like talking

head videos. and it didn't get anywhere.

We didn't know what we were doing. But

that wasn't the end. I always had this

desire to do something creative. I

didn't think it was going to be a

personal brand by any means, but I

wanted to do something. And so

naturally, I started experimenting with

other things and I got into

photography/digital art/editing. I

really like the editing portion of it.

And if you scroll to the bottom of my

Instagram, you can see those edits. And

that's technically when the name the

Danco or my handle was born. I was a

lifeguard over the summers and I was

trying to think of, "Okay, what should I

name my Instagram page?" And the my

co-workers at the time were like "Oh

what if you just shorten your name to

this?" And I'm like, "Okay, whatever."

And it just stuck. Now, I gained some

followers doing the digital art and

editing, but I eventually burned out

because I tried to do one edit a day and

I couldn't handle taking Adderall every

morning and busting out 6 hours staring

at Photoshop. So, that failed. But I

really, really, really didn't want to

get a job after graduating college. That

was like my driving force. I never

really knew what I wanted to be when I

grew up, but I did know that I didn't

want to be like most people. So, onward

to more businesses. I tried building

three e-commerce stores. One was drop

shipping rave clothes, the other was

minimalist wallets, the other was blue

light glasses. And after taking courses

on Facebook ads and borrowing $8,000

not $8,000, borrowing $2,000 from my

dad, I eventually racked up a total of

$8,000 as a junior in college. And that

was just after a bunch of short-lived

ventures like the three e-commerce

stores, an SEO agency, a content

marketing agency, trying to do web

design, trying to do Facebook ads

trying to do all of these things, and

being $8,000 in debt as a broke college

kid who's already living with seven

other dudes trying to lower their rent

to like 200, 300 a month while working

part-time. That's not a good spot to be

in. That's a lot of stress. Now, for the

climax, I ended up getting a job. I had

been studying programming because I

learned that it was something that I

could do without a degree. And I

thought, okay, well, if I learn this

maybe that's my backup plan, right? I I

don't I'm not going to be able to get a

degree in programming, but I know I can

learn it very quick because I'm good at

self-educating. And so that's what I

did. And I ended up getting a very base

level web design job at an agency in

Arizona where pretty much I would spend

the first few hours of my day working on

my own stuff because I learned the

brutal reality of working a desk job

early on is that most of your work is

just procrastination. You're not really

doing anything. Most people that work a

desk job, I say most people, I know

there's exceptions, most people can work

on their own stuff, procrastinate their

work like I did until the end, and then

just copy paste templates for the

e-commerce stores that I was working

with and call it a day and get paid. But

I knew that if I stayed in that job for

too long, I would get comfortable. the

wife, the mortgage, the kids, the

responsibilities. Nothing wrong with

those things, but it would just like

pile drive me into the state of not

having any time, money, or energy. My

life at that point would then just go on

autopilot. Now, to keep this brief, I

ended up making freelance web design

work. So, while I was at my job, and I

procrastinated all my work, I would just

try to land freelance clients for my web

design stuff because that's what I

worked in. That's what I understood. I

had a general understanding of how to

help people with web design. But after

making the freelance web design thing

work, I realized that I had just built

myself into a second 9 to5 because I was

still working on client projects. I was

still working on projects that I didn't

care about. So with all of this stuff

circulating in my head, it's not just

like one decision of, oh, should I start

a personal brand? I was in this job

well, I was in a job that I hated. Then

I went into freelancing which I hated

and I had already tried so many

different things. So I had like my brain

was primed to make this decision. That's

when I really discovered the power of

social media. People were just posting

about their knowledge and interests and

I felt like I could write similar to

what they posted. They didn't have to

