What Are You Going On About With This ikigai and Niche Nonsense?

GenX women; “Why the b*ggery b*llocks should I care about personal branding, never mind subscribe and follow this?”

I like to think that people who have spent time with me (whether online or IRL) would say I’m caring. Perhaps a little on the soppy hippy side of life, but well-meaning, honest and down to earth overall.

So why you may ask (especially if you aren’t a fan of LinkedIn or YouTube currently) are *YOU* (a mid-career, more frazzled than polished, perimenopausal woman) being apparently brainwashed by watching many many hours of videos of gleaming faces of very young and very confident men, preaching on personal branding and self improvement and success.

This isn't the start of a joke by the way, it’s my life.

So, erm, why *are* you harping on?

It’s a fair question dear reader.  I will elaborate, but let me first ask you some questions;

• Do you jump out of bed excited for what you will be doing each day?

• Can you say that your skills and talents are being used fully?

• Do you experience laughter or support or satisfaction most hours of the day?

• Are you in control of your day, never at the mercy of the whims of others?

• Do you always say exactly what you want both online and in real life without fear?

If you answer yes to any of these, but especially if you can for more than one, then you may not resonate with the motivation for sharing my journey here.

Although even then I’d urge you to consider if it’s true for other people you care about, and especially if you have children. Do you think there is enough priority and support for them to THRIVE in life not just merely survive. To find what they are best at and explore options and career choices through as broad a lens as possible. To think about what brings them joy and how that can be incorporated when considering their potential paths forward.

I guess I’ve always been on a self-improvement tip, well since being an adult anyway.  Ambitious and intensely driven to learn and do more. To do it cleverly though, to do more with less, to have more hours available for joy.

As I get nearer to 50 though I’ve stepped up a gear. I am questioning if there is a different path for me to climb towards. I am investing time and money, actively exploring ideas and approaches to significantly change my life.  I’m studying how successful people have approached this and what they do differently.

It just so happens that a lot of the voices that have taught me some very cool things in recent history, are shiny young men.  I am inherently trusting and usually take things at face value, but I’ve made myself be more suspicious and dig deeper into the validity and authority. For right now, I think they are on to something!

I’m in awe of some of these people. Through them I’ve found some awesome and relatively simple ways to experiment with radical change in my life, but I worry that the way these shiny men bury the message in hours of sometimes quite impenetrable videos, may be off putting to others of us.

Quick answer; I don’t want YOU to miss out on helpful advice and practical tips to make your life EASIER and HAPPIER, just because you can’t relate to slick and long videos.

Interlude | Behind the curtains, is AI misogynistic? ;

I was trying hard to not get ranty in this article, ahem. ChatGPT often gets asked to generate a cartoon version of me, the hair and glasses are described but that is IT, why does it often default to showing a very very low cut top and much larger breasts and cleavage on show than I am incapable of producing even if I wanted to?! This is the second time it has done this to me, even though the other context I am providing is usually of a professional nature. By the way, I am not saying that women can’t be professional with cleavage on show, but I personally prefer to hide mine.

After this image on the was generated, I asked it to try again by prompting; “can you please recreate this exactly the same but have the lady wearing a high necked top” only to get the image on the right…

I couldn’t help but chuckle, I suppose that *technically* it had done what I asked, she IS wearing a high necked top, but somehow is still showing a fine cleavage!  I think I made reference to shiny men, again with no mention of how they should be dressed, so why aren’t they showing skin? Hmmmm.

When I said “this is worse, please go back to the image before this one, but ensure that the lady does not have any cleavage showing” I of course then get an error message; “Error creating image: I'm sorry, but I'm unable to generate the image as per your latest request due to content policy restrictions.” … which sent me into a ranty rage where after flagging this as unhelpful and inaccurate I ended my complaint with the words, do we have a gender bias issue here guys, how many women work at OpenAI?!

…. Aaaand relax. I guess this could be seen as a tiny thing in the scale of things, but is it? What is it telling young men who are using the tool about what they should expect a woman to look and dress like, or young women for that matter too? Why can’t it differentiate between someone asking for NO cleavage versus those I assume have tried asking for MORE, hence why that is not allowed.  Why is it even showing cleavage at all when the men are dressed more traditionally professionally even though I intimated that they could be seen as attractive? Anyway, back to the previously scheduled essay …

Who are these shiny men talking about niches?

The world, well YouTube at least, seems very enamoured with the stories of young, charismatic entrepreneurs like Dan Koe, Ali Abdaal, and David Perell. I am sure there are some women out there, but for whatever reason they haven't surfaced in my feed.  I googled various parameters to find demographics of most successful YouTubers overall, and within specific topic categories, and it does seem to skew more towards younger males generally speaking.

The best of their narratives are compelling, their successes enviable.

It is at times hard to see yourself in these people though. As a Gen X woman entrenched in the realities of mid-life and its complexities, I couldn't help but feel a disconnect, their brand of polished confidence can appear to be worlds away from my daily experience.

This is intended to be a brief introduction to give you a hint of what I found to be their key messages, and how I ended up weaving that into something that made sense to me.

