I got this DM a few days back:

along with a few others. Thank you to all those who reached out. I appreciate it a lot. <3

So I figured I would take this opportunity to share what's been going on with me over the past few months.

Part 1

The death of my niche - For the past 4 years I enjoyed talking about personal branding but over the past year I realized that what I wanted to talk about and the type of content I wanted to create had changed.

I wasn't really talking about personal branding (specifically) anymore...

My "niche" wasn't really Personal Branding.

But I had it on my profile and part of my identity for so many years it felt weird to think of taking it off.

Furthermore... I had created a course on how anyone could build their personal brand.

37 lessons and 4.5 hours worth of content that I poured my heart and soul into.

(My goal for Q1 this year was to complete the course)

But, I never officially launched this course.

I kept waiting for the "perfect moment", working on the "perfect launch" & that moment never came.

So, I'm going to share the link to it here: Personal Branding 101 - Vishal Joseph :)

Overall, during this time I was a mess.

So I made this video - "The death of Personal Branding".

I've accepted that my journey as a creator is in (still) figuring out what I want to create.

It's not like I have a Million followers, but I do what I do for the small impact I feel like I am able to make:

I have tons of these to remind myself of WHY doing what I do outside of my 9-5 job matters.

But somewhere along the way I got way too obsessed with the outcome and I forgot about enjoying the journey...

I started having thoughts of "Where is all this leading to?", "Will I be able to quit my job and do this full time?" "Do I want to do this full time?"...

I felt like I wasn't able to find joy in my 9-5... Like I had no particular goals and didn't have any dreams of what my career would look like...

But before I could post the video or think further on this... Life had a surprise in store for me...

Part 2

Sometime in June I got a call from my doctor saying that there was an abnormality in one of my tests.

The doctor said it's fully treatable, but I would have to undergo a surgery followed by some special treatment.

(I'm being vague and cryptic on purpose)

After which I would take 2-6 weeks to recover.

Since I got this news, almost everything in my life changed.

Suddenly the priorities in my life shifted and I started looking at what my life really stood for.

What is the quality of the relationships I have in life?

What stage is my career in?

Did I do the things I always wanted to do?

Am I happy in life?

I got lucky with my situation (in that its treatable and not at a challenging stage) but I realized that not everyone is as lucky and some people don't really have the luxury of time.

So I took some time off from creating content...

I even paused recording episodes for the podcast because the last thing I felt like doing was talk about creator stuff...

It felt forced... Even though I love the creator economy... I just wasn't feeling it...

I started doing other things..

Spending more time with the people I cared about.

I started painting and finishing up on the multiple art projects I had in mind.

Part 3

So what's next?

I wrote this letter on August 21st, 2024

"Today I go into surgery and then will be recovering for a few weeks after.

I hope to come back with a fresh perspective.

I don't want to be on this hamster wheel of short form content anymore.

I want to start again and feel the excitement of building something new.

Thank you for reading my emails and for replying to them and being a part of my journey so far.

See you on the other side."

but I didn't hit send for multiple reasons. Biggest one being the pressure from some of the people close to me to not share the details of what I am going through. Something I am still fighting and trying to understand for myself.

Today I'm happy to say that the surgery went well, I feel great and a lot more has happened since then and I'll be sharing more with you.

You can expect me to share more of the details around my experiences and learnings every week moving forward.

If anything I hope that this email is a reminder for you to call that person you love, message that old friend or do that thing you always wanted to do.

Tomorrow really isn't guaranteed. I know it might seem like a cliche, but it's a cliche only until it happens to you.

So create, travel and do the things you always wanted to do.

See you next week.

Love,

VJ