constantly reach out to clients because

their content attracted the clients. And

I saw web designers selling digital

products that required zero effort kind

of beyond creating the product to make

money. So, it checked all the boxes, but

I had already tried that, right, with

the YouTube stuff. And I had already

built some kind of an audience with the

digital art, but I had no idea how to

monetize that. Now, as time has gone by

as you guys can see now, I have a rather

successful personal brand, if that's

what you want to call it. And I had

learned so much from my prior business

failures and my freelancing stuff and

building web design, digital products

and other things of that nature that I

eventually started helping people with

their brand, right? I was a brand

adviser for like a year or two and I

that's still kind of what I consider

myself. If I were to label myself as two

things, it would be a writer because I

am an author. I write content. That's

what I like doing. and then a brand

adviser where I help people set up their

brands to do what they want in the

unique way that I've discovered. So part

of that is what I'm here to share with

you today. I want to give you the pieces

that help you build a better personal

brand than what 99% of people can do. So

let's start with a quote from Naval.

Artists are by definition authentic.

Entrepreneurs are authentic too. Who's

going to be Elon Musk? Who's going to be

Jack Dorsey? These people are authentic

and the businesses and products they

create are authentic to their desires

and means. That is from Naval's piece

called Escape Competition Through

Authenticity. Now, let's speed this up a

bit. You're here because you have

interests or skills that you want to

turn into a futurep proof income source

but you don't want to become a hollow

shell of a human being. You don't want

to put yourself into a box. You don't

want to build yourself into another 9

to5. So, I want to go over the highest

impact things you could be doing. And

these are the things that most beginners

don't know because they haven't started

or they just glance over because they're

told that other things are more

important. Forget about your niche for

now. Forget about your bio and banner

and all of that stuff. It's important

but there are plenty of people with no

bio and a blank profile picture doing

just fine. Your content and the quality

of ideas you post over a long enough

time period are what create a brand that

people can't help but trust. That's your

entire business strategy. Trust. Money

is a measure of trust. Now, I'm going to

teach you what I call the trust matrix.

It's composed of three parts. There's

growth, so doing what works to attract

people. There's authenticity, which is

expressing your core beliefs. And then

there's authority, so displaying your

expertise. Now, when I was a brand

adviser a few years ago, this I I called

this the social matrix, and there have

been spin-offs of it since, which is

great because it's going around, but

this is kind of like the baseline of

what you need to focus on. This is the

big picture of personal branding as a

whole. And then after we talk about the

trust matrix, we'll talk about

monetization. Like, how do you start to

think about monetization as a personal

brand? So, the first pillar is growth.

And with growth, you need to build your

idea to execution muscle. A pattern I've

noticed in successful creators. The

moment they notice an idea at the

intersection of performance and

excitement, they drop anything they were

doing and write it down. These ideas

typically come to them on a walk, while

listening to an audiobook or video

while reading a book or heavy content

not brain rot social posts, or while

having a conversation with others. Now

there are two pieces here. First is

performance. So they understand how to

articulate ideas in an engaging way. The

ideas have the potential to do well. And

then second, there's excitement. So they

have a genuine interest in understanding

the idea or articulating it in their own

way. They see their brand as a

collection of notes of these ideas. So

that's how you generate ideas to talk

about under your personal brand is

performance. So will other people like

it? Does it have the potential to do

well? And excitement. Do you like it? Do

you want to write about it? Everything

becomes a source of ideas when you know

how to articulate an idea in an engaging

way and when you want to write about it.