David Perell

I prefer David’s writing to his videos, as most of his newer podcast videos are over an hour long, but he is very charismatic and motivating to watch when you have the time.  There are lots of interesting people he interviews, and I assume lots of wisdom contained within, but I rarely have time to gamble if that will be true.  However his older and shorter videos give a great overview of one of his key concepts, PERSONAL MONOPOLY. He says;

“Forge a distinct path instead of copying what everybody else is doing. Work on ambitious projects, study the unexplored intersections of ideas and find the questions that people are asking but nobody is answering. There is a vast intellectual frontier waiting for you to find it. As you settle upon these lands, you’ll build your Personal Monopoly.”

Ali Abdaal

I relate to Ali a little more than David, he’s from the UK and I’ve seen him when he was a frazzled medical student who was striving to help others by sharing his tips on how to study more effectively.  He wasn’t always such a polished and shiny YT’er, and he shares tips for those of us at an earlier stage about how we could explore our own potential YT niche;

“The Passion-Demand Matrix (or PD Matrix for short) is a method of quickly and accurately discovering our YouTube niche. The idea is that if we can find a topic that interests us (i.e. a passion) and has a clearly identifiable target audience (i.e. a demand), we’ll come across a topic where we can offer an insane amount of value. This unique combination of interest, audience, and value is our niche.”

He posts a good mix of short 10 minute type videos and slightly longer ones at around the 30 minute mark which I find to be more digestible.  His thing these days is productivity, but in a more holistic and happy manner than many who do the hustle thing, you can tell that because his book is called “Feel Good Productivity”.

Dan Koe

Dan is my newest obsession, he is mesmerising to watch. So very clever and with an ability to have me hanging on his every word.  He has recently released a book called The Art of Focus, with an intention to help you; “Find meaning, reinvent yourself, and create your ideal future.”.  His videos vary, but are typically between 20 and 40 minutes, perfect length I find when you want to sit down with a nice cup of tea and seek some inspiring words to motivate.

The Value Creator (A New Internet Career Path For Intelligent People)

Summarising and paraphrasing a little, but he really drummed home recently an important question; WHO DO YOU LOVE WORKING WITH/TALKING TO? He was making the very valid point that if you are clear about that, and also about what your own UNIQUE VALUE is, then you can find and resonate with that audience and hopefully if they are a few steps behind you on their own self discovery journey, then you have the pleasure and privilege of raising their consciousness, awakening them to there being a different way.

The niche of you, the one person business, is your worldview and goals, the problems that prevent you from reaching your ideal life and then highlighting the paths and clarity you find in overcoming those problems.  Create a simple and holistic step by step path ideally, make it make more sense. (Ahem, fully aware this is now a BEAST of a word count, so I’m not distilling this enough to make more sense, but my next draft or iteration will be a step closer I am confident!).

What does this have to do with personal branding?

I used to view personal branding as a buzzword, a possibly superficial LinkedIn strategy. But as I delved deeper into this wider topic, I realised it's about understanding and articulating your unique value. It's not just for those starting their careers; it's particularly powerful for those of us who've been around the block a few times. Personal branding for me has become another facet of this journey of self-discovery, a way to piece together the mosaic of my experiences, skills, and passions.

The clearer I am about who I am, what my unique approach is, then the more chance there is of finding people who that makes sense for.  People that one day may become my colleagues or my audience or my true fans, if I keep on this journey to the ultimate aim of creating and receiving value.

Where does ikigai fit in?

This way to frame thinking about your purpose has long resonated with me as you no doubt have gathered.  It's about finding joy and purpose in the everyday, aligning what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. As a woman juggling career, life transitions, and the never-ending quest for balance, ikigai has definitely become a compass, guiding me through the sometimes foggy mid-life.

As I continue to align my personal brand with my journey towards ikigai, things are shifting. I am much clearer about what I want MORE OF in my life and want I want LESS OF.

I feel like I am in the driving seat and crafting my life. Sharing my journey, with its ups and downs, its uncertainties and victories, is a part of my brand story. It isn’t polished or perfect, but it is real. I am determined to find joy and purpose in the process, and the sharing and connecting with others even moreso.

As I write more on here every week and try to be active in commenting on the Substack Notes, I find more people to connect with.  As I hone my LinkedIn profile and write more consistently there too, as I comment with more purpose on the amazing people I follow’s posts, the more people I find to connect with there too.

I am growing in terms of followers slowly but surely, and I haven’t even started YT, Twitter, Insta/Threads in any kind of concerted way yet.  So by DOING THE THING, I am overcoming my fears, I am learning what works and what doesn’t and I am honing my skills.

My hope for you;

If you still aren’t feeling the world of personal branding and ikigai as a way for you to take control of your life, I say this: your story matters. Your experiences, however unpolished or unconventional, are your strength. In a world either stuck in a rut, or chasing after the new and the youthful, there's immense power in the wisdom and authenticity of those who've weathered storms and celebrated sunrises.

They are tools for all of us, at any stage of life, to find our path, our joy, and our purpose. In embracing my true self, with all its imperfections, I’m glimpsing more often a more rounded sense of fulfilment. That, in itself, is a story worth telling.

I’m Sarah, Seeking ikigai xxx ….. and I’d love to hear your thoughts on personal monopoly and whether you have a clear niche and/or audience in mind?