Growing up, I was a huge nerd.
I LOVED reading stories…
Spending time at the library, and pretending that I was some Jedi, Hobbit, Wizard or Pokemon Master going on some epic adventure with my imaginary friends. (Sometimes, I still do). 😉
But since being a nerd wasn’t “cool”, I felt like I had to put up a front for the other kids to like me. I didn’t want them thinking that I was someone who could get pushed around, so I started acting super tough — dressing like a skater girl, rapping to Eminem songs and becoming that small, petite girl who could outrun and outwrestle every boy in her PE class.
The honest truth was…
I was so worried about not being accepted that I kept hiding who I was — to the point where I ended up dropping my dream of becoming a tattoo artist and settling for a stable, well-paying design job that gave me all the bragging rights, but none of the fulilment I was looking for.
Until one day… one of my friends asked me if I had ever thought of starting up my own thing. While I had ZERO business knowledge, I knew that this was my chance to finally say, “screw other people’s opinions” and explore what I wanted for myself — so I quit my full-time job in 2019 to start up my own branding agency.
Little did I know…
I would end up spending the next few years facing the exact same dilemma I was trying to avoid — the pressure to hide my difference and do what everyone else was doing.
Literally every professional I met looked and sounded exactly the same. Slick, semi-formal attire, fancy title, smooth talking, clean, semi-corporate branding and a pompous attitude that screamed, “look at how important I am!!”.
And even though I know that wasn’t ME, I ended up caving and completely changing my style to fit in. I dressed in fancy clothes, wore lots of makeup, branded myself as some big agency and spoke of myself as “we” instead of “I”... just to get clients that I thought I wouldn’t be able to land with “smaller” branding. It was like high school for me ALL OVER AGAIN.
Frankly, I was disgusted.
I felt like I was lying to people’s faces and knew that something had to change… so one day, I decided to throw the “professional standard” out the window and started showing up in a way that felt true to ME.
I scrapped my agency and built my personal brand instead. I showed up to calls in snapbacks and cat headphones, added FUN back into my brand, and let myself show up as that version of me that I was too scared to be as a kid.
After this turning point…
I didn’t just look different…
I started SHOWING UP differently, and people began to notice.
In the following years, every single person I’ve connected with has told me that they remembered me because I stood out. Yes, the brand styling helped… but ultimately, it was because I was finally brave enough to stop trying to fit in and let the world SEE who I actually am. No big agency, no fancy clothes, and no extra fluff.
Today, I help other brands go through that same transformation — to ditch their boring, generic brand style and craft a unique look that’s as LOUD as their identity.
Do you dare to be different?
If that’s a “heck YES”, click the button below to learn more about how I can transform your brand today!