The reason most people struggle to come

up with ideas worth writing about are

those two reasons. Their mind isn't

trained to be articulate and they don't

consume information at the edge of their

understanding. So the single most

beneficial thing you can do here for

your writing is to use high-erforming

post structures as training wheels for

your articulation. So when you have an

idea, you can turn it into something

that other people may like as well and

it will get shared and you may gain

followers. So if you want to practice

this, pull out a notebook or open a

note-taking app. Write down five to 10

writers, thinkers, or creators who you

admire for their articulation. spend 1

hour a day for the next week scrolling

through their social accounts. And this

part is important. Find their anomalies

the posts that have at least 2x the

engagement as their other posts, and

then screenshot or write them down in

your note-taking app. The key shift here

is you need to stop reading ideas on the

internet as a consumer, and you need to

start doing so as a researcher. You're

doing it to generate ideas for your own

writing. You aren't doing it for

entertainment. Now, when you have saved

or written down at least 20 to 30 posts

that represent the articulation you want

to adopt, break down why these posts

work so well. So, you have this note or

document of other people's posts or

ideas inside of it that you want to be

able to articulate in that way. Under

each of those, you write down three to

five bullet points of why it did well

what psychological patterns are being

used, how did it capture attention

what's the value there, why do people

care, why did it do so well. Another

thing you can do is just use this prompt

where you can pause the screen right

now, take a screenshot of it, and then

copy paste it or do whatever. But you

paste this prompt in, you add the social

post to it, and then it will break down

exactly why that worked, how it's

structured, and how to replicate it

because it gives you a step-by-step way

to replicate it with your own ideas.

Now, the point with all of this is that

you are dissecting why already validated

ideas have done well. When you practice

writing in a way that stops the scroll

and nearly demands readers to absorb the

idea, growth is a byproduct. So that's

why this is called the growth pillar

because it helps with the growth of your

audience. If your audience isn't

growing, then you don't have an influx

of traffic, so you won't get paid. You

don't need to grow by thousands or

millions of followers. You just need to

be growing. Now, the click with this

growth pillar is that validated ideas or

things that make people grow are already

out there and it's up to you to find

those, take those and make them your own

and experiment until you see consistent

growth. Now, pillar two is authenticity

or the core beliefs to attract the right

people. So far in the growth pillar, you

know how to turn any idea into a social

post that people can't ignore. But

people don't follow ideas. They follow

people who share ideas. Two people can

write the same thing and people will

perceive that post in drastically

different ways. So take James Clear

versus a random guy off the street and

imagine they both tweet, "Habits are

good for you." Tens of millions of

people know who James Clear is. They

know his story. They've read his book on

habits. They have a deep yet indirect

relationship with him. Most people who

read the tweet from James Clear will

like and repost simply because it's

James Clear. The fact that James Clear

is saying it brings other ideas that the

people are already aware of that they're

perceiving the tweet from. But if a

random guy posted it, habits are good.

People would either ignore it or they

would comment, "Yeah, no shit." So there

are three things here. The first is time

under attention. The more attention

people give you, especially in long-

form content like articles, books, and

videos, the more they perceive your

posts through the rest of your ideas.

So, that's something to watch out for is

that I have two books now. I've been

making YouTube videos for a long time. I

have a lot of newsletter subscribers and

get over a 100,000 views on each

newsletter article that I send out. So

I can send simpler stuff. I can post

simple content and people read it

through the lens of, oh, Dan posted

this. I know his entire philosophy. I

know everything else. I'm going to like

this. And that's a boost in engagement.

Your engagement isn't only determined by

the quality of the idea. It's determined

by both the quality of the idea and your

time spent in the game. That's why most

beginners quit because they never give

themselves enough time so that people

spend enough time with them. Now the

second thing is alignment of values. So

when people know who you are, where you

came from and what you stand for, they

form a deeper relationship with your

ideas as a whole. And then the third is

authentic polarization. Because if

you're liked by everybody, you're liked

by nobody. You need to give people

reasons to heavily disagree and thus

heavily agree with you. This is the

difficult part of putting yourself out

there. Now, all of these things don't

need much explanation. You can directly

observe that you feel a stronger

connection with creators whose story and

core beliefs you resonate with. Imagine

someone that you hate on social media.

Many people hate me, but they will go

and look at someone else who is saying

the exact same thing, the exact same

idea, but they're saying it through a

different story, a different set of

beliefs, a different lens, and they love

that person. So, it's typically not that

you hate or love the specific person

that you're following. It's that you

resonate with them more. This is why

it's difficult for personal branding or

the creator economy to get saturated

because everyone is talking through

their own lens, their own story. It

doesn't matter if that guy has already

said all the ideas that you want to say

because they're brought to a completely

different light when you say them. And

if you were presented a product to buy

from some random brand and a creator

selling the same thing that you love

one, you're probably not even going to

know that the other brand exists because

you follow the creator. But either way

if you're presented with both, you're

going to buy the one from the creator

because you trust them more. So, how do

we replicate this in our own brand? We

need to illustrate our story and core

beliefs often in our content, both as

content topics and as ways of reframing

ideas. As a content topic, I could talk

about how I failed at seven different

business models. As a way of reframing

an idea, I could talk about how to build

a personal brand, which is validated and

has high potential, and make that topic

unique to me by starting with my story.

