Signal this week from Kenzie Collins - audience psychology, brand strategist.

He got off stage. Everyone thought it went great.

He came into the week restless. And on our next call, it all came out.

He'd spent the weekend at an industry conference. Big room. Senior people. A world completely removed from the one he engages with online.

He was there representing one of his companies. Speaking with authority, in his lane, to exactly the right room… for that version of him. A lot like Sam here.

Somewhere in the middle of it, the thought arrived.

What if someone opens Instagram and looks me up?

He hadn’t done anything wrong. But admittedly, the version of himself living on social media would have looked strange to the people in that room.

Another company, category… audience entirely.

A bit like meeting someone at a black-tie dinner, then stumbling across their festival photos the next morning. Both real. Both “them.”

Still jarring when the two worlds collide without any warning.

He came to the call wanting to pivot. To fix it. To choose.

I had to tell him - that's not the answer.

This is someone already on the stages. Already in the rooms.

But the same rules apply whether you've arrived or you’re still trying to get there. The fear - what if they find my page - doesn't care how established you are.

It shows up the moment you have more than one audience and haven't figured out how to be the same person to all of them.

It’s okay. Hannah Montana didn't have it all sorted either.

Two lives. Two audiences. One uncomfortable secret. The whole premise worked, until, of course… it didn't. Until the effort required to keep the worlds separate was more damaging than just being known for both.

Most of us aren't Miley Cyrus. But we’re quietly running the same playbook. A personal brand for one audience. A professional brand for another. A LinkedIn that doesn't match the TikTok. A stage version that doesn't match the Insta.

And the anxiety of someone connecting the dots.

So, most founders make one of two moves.

Some become the company mouthpiece. So synonymous with one business and its messaging that their actual self disappears. It’s not always intentional, but it’s always felt by the audience. A version of you they once connected with - suddenly nowhere to be seen.

A parent who becomes their first kid - they might still be invited to the function. But everyone will still feel it if they’ve forgotten how to show up in another space.

Others decide the answer is to walk away. Let business brands stand on their own. As if your name, face, credibility, and even your content archives will stop doing the work the moment you leave the room.

You don't give a brand independence by announcing it one day and walking out. Much like giving a child independence, you hand things over gradually.

You give them a platform. Your network, the lessons you've learned, the relationships you've built. And then you step back slowly as they learn to stand without you.

You don’t ever “pull away” your equity. Businesses learn how to carry it themselves.

Emma Chamberlain and Chamberlain Coffee is the version of this done well.

Emma exists alongside the business brand - as the messy, effortlessly creative, deeply authentic human who makes it possible. The coffee is the elevated, curated, beautiful-morning-ritual version of her. Emma is everything else. If she had to be Chamberlain Coffee full time, we'd lose the thing that makes the brand believable.

Gary Vee has VaynerMedia, VaynerX, a sports agency, a media company, investments across a dozen different categories. You always know it's Gary. The signs are unmistakable…

Relentless optimism. Core values that read something like: unapologetic, chasing imperfection, always putting in the reps. It’s all there. The worldview is the throughline. Every company he touches ends up expressing it in its own way.

Kylie Jenner and Kylie Cosmetics, on the other hand, pave the cautionary tale. There was a period where the brand consumed so much of her identity that she disappeared inside it.

She's found herself again since. But it's a reminder of how quickly that trapdoor closes.

Your personal brand has to be bigger than any single company. Not louder. Not more visible. Big (picture) enough that every company you create (present and future) sits comfortably underneath. Never at risk of consuming the human at the top.

So what do you do when your worlds feel like they're at odds?

Find your throughline.

Not the same content for every audience. But the same core. The same values. The same way of moving through the world that makes you recognisable whether you're on stage at an industry conference or making a reel on a Tuesday morning.

The invisible enemy here isn't the wrong audience finding your page. It's the belief that you have to be a different person for different audiences in the first place.

That's the Old Game.

The New Game is building a personal brand that's actually yours - one that holds across every room, every audience, every hat you happen to be wearing that day.

You're not Hannah Montana (*cries*). You don't need a secret identity.

You just need to be strategic about how you show up - as one person - across multiple worlds.

To attempt to be a specialist of 5 different categories, and not a master of your throughline, would be mistake #11 if Sam and I were still counting.

Go listen to the others - Top 10 Social Media Mistakes Killing Your Content.

YouTube | Spotify | Apple

One more thing before I go - I started a new series this week.

Journal entries. Things I wrote during a chapter of life that I simply couldn't share at the time - a little too raw, too close, too much still unfolding.

Years on, I can. It’s reminded me: what’s old news for me is present-day for so many others. I'm speaking to a universal juncture… when to leave a partner, close a chapter, move on.

Candidly, not everything in that series is actually written in the journal. Some of it I wrote on a laptop on a flight. But reaching for the journal, skipping to a page, reading something out - that creates a different kind of intimacy. Like two best friends sitting down together.

Beats opening a laptop any day.

The point isn't “get a prop” - though if you're running a signature series, a visual cue is a great idea. The larger point is the vault.

We all have one. Years of experience, of lessons learned, versions of ourselves we've moved on from. Most of us assume that this past version has nothing left to give.

False. You just have to be willing to open the page.

What's sitting in your vault that your audience hasn't heard yet?

Something that makes sense of who you are today? Even if it’s not reflective of your current experience?

Instead of waiting till your audience finds the page, why not just show them?

Head of Communications, 1DS Collective

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