Building a business, or burnout?
I recently got a new business mentor - Kate. I Shes fantastic. I met with her last Tuesday and she said to me - 'Chris, this time we are not building a brand around you, we are building a brand that can stand on its own 2 feet'.
I didnt realise until she said it, up until now - I’ve been the business. My energy and mental state dictated everything - product development, content, sales, momentum. If I was on, it grew. If I was mentally cooked, it stopped.
I never built it with urgency - because I didn’t have to. There was always some financial safety net in the background, so I worked in bursts and disappeared when I needed to.
Earlier this year, when everything fell apart - including my safety net - it finally hit me: I was on my own.
The thing is until that point I never took it seriously. And more importantly I never learned how to build properly. Because up until that point.. I never had to.
It was all very me-coded. Chaotic but charming. Creative but last-minute. Big energy followed by big burnout. I’d post in a flurry, disappear for a month, order the wrong boxes, forget to reorder what had sold out, get distracted by a new idea, and call it “figuring it out as I go.”
But figuring it out isn’t the same as building something sustainable. A brand that relies on your mood, your good days, your medication, your temporary spark - isn’t a brand. It’s performance, with a product (or several random ones) attached.
So this is the personal, mental, emotional side of this ‘rebrand’. The physical is a whole nother kettle of fish, that I will delve into next week, that can basically be summed up in two words. Brand. Shame. (to be continued next week)