That's exactly what I did at the start

of this video. I started with a story

and that's what makes me talking about

personal branding unique. Now in terms

of my core beliefs as a topic, I could

talk about how I personally think that

digital products are the best way for

beginners to start while other people

think differently. But I have reasons

behind why I think that is. Or since

that's a belief of mine is like digital

product, I could also reframe classic

advice on building a product. I could go

and learn how Steve Jobs builds a

product and I can frame that under a new

lens either for digital products or just

for being a creator as a whole rather

than building a Fortune 500 company. So

to do this well, write out where you

were, what sparked change, and where you

are now. For each topic or theme you

talk about, list out core principles

that you hold with conviction. Now, the

thing about this, this is always

difficult when you're just like sitting

in front of a blank screen and trying to

spit your beliefs on paper because they

don't all come to mind. They aren't just

all sitting in your conscious mind. You

have to dig them up from your

unconscious. You have to think about

this for like a week. You need to go and

listen to content and let the ideas from

that bring up ideas for you to write

down along the way. But another way to

do this is to just use AI to help guide

our thinking. So, I created a prompt

that helps you extract your story and

your beliefs and then it tidies them all

up nicely in like a singular document

for you. So, link to that is in the

description and also just while we're

talking about it and I know this is the

same topic as the YouTube video that's

for a reason if people are actually

interested. But if it is a goal of yours

to start a personal brand, then I am

running a challenge, a build a

profitable personal brand in 30 days

challenge every single day. You get an

actionable lesson similar to what we

talked about today. And you get the

action steps for that lesson. It takes

about 30 to 60 minutes a day, but by the

end of the 30 days, you will have a

foundation. You'll have an incredible

personal brand that is ready to

monetize. That starts on June 16th for

those interested. Now, pillar number

three, and arguably the most important

is that persuasive education changes

behavior. Most creators build education

businesses. They teach their skills and

interests. Now, of course, you can try

to be the next big celebrity or Only

Fans model, but remember, we're aiming

for some form of positive impact and

meaningful work. Now, the thing is

there are so many creators who already

teach what you want to teach. You can

search any skill on YouTube and find a

ton of videos on any topic. That's what

trips up most beginners. They don't

believe that people have a reason to

follow them. Why would they learn from

you when there are already plenty of

people to learn from? So, there are two

solutions here. The first is to teach

through a new lens, which is similar to

what we just talked about. I could

reframe a topic through your personal

story or your core beliefs, like how I

can talk about something as basic as

personal branding, but I can frame it

with my story. Or another way that I

like to do this is by reframing through

a novel idea. If you're following the

instructions I gave you in the growth

pillar, then you're consistently

consuming or researching information to

find ideas. For me when I do this

something like Naval's ideas on ideas

are the new oil and this generation is

getting rich in idea space not physical

space then I can introduce the topic of

a personal brand through that idea and

it's much more compelling and unique. So

this generation is getting rich in idea

space not in physical space. So then I

can say okay here's the traditional

business models of the past. You need a

physical location. You need all of these

things. But with a online business, with

a personal brand, you just need ideas.

Now, the second solution is to persuade

the

non-interested. This answers most of

your objections when it comes to

building a personal brand. Most people

on social media aren't intentionally

trying to learn. If they were, they

would physically search for a video

course, or article on the topic. And you

are being spread to random people on

social media. You don't control who sees

your content by typing in their

interests and demographics into

something like Facebook ads. So, you

need to frame your ideas as broad and

desirable. If I want to talk about

personal branding, I don't go straight

into giving people instructions on how

to pick their topics or create a bio.

