There's a guy I used to learn from.

Smart. Built a legit LinkedIn business. Made Millions.

He taught me a lot about sales.

And I've watched his content for nearly 3 years and recently checked back in to find that... something shifted.

He got very online. Very personal. Started sharing that he got married young (he was a Mormon), feels like he missed his 20s, the dating, the freedom, the experiences he never had.

He's going through it publicly. Posting. Responding to critics. Actually agreeing with commenters who say he messed up and calling him names. Not deleting a single negative comment.

And I sat there watching, thinking: he has no idea what he's doing to himself right now.

Now before I get into the psychology of it, let's talk about why branding matters in the first place.

Your brand is the answer to one question people are quietly asking every time they encounter you: "Can I trust this person to deliver?"

That trust is built slowly, through consistent positioning, proof of results, and the story you tell about who you are and what you stand for. It is the single most valuable asset you will ever build in business, because it compounds. A strong brand makes your offers easier to sell, your content easier to spread, and your mistakes easier to survive.

But it also works in reverse.

A weak or inconsistent brand makes everything harder. Every new follower is skeptical. Every offer gets more resistance. And every public stumble lands twice as hard because there's no reservoir of goodwill to absorb it.

Psychologists call it the "Pratfall Effect." The idea that admitting flaws can sometimes make likable people more likable. It humanizes them.

But the research shows it only works when your competence is already firmly established in the audience's mind FIRST.

If people already see you as the expert, the winner, the authority, a small flaw makes you relatable.

If they don't? A flaw becomes your identity. A hole you can never crawl out of. A curse.

And there's a second psychological force at work here: the Halo Effect in reverse. We unconsciously assume that visible failure in one area signals hidden failure in others. A messy personal life? People start quietly wondering about the business. The methods. The results.

This is why his public spiral is so dangerous. And why he's only surviving it for one reason:

The lifestyle and social proof.

We're talking a sports car fleet worth north of $1M and an IG lifestyle to match. The kind of thing that activates what behavioral economists call "status anchoring." When someone has already planted a massive status flag in your mind, you unconsciously forgive a lot. His wealth became a buffer between his chaos and his credibility.

Most people don't have that buffer, especially new copywriters.

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So why wouldn't a multimillionaire know this?

Because wealth has many roads. And most of them don't run through a library.

Economists have a word for it: obliquity. The idea that success is rarely the result of pursuing success directly. People stumble into wealth through sheer labor, through a skill that got hot at the right time, through a niche they accidentally owned before anyone else showed up. Hard work and good timing have made more millionaires than strategy ever has.

Sort of like how Penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming who noticed mold killing bacteria in a petri dish or with the microwave oven, noticed by Percy Spencer’s whose candy bar melted near radar equipment.

This guy is a product of that. He never went to college or worked for corporate to pick deep business sense along the way. He outworked people. He found a model through a mentor, put all his savings into it, had a little luck and scaled it. It’s legitimate. But it also means there are entire floors of the business building he has never visited.

Marketer and author Al Ries spent decades documenting exactly what those floors contain. His book Positioning, co-written with Jack Trout(another marketer), laid out the idea that your brand does not exist in your business. It exists in the mind of your audience. You do not control your brand. You only influence the perception people build of you, and that perception is fragile, slow to build, and fast to collapse.

His follow-up, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, goes further. Law one: the law of expansion. Dilute your focus and you dilute your brand. Law two: the law of contraction. A brand becomes stronger when you narrow what it stands for. When you start broadcasting personal chaos, you are expanding in the worst possible direction.

This is rarely taught on the road to a million dollars through hustle(highly suggest you pick these books up btw). It's taught to the more sophisticated, preppy middle class types.
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And as a result, he never asked that question. He never had to. Until now.

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So what's the takeaway for you?

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• Guard your brand's first impression ruthlessly. Cognitive psychology shows we form lasting judgments fast and we weigh negative information far more heavily than positive (negativity bias). You don't get a second first impression.

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• Vulnerability is a tool, not a therapy session. Strategic vulnerability ("here's a mistake I made and what I learned") builds trust. Uncontrolled vulnerability ("I'm having a crisis and I don't know who I am") triggers doubt.

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• Your weaknesses become content when they're in the past tense. "I went broke and rebuilt" is powerful. "I'm going through a divorce right now" is a liability, especially if you're newer and haven't earned the trust yet.

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• Status buys forgiveness, but it doesn't buy it for everyone. He can salvage this. Most people in their first 3 years of business cannot afford this kind of public noise.

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• This is exactly why I don't name drop people on this list. Everyone is human. Everyone goes through things. But when your name becomes attached to someone else's public unraveling, you inherit the association, deserved or not.

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Look, divorce happens. Midlife realizations/crises happen. I'm not judging the man's life. I still take business advice from him because anyone with a high IQ can separate the business life and the personal life.

But your brand is not your diary and the average Joe doesn't have enough IQ points or time given a first impression of you or your brand to separate your life from your business.

They’ll assume you’re an idiot who’s crashing out and isn’t worth listening to.

The market doesn't owe you empathy. It doesn't owe anyone empathy.

Your audience will follow you through a storm if you've already proven you know how to navigate. But they won't board a ship mid-storm with a captain who's questioning whether he should even be sailing.

In the meantime, as you start out, protect your positioning. Control your narrative. And keep your worst moments out of the public eye.

Bad publicity is only good publicity when you're a somebody.

More soon,

Fathi

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