"Vestal Cocoon Diary": Breaking the Game at a Single Point

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Photo by John Gibbons (opens in a new tab) on Unsplash (opens in a new tab)

August 3, 2021

Today, an unknown netizen sent me a message from the Fan Page (opens in a new tab) of the Vista Writing Companion Program (opens in a new tab).

He asked me a question: “I currently need to write a blog, and I also want to run my own personal brand. I hope I can use my skills to take on cases, but I have no idea what content I can write. I have never written a blog before. Does the teacher have any courses that can help me?”

Wow, if you look carefully, this is not just one question, but several questions combined. However, these issues are not complicated to me. To be honest, different students have discussed them with me before. So, I think it can be of some help.

Regarding the creation of a personal brand, I have given a complete introduction in the online course “Personal Brand Management Practical | Let your profession be seen by more people! (opens in a new tab)” that I previously taught at YOTTA.

For friends who are interested in running a personal brand, I would recommend that you first take stock of yourself, find a suitable development direction, and clarify your professional skills, resources, and connections. Next, think about how to use these skills and resources to help solve the problems of certain ethnic groups, and then obtain reasonable compensation.

So, how do you organize the skills and resources you have? Kazuki Arai, an entrepreneurship expert from Japan, wrote in his book “Start a business while working!” ](https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/products/0010863002?utm_source=vista&utm_medium=ap-books&utm_content=recommend&utm_campaign=ap-202108 (opens in a new tab))” mentioned in the book that it is important to know yourself, and you can organize it through self-questions and answers:

• Is there anything that makes you feel “weird” when you are praised? Is there anything worthy of praise?
• Do you have strengths that are recognized by the company (specialization, good at something)?
• In your opinion, “In what way are you different from others?”
• What jobs do your parents, brothers, sisters, and relatives do?
• What kind of work do your besties and friends do?
• Where were you born, raised, and lived, and what are the characteristics of the people who live in those places?

From the answers to the above questions, you may be able to find resources or ideas that will help you start a business.

As for how to find a direction that suits your own development, I have the following suggestions:

• Refining tags and exploring features.
• Choose a direction and record growth. *Upgraded content and corrected paths.
• Continuously produce and contribute value.

As this friend told me, his specialty is setting up websites. I wanted to ask him next: “Do you mean using WordPress to build it? Are you particularly good at building any type of website? For example, e-commerce websites, content websites, or brand official websites?”

Thanks to the rapid advancement of information technology, various website building software and services are now springing up, and more and more people claim to be able to build websites! There are even many free or paid courses on the Internet that claim to teach you WordPress within a week⋯⋯

So, here comes the problem! How do we distance ourselves from our competitors? How to lock in the appropriate target audience and make market segmentation? These questions are worth pondering.

Teacher Li Shanyou once studied at Chaos University (April 2021 Brand Upgrade (opens in a new tab), renamed Chaos Academy (opens in a new tab)) In the lecture of the Innovation Academy, the concept of Single Point Break (opens in a new tab) was mentioned. He believes that both individuals and companies need to go through a breaking point. There is a characteristic here, that is, it requires a lot of risk and a high failure rate before reaching the breaking point; but once it passes the breaking point, it can have positive feedback, self-growth, and can continue to grow without much external force!

Having said that, if a company or a person has never experienced a breaking point (opens in a new tab), then it will only be low-level repetition throughout his life.

Therefore, for friends who want to operate personal brand (opens in a new tab), they must try to find a breaking point. To put it simply, it means doing what you love and are good at in a direction of explosive growth, and then linking the value network to achieve flywheel growth.

Taken apart, these three steps actually represent different meanings:

• To find a direction for explosive growth is to make friends with time.
• Doing something you love and are good at is to be friends with yourself.
• Linking the value network to achieve flywheel growth is to make friends with the Internet.

The late former Intel CEO Andy Grove once said: “Every strategic turning point that every enterprise encounters will be accompanied by some kind of ten-fold speed change.”

Therefore, whether you are an enterprise or an individual, you must find as soon as possible the single factor that is enough to cause a tenfold change, and continue to invest as many resources as possible to make it stronger until it breaks through the threshold (opens in a new tab) (also called critical value or threshold).

Regardless of whether you want to build a personal brand or start a business, as long as you are interested in self-improvement (opens in a new tab), I think you should think carefully about how to break through your own breaking points? If you have any questions or wish to discuss with me, please feel free to write in!

★ Welcome to sponsor a cup of coffee and cheer for Vista! You can also express your support by sponsoring multiple times, thank you.

★ Want to learn content marketing techniques? Welcome to register for the online course “Content Power: The Super Power of Building Brands (opens in a new tab)”.

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Further reading

• Profit Awakening of Knowledge Workers: From Cash Flow Thinking to Survival Rules in the Micro-Organization Era
• It’s not that you don’t work hard enough, it’s that the value proposition is not attractive enough
• How to start an online business by yourself: The ultimate guide to making money with the least effort and lowest cost