That's boring. It won't get enough reach

to spread to a new audience. What I

would recommend going to research is the

five levels of awareness in marketing.

You have to know what level of awareness

you are speaking to. When you create a

product, you're speaking to a much

higher level of awareness because they

were aware enough of their problem to

buy the product. So, you don't have to

start with all of that introduction and

broad stuff that is better suited for

social media. You just get straight into

the details for what they purchased. But

on social media, nobody is thinking

about that. They're not trying to scroll

for 10 minutes to find, oh, okay, here's

how I build a personal brand. Oh, here's

how I design a website. Oh, here's a

they're discovering new things. So, the

best way to practice this is to just

start thinking in pain points and

desired outcomes. So, I could start with

some permutation of if you want, which

is a desire, or if you don't want, which

is a pain point, then most people at

least have a chance at becoming

interested in what I have to say. So, as

an example, I can say, if you hate the

thought of building someone else's

dreams for the rest of your life, start

a personal brand. I could then go on to

list the benefits of starting one, how

low risk it can be, and how you can sell

almost anything from digital products to

software to physical products. I can

make a compelling argument as to why

people should start a personal brand and

present it as an option for them. So

that was the trust matrix. Now, let's

talk about quickly the best way to

monetize as a beginner. The best way to

monetize is any way. They literally all

work. ebooks, templates, cohorts

coaching, paid newsletter, sponsorships

freelancing, selling a physical product

whatever. What most people don't

understand is that a personal brand

isn't a business. It's a traffic source.

Founders build a personal brand to get

users for their startup. E-commerce

brands use UGC to sell physical

products. You can quite literally sell

anything from bags of coffee to nudes if

you have a trustworthy personal brand.

Those without a personal brand need to

build trust fast or leverage deeper

psychological tactics in the form of

direct response marketing to secure the

sale. They need to go from ad to

conversion as fast as possible. That

opens up room for potentially unethical

tactics and a sole focus on making quick

money. So, since we're focused on

building a personal brand according to

the trust matrix that we just went over

you're in a very good spot. You already

have people that want to buy from you.

You don't need to worry about the

optimization of your landing page or

your headline or whatever it may be

because your content has already done

the selling. Now, I could list out the

pros and cons of which kind of product

you should build first, but instead I'll

say this. I'll just give you a metric.

Your first product should take no longer

than a week to build because you

probably already have a product lying

around. As an example, John Hugh from

Stan, which is a creator platform that

allows you to host digital products and

so on and so forth. He won.

Congratulations to him and the stand

team. We've grown closer over time, but

they recently got Steven Bartlett from a

diary of a CEO podcast on as a co-owner

which is incredible, and they're going

to continue growing. So, if you need a

creator platform to start out on, I

would bet on Stan. And they're the most

affordable and well-rounded option to go

with anyways. But John Hugh started as a

creator on Tik Tok. and he made career

advice videos and he realized that a lot

of people were asking him, "Okay, what

did you do to get the job at Goldman

Sachs that he got and he mentioned his

resume here and there and he eventually

just realized, oh, I could just take

this resume, put it up for 10 bucks as a

template and he made thousands of

dollars doing that. He didn't over

complicate it." So, here's some ideas of

what you could do. You could record a 30

to 60 minute training on how to do one

impactful thing based on the topic that

you talk about. Or you can find an old

asset that allowed you to get a

desirable result and turn it into a

template. Or you can take a social post

that's received good reception and turn

it into a short guide or template. Now

we aren't trying to make the big bucks

here with this strategy. We're trying to

validate an idea that's worth paying

for. So, start by charging something

like $10. Then if your conversion rate

is like 2.5% or higher, then consider

turning it into a more fleshed out

product. That way you don't waste your

time building something that people

don't want. It really can be that

simple. Thank you for watching. Like

subscribe. Remember, the build a

profitable personal brand in 30 days

challenge starts on June 16th. And if

you'd like deeper letters sent to your

inbox every week, consider joining my

Substack. The links to both of those are

in the description. Thank you for

watching again. I'll see you in the next

video. Bye.