I never wanted to be "an influencer"

I never had any ambitions of being a public figure for its own sake. And really, I still don’t.

I started my YouTube channel back in 2017 for a very simple reason: nobody knew who I was, or what I did.

It was insanely frustrating, because I’d done a lot of stuff that I thought was pretty cool: websites for Nike and Nintendo, product design for Swiffer and Febreze, marketing for Abercrombie & Fitch, etc…

And yet nobody gave a sht, or even knew that I existed.

Applying for jobs was always demoralizing (I rarely even got a rejection email), my network was terrible, and my resume was a scattered mess.

I felt stuck, like I was always going to be invisible forever and I’d have to settle for whatever jobs I managed to sneak my way into— all the while watching people who weren’t actually good at their jobs get opportunities that I know I would have been much better at.

(as you can tell, I’m still a little salty about that 😅)

But instead of extending the pity party, I decided to take matters into my own hands, and make the world notice me.

I started my YouTube channel in September of 2017, my second channel sometime in 2019, and to make a long story short… I don’t feel invisible anymore.

Now, literally millions of people all over the world know my name and face. It’s super weird to think about that, but it’s true. I got recognized the other day by the kid working at the AT&T store.

And they know ME, in a surprising amount of detail:

They know that I grew up in the Seattle area, that I was on the debate team in high school, that my wife is Vietnamese, and tons of other thing about me— and what do you think that does for my ability to network and create opportunities for myself?

If anything, now I have MORE attention than I want… which has its own challenges, but it’s a whole lot better than feeling like you don’t exist.

My point: I never wanted to be a public figure for ego validation or anything like that.

I just didn’t want to stay invisible forever.

If being in the spotlight makes you feel a little icky, that’s OK. That’s probably a sign that you’re a decent person— the people who love being in the spotlight tend to be gross, in my experience (and I know a lot of them).

But I’m here to tell you that you NEED to be in the spotlight, even if it’s a little uncomfortable.

Because the simple fact is that opportunities usually go to the people who are the most visible, not to the people who “deserve” them.

Building an audience is like oxygen for your career (and life in general).

And the best part is, for most people it doesn’t have to be a big one. I get 50-100 likes on most of my LinkedIn posts, and it keeps me very busy and generates enough income to support our family of 3.

Whether you work with me or not, I honestly don’t care. I just want you to start building an audience.

What’s important to me is that you do it, because I promise it will change everything for you— and probably faster than you think.