The Business of YOU
Invest in your best asset, yourself
Ramit Sethi put out a poll to his readers to investigate the number of his followers who wished to start a business. His content is catered to business-minded individuals, but the results were still quite stark. 90% of people who participated in the poll wanted to start a business. Of that 90% of people, 55% of people didn’t know where to start.
As the world becomes more digitized, the allure of starting a business grows stronger as it is easier to grow your business more than ever before. I have often been fascinated by the idea of starting my own business one day but I would certainly fall victim to the 55% of people who don’t know where to start.
If I were to realistically start a business today, what would I do? The million-dollar question. Where does an exploitable void exist? I am a young, fit man who enjoys the pain, sweat, and torture the gym provides. Personal training could be a choice. I enjoy trading, selling really, options; I could start a business or course within that sphere.
At this point, neither of those would really get me out of bed in the morning. Success has many formalities and the formalities at hand for starting those endeavors are not something that really intrigues me at this age.
You are the Business
Everyone wants to start a business but in the creator economy, you are a business and many fail to realize that. We live in a creator economy. An economy that has been further exacerbated by the digital world in which we reside. Everything can now be broadcast for the world to see. We, ourselves, have become a brand. Anything we publish now sits in a drive or cloud for infinity and provides something that can always be working for us or provides a glimpse of who we are and what we do.
We have long seen this play out in professional sports. Lebron, Jordan, and Kobe all are individuals who one, go by only one name as they are their own brand, and two, have largely built a business empire off who they are. Jordans are based on Michael Jordan. The Mamba mentality comes from Kobe. The King is Lebron. The Marketability is those people. When they go to sleep, the brand of Kobe doesn’t stop. It continues to work no matter where he is or what he may be doing. Until recent years, the average individual was not afforded the same luxury. It was a luxury largely reserved for professional athletes or celebrities.
College Sports and NIL
The sports branding landscape once reserved for professional athletes trickled down into the sphere of college sports with NIL. NIL, or Name, Image, and Likeness, now allows college athletes to profit off of their likeness, or personal brand. Afforded now are opportunities not once seen. NIL unlocked a whole new vault, or level, to the business side of college sports. Now, all athletes have become their own brand and have produced some wild valuations on what a college athlete might be worth, $8M valuations.
Perhaps, the most marketable athlete in college sports, and probably the highest paid, is Livvy Dunne, an LSU gymnast. She has 7.4M followers on Tiktok, 4M followers on Instagram, and can be found on your TV in Vuori commercials. Not exactly, the football player for Alabama or basketball player from Kentucky that some may expect to occupy the top spot.
Livvy is not even considered the best gymnast in the nation nor is she on the best team. That title is reserved for Suni Lee, who definitely does well for NIL in her own right. She is an outstanding athlete but what makes Livvy so successful is herself. Livvy has become her own brand and the business is her. She strikes deals because of her name and image. Once considered unimaginable but now at the forefront thanks to not only NIL but the evolution of the world as we each become our own business.
Livvy is not alone. Athletes in lesser-known sports or on lesser-known teams have stolen the spotlight and landed themselves a healthy NIL deal. It may have been catalyzed by what their team had done but ultimately, the reason for the deal was those individuals.
On March 23, 2022, Doug Edert, and his mustache, of Saint Peter’s University scored a NIL deal with Buffalo Wild Wings shortly after dropping 20 on Kentucky and helping the 15-seed Saint Peter’s to the Sweet 16.
The Cavinder Twins of the University of Miami women’s basketball team have 4.5M followers on TikTok and helped the University of Miami to their first-ever Sweet 16. They are signed to WWE.
Fairleigh Dickinson, a 16-seed, upset Purdue, a one-seed, and Brayden Reynolds, a walk-on, was given a $25K NIL deal by Degree Deodorant after playing 12 minutes in the win. An insane win made even cooler by Purdue losing to a 16-seed who plays walk-ons. Eat it, Purdue.
Hercy Miller, son of Master P, got a $2 million NIL deal to play for Tennessee State
The athletes are their own brands. We are now gifted the ability to see so many areas or sports, that we would have once never set eyes on before. Humans have become their own business but lying in the top 1% in athletic abilities is not a prerequisite for the business of you to experience success.
A Man and a Beer
Take Mark Radetic. A simple man from Missouri who loved golf. He loved golf so much that he didn’t feel the need to record every waking second of a golf tournament he was at. Imagine that. Something that is rather funny to me because who really goes back and watches a five minute clip they recorded at a firework show or golf tournament. In the moment, Mark was in complete bliss and completely unbothered.
The photograph of Mark Radetic will now live for eternity. A sign of the times, for better or for worse. His picture was taken and in an instant, his life was changed. Everyone quickly fell in love with him but not due to his accolades, his job title, or his net worth, they fell in love with who he was.
Mark is now a brand ambassador for Michelob Ultra. A man just in the moment, enjoying golf and an overpriced beer at a golf tournament, the pinnacle of a man’s existence. Imagine if you told Mark that he would change his life just by enjoying the moment and drinking a beer. A simple story but one that almost seems goofy at the surface level for the reason behind his fame.
He is now deemed the “Michelob Ultra Guy”, received copious amounts of beer, tickets to PGA tour events, and if that isn’t enough, his own merch line.
The Not So Normal Path
Avenues once never thought to be a way to expand the business of you, a man enjoying golf while holding an unintentionally perfectly placed beer for marketing purposes, are now everywhere. Building the business of you has never been more accessible.
Jack Raines posts satirical posts on LinkedIn including landing a Goldman internship off winning a beer mile, stealing a JPEG and making 250K, and leaving negative tips at restaurants to save money. These posts perverse the LinkedIn servers while he sleeps and drives viewership to his blogs, Calendly, and Twitter. The posts aren’t the business, Jack is. It is all part of the business of Jack and ultimately, drives viewership to his blog, one of the best in my opinion. Who would have thought trolling all of LinkedIn is such a genius marketing strategy?
Often, we struggle to create business ideas but businesses these days do not have to be the cliché of a restaurant, marketing firm, or wealth management group. Instead, it can be investing in the business of you and working to have things always working for you and building up your personal brand. At the most basic level, this can be stock investments or real estate all the way up to satirical LinkedIn posts. Personally, I recommend exploring selling options, Tastytrade can get you started.
Parting Words
Not to be remiss but the challenge of building the business of you can be a dangerous game. With everything, balance is essential. Just like you shouldn’t eat only fruits and vegetables, your life should not become a prisoner to the creation of these assets. Just like we need protein and carbohydrates as essential nutrients to our body as much as we need fruits and vegetables, it is important to strike the balance in creation.
Lean too far one way and you are caught in a vortex of being dependent on monetizing every part of your life. Lean too far the other way and proper nourishment of monetizing your assets, thoughts, videos, writings, etc. isn’t reached. We don’t want to be Casey Neistat who vlogged his life for 800 days straight and ultimately, ended up feeling like a character in his own life. You live in the eye of the public and can never escape becoming a prisoner to the lifestyle. Balance is important.
As the world continues to innovate, the business landscape moves right along with it. Now, more than ever, we can invest in the business of ourselves. Our net worth is a continual expansion of things beyond our salary, house, and car. It is now a derivative of the business of you. All the blog posts we make, all the options we trade, all the tweets we hit send on, and the list goes on. The world is changing. People have alwyas strived to have people work for them but sometimes, the next best thing is having assets work for you and investing in the business of you.
Thanks for reading.
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