We spend our entire lives showing up for others. As employees. As parents. As partners. As children, we honor our parents’ dreams. Every single area of our lives requires us to achieve something, accomplish something, or show up for someone.
But what happens when you just show up for yourself?
What does that truly look like when there’s no expectation, no outcome to deliver, no one to please?
This is the part of building your personal brand that no one talks about: the identity you create when you’re not performing for anyone else.
The Immigrant Experience: Prescribed Identities
Growing up as an immigrant, I was raised in a household with traditional roles. My parents were exactly that—parents. They were spouses, partners to each other. They built us on a foundation of community, of showing up for family and neighbors.
But here’s what I noticed: they didn’t encourage us to have our own extracurricular activities. Maybe they themselves never had them. Their entire identity was wrapped up in providing, in building, in being responsible.
As an adult now, watching life play out, I realize how different it could be. How important it is to have something outside of your job, outside of parenting, outside of being responsible for a multitude of things.
But then the real question emerges: How are you finding your joy? How are you maximizing your life when everything requires you to be present for someone else, when everything demands an outcome?
What Joy Actually Looks Like
Joy, to me now, looks like finding moments of stillness. Finding who I am in activities that bring me happiness without needing to justify them to anyone.
I joke about this from a therapy standpoint, but the truth is: sometimes you don’t need anyone. Sometimes you don’t need other people. Sometimes you just need yourself.
And you need to find ways to pour into yourself, to cultivate yourself, to discover what brings you joy beyond productivity.
I encourage everyone to do activities and explore things that bring joy—not because they’ll make you money, but because they’ll make you you.
The Trap of Monetization
We are so consumed with trying to make sure everything we do can be monetized. A friend once told me something that shifted my entire perspective: “You don’t have to monetize everything you enjoy doing.”
Society has conditioned us to believe our only value is when we add value to something or someone else. There always has to be an outcome. You always have to deliver something.
But what about joy for joy’s sake? What about activities that feed your soul without feeding your bank account?
Who Did You Want to Be Before They Told You?
I remember being in school, and everyone asking: “What do you want to be when you’re older?”
I’d immediately say “lawyer” because that’s what my dad told me. That’s what his family expected. That’s the script that was handed to me.
But in school, they made us try different things. Cooking classes. Textiles. Tech. Sports. It was important to try these activities because that’s the only way you discover what actually brings you joy.
Looking back, I knew what brought me joy even then. But in the back of my head, I still thought I was going to be a lawyer, that was, until I walked into my training contract during my internship.
I realized it just wasn’t for me. It didn’t spark joy. It didn’t feel like my identity. It felt like something someone else prescribed for me, and I was just going through the motions.
So I pivoted. I worked my way through corporate in a completely different direction.
But here’s what I want you to understand: You should not subscribe to just that one thing. Find activities that bring you joy.
My Love For Tennis and Being Present
For me, one of those activities is playing tennis.
Tennis requires you to be fully present. I believe the statistics say tennis is one of the most challenging sports mentally because you can’t be distracted by everyday life. You have to be present in the moment, focused on the ball, the court, your opponent.
Tennis doesn’t require any specific outcome beyond the game itself. It helps you build community while keeping your body and mind sharp. Two for the price of one.
But more importantly, it’s mine. It’s not tied to my job. It’s not tied to anyone’s expectations. It’s just something I do because I love it.
Who Are You in the Silence?
This season, we’ve seen so many people laid off. So many people having to collapse their companies, shut down their businesses, and pivot unexpectedly.
And it’s easy to spiral into depression and anxiety when you’ve tied your self-worth and identity to a job title.
But you are way more than that. You are bigger than that.
Maybe you just haven’t found the time to create habits and explore activities that you didn’t have to monetize. Maybe you haven’t given yourself permission to do things purely for joy.
That’s what I’m encouraging you to do now.
The Empty Nest and the Empty Desk
I’ve watched this pattern play out so many times it breaks my heart.
Parents who pour everything into raising their children, every waking moment dedicated to school runs, recitals, homework, college applications. Their entire identity becomes “mom” or “dad.” Then one day, the kids grow up and leave. And these parents are left standing in the silence, asking: “Who am I now?”
I’ve seen the same thing happen with retirement. People who’ve worked 30, 40 years, whose entire sense of self was tied to their career, their title, their daily routine. Then retirement comes—the thing they supposedly worked toward their whole lives, and they’re lost. Depressed. Directionless.
Because they never built an identity outside of what they did for others.
They never asked themselves: Who am I when no one needs me to show up? What brings me joy when there’s no report card, no performance review, no one to take care of?
This is why building your brand and identity outside of your roles is not selfish. It’s survival.
Breaking the Cycle
I joke and laugh about this, but I probably would have encouraged my daughter to be a lawyer (it’s a Nigerian birthright, after all).
But I’m choosing differently. I will encourage her to try all the activities. To explore what brings her joy. To build an identity that’s multifaceted and entirely her own.
So that when life inevitably shifts, when the company she built has to close, when her children grow up and move out, when she’s in a season of rediscovery, she knows how to be still in the silence.
She’ll know that her worth isn’t tied to what she produces or who she shows up for. She’ll know who she is when no one needs anything from her.
The Brand You Build in Stillness
This is the part of your personal brand that matters most: the version of you that exists when the performance stops.
Not the employee. Not the parent. Not the child making your parents proud. Not the entrepreneur grinding 24/7.
Just you. In the stillness. Doing something you love because it makes you feel alive.
That’s the brand identity that will carry you through every season. That’s the foundation that can’t be shaken by layoffs, by companies folding, by plans changing.
Because you’ve built something that belongs entirely to you.
The Brand You Build Needs You to Be Whole
I’ll be talking about what loving yourself truly looks like in another piece, because that deserves its own deep dive. But for now, I want to encourage you to explore YOU.
The brand you build needs you to be whole. To find joy. To find stillness.
Not the version of you that performs. Not the version that produces. Not the version that shows up for everyone else.
The real you. The one who exists in the quiet moments. The one who lights up when doing something purely for the love of it.
We need to normalize this.
We need to normalize having hobbies that don’t make money. Having interests that serve no professional purpose. Taking time to do things that bring us joy without justifying the ROI.
We need to normalize being whole people, not just employees, not just parents, not just caretakers, not just entrepreneurs.
Your Assignment
Find one thing—just one—that brings you joy without requiring an outcome.
Something you don’t have to monetize. Something you don’t have to be good at. Something you do purely because it makes you feel like yourself.
Tennis. Painting. Writing poetry. Baking. Gardening. Playing an instrument. Dancing in your living room.
Whatever it is, protect it. Nurture it. Let it be the part of your brand that’s just for you.
Because when everything else falls away, you’ll still have that. And you’ll still have yourself.