When you show yourself to the world and display your talents, you naturally stir all kinds of resentment, envy, and other manifestations of insecurity... you cannot spend your life worrying about the petty feelings of others.
No matter how much potential you have, if you don’t fully lock in and take charge of your life, you’ll eventually end up as the guy who had potential but nothing to show for it.
Seth Godin gave a masterclass on how to build an unforgettable brand in the age of AI:
1. Marketing is not about spend. It is about creating the conditions for other people to eagerly spread your idea.
2. Authenticity is overrated. What customers actually want is consistency. Show up the same way every single time and that is worth more than any Super Bowl ad.
3. Everything your company does is a marketing decision. How you answer the phone. What you charge. How you design things. Marketing is not a department. It is everything.
4. Trust is simple. Make a promise. Keep it. Especially when it is hard.
5. Successful brands are built with your customers talking about you. Not you talking about you.
6. A brand is not a logo. A brand is a promise. Nike has a brand. Hyatt has a logo. One of them you know exactly what to expect. The other you do not.
7. You are measuring the wrong things. Follower counts. Stock price. Open rates. False proxies will take your business in the wrong direction faster than anything else.
8. Social media followers mean nothing. Godin has 400,000 Instagram followers and says if he posts about a new book maybe 12 people buy it. The number is a distraction.
9. Stop trying to be famous. The goal is not to get more famous. The goal is to get less famous and more trusted.
10. Average marketing reaches average people. Average people will not buy your product. You need the people who will talk about you, challenge you, and eagerly pay more for better.
11. When you pick your customers you pick your future. Stop trying to reach everyone. Start trying to deeply serve someone specific.
12. Better beats louder every time. One guy running a wine email list with 130,000 subscribers does $30 million a year in revenue. No ads. No social media hustle. Just consistently better.
13. The real opportunity with AI is not making things cheaper. It is making things better. The businesses that use AI to deepen relationships will win. The ones using it to cut costs will race to the bottom.
14. Your job is not to do your job. Your job is to solve problems for other people and make things better by making better things. Everything else is just noise.
15. When AI becomes the buyer it will always choose the cheapest option. If your entire business strategy is being the cheapest, AI will destroy you. The only protection is being worth it in ways that cannot be easily measured.
16. The next level of marketing is permission at a depth nobody has achieved before. The brand that knows your tools, your projects, your needs, and shows up to help without being asked will be impossible to replace.
17. Most businesses will use AI to spam more people faster. The businesses that win will use AI to serve fewer people better. That gap is the biggest opportunity in marketing right now.
18. You have a squadron of summer interns available for twenty dollars a month. They are not that good but they are very eager. The businesses learning to be good bosses of AI right now will have an enormous advantage over everyone waiting to figure it out later.
19. The question every business should be asking is not how do I get more attention. It is how do I become the kind of business that people would genuinely miss if it disappeared tomorrow. That answer is your entire marketing strategy.
Adulting is realizing;
1. You will die, and most people won’t care after a while.
2. People use you until you’re no longer useful.
3. Most people secretly want you to fail.
4. One day you’ll wish you started today.
5. Most people fake happiness while dying inside.
6. No one is coming to save you.
7. You’ll be judged no matter what you do.
8. Your health is your greatest wealth.
9. Happiness is temporary—discipline is permanent.
10. Success takes longer than you think.
11. No one respects weakness, even if they sympathize.
12. Complaining changes nothing.
13. Not everyone you love will love you back.
14. Money won’t solve all your problems—but it solves most.
15. Social media lies to you every day.
16. You’re replaceable at your job.
17. Life is unfair—get used to it.
18. One day, you’ll run out of days.
19. Regret hurts more than failure.
20. Nobody cares about your excuses. Work harder
The earlier you understand this, the better and easier your life gets.
Lately, I’ve really been understanding why the Bible says to live a quiet life and mind your business. There is so much peace in staying focused on your own life, your own healing, your own goals, and what God is doing for you. Some things grow better in private.
“Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands. Then people who are not believers will respect how you live.” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12)
The best recipe for success is the ability to be rejected without losing enthusiasm. We got thousands of rejects for interview requests over the years. But during those thousands of requests, we always get a few that say yes. Sometimes we get a yes years later. I can guarantee you that I've been rejected more times than you. There would be no VladTV in 2026 if I had given up in 2008 after being rejected. And we still got rejected today. And this mentality doesn't just apply to business. It applies to dating, friendships, and almost everything else in your life. Keep this in mind the next time you get rejected.
A reminder from Atomic Habits by James Clear:
“It doesn't make sense to continue wanting something if you're not willing to do what it takes to get it. If you don't want to live the lifestyle, then release yourself from the desire. To crave the result but not the process is to guarantee disappointment.”
The beautiful thing about life is that it does get better, and God often likes to surprise you. The timeline's largely hidden – one day after the next til suddenly you're experiencing joys you never imagined, and all the sorrows in between are redeemed
Aristotle was right when he said we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act. It is a habit. Your daily routine is your future on autopilot.
At the end of the day, BLACK FOLKS…
They already have their minds made up about you. They don’t care about your education, your income, your house, your car, etc.
All they see is your Blackness.
So please spare the rest of us with the respectability politics!
Marcus Aurelius was right. You will lose friends you will lose lovers you will lose comfort but if in losing them you find yourself you have gained more than kings.
Do not take so seriously people’s promises or their ardor in wanting to help you.
If they come through, so much the better, but be prepared for the more frequent change of heart.
Rely upon yourself to get things done and you will not be disappointed.