I went from writing posts for free for 6 months to working with 20+ founders on their LinkedIn branding in 2 years.
It was 2022. 2nd year of university.
My classmates were doing typical student jobs. Food delivery, barista work.
But I had a different plan.
I refused to trade time for money in jobs that wouldn't build my future. Instead, I asked myself:
“What can I do now that will give me an unfair advantage after graduation?“
That question changed everything.
I went all in on learning: psychology, finance, business.
While figuring out what I was actually good at:
Creativity. Business-minded thinking. People skills.
Then one day, I stumbled across a podcast with Rory Vaden,
He was talking about personal branding. Threw out these crazy stats:
• 82% of consumers think companies are more influential when their founder has a personal brand.
• 76% are more likely to trust someone with a personal brand.
• 58% will pay more for it.
And it clicked. I saw an opportunity.
But the thing was - I had 0 experience in personal branding (probably zero experience in almost anything:)
So how do I start? How do I become an expert?
This was my plan:
Learn everything I could about personal branding (books, podcast, events).
Build my own brand while learning
I committed to posting on LinkedIn every single day.
Through my content, I got connected with this new agency founder. He'd just started. Had zero clients.
I joined him anyway. Helped out while learning.
We grew together.
He landed his first clients. I started managing my own accounts.
First client. Second. Third.
And the results started showing:
→ Figured out how to write impactful content
→ Helped clients grow their accounts 4x.
→ Got referrals just from the work speaking for itself.
→ Built up a reputation that started attracting more interest.
Looking back, this whole journey taught me something:
While my classmates were making decent money from their jobs, I was basically working for free.
But those 6 months of unpaid work set me up for everything that followed.
Sometimes the path that doesn't pay immediately is the one that pays off the most.
Would you agree?
It was 2022. 2nd year of university.
My classmates were doing typical student jobs. Food delivery, barista work.
But I had a different plan.
I refused to trade time for money in jobs that wouldn't build my future. Instead, I asked myself:
“What can I do now that will give me an unfair advantage after graduation?“
That question changed everything.
I went all in on learning: psychology, finance, business.
While figuring out what I was actually good at:
Creativity. Business-minded thinking. People skills.
Then one day, I stumbled across a podcast with Rory Vaden,
He was talking about personal branding. Threw out these crazy stats:
• 82% of consumers think companies are more influential when their founder has a personal brand.
• 76% are more likely to trust someone with a personal brand.
• 58% will pay more for it.
And it clicked. I saw an opportunity.
But the thing was - I had 0 experience in personal branding (probably zero experience in almost anything:)
So how do I start? How do I become an expert?
This was my plan:
Learn everything I could about personal branding (books, podcast, events).
Build my own brand while learning
I committed to posting on LinkedIn every single day.
Through my content, I got connected with this new agency founder. He'd just started. Had zero clients.
I joined him anyway. Helped out while learning.
We grew together.
He landed his first clients. I started managing my own accounts.
First client. Second. Third.
And the results started showing:
→ Figured out how to write impactful content
→ Helped clients grow their accounts 4x.
→ Got referrals just from the work speaking for itself.
→ Built up a reputation that started attracting more interest.
Looking back, this whole journey taught me something:
While my classmates were making decent money from their jobs, I was basically working for free.
But those 6 months of unpaid work set me up for everything that followed.
Sometimes the path that doesn't pay immediately is the one that pays off the most.
Would you agree?
