How I Stopped Trying to Be Industry Leader 2.0 and Built a biz Model for My Actual Brain

When you start a business, you look for models to follow.

You find the successful people. The ones with the thriving courses, the sold-out programs, the massive audiences. And you think: I'll do what they did.

For me, that meant studying the big names in digital marketing and online business. The ones who seemed to have it all figured out. The ones whose businesses looked effortless, polished, profitable.

I wanted what they had. So I tried to replicate their formula.

Webinars. High-level coaching. Courses. Downloadables. Pinterest strategies. Email sequences. Polished personal brand. The whole playbook.

Spoiler: it didn't work.

Not because the model was bad, necessarily. But because it wasn't my model.

The Model I Was Trying to Copy

The formula looked like this:

Build an audience. Create a freebie. Nurture with email sequences. Sell a course or high-ticket program. Scale through webinars and automated funnels. Rinse, repeat.

It's the blueprint you see everywhere. The big names in the industry all seemed to follow some version of it. And it worked for them, so why wouldn't it work for me?

I spent months (okay, years) trying to figure out how to make it fit. I bought the courses. I followed the templates. I tried to build the same kind of business the industry leaders had.

And I kept hitting walls.

Why It Didn't Work

Reason 1: I Couldn't Figure Out My "Thing"

The big names had clear lanes. Marketing. Sales. Virtual assistance. Specific, well-defined niches.

I tried the VA thing for a while. It seemed like an obvious path. There were successful people doing it, there was a clear playbook, there was demand.

But it wasn't my lane.

I kept trying to force myself into boxes that didn't fit. I kept looking for the "thing" that would make sense, that would click, that would feel like what those industry leaders had.

And I kept coming up empty.

Reason 2: The Comparison Trap

Here's what I didn't understand at the time: those big names got in on the ground floor.

Digital marketing 10-15 years ago. Modern virtual assistance when it was still new. They were early adopters in their spaces. They built their audiences and their businesses when there was less noise, less competition, less saturation.

I was comparing my year 1 to their year 10. Their year 15.

That's not a fair comparison. But it felt like failure.

I kept thinking: Why isn't this working for me the way it worked for them?

The answer: because I wasn't building in the same landscape they built in. And I wasn't starting with the same advantages.

Reason 3: The Personal Brand Reality

Let's be honest about something that doesn't get said enough: conventional attractiveness is basically a prerequisite for the kind of polished personal brand marketing that many of these big names use.

I don't fit that standard.

And trying to build a business model that relies heavily on a specific kind of personal brand visibility (one that I don't naturally have access to) wasn't going to work for me.

This isn't bitterness. It's just reality. The way personal brand marketing works rewards certain presentations. And I wasn't interested in trying to force myself into that mold.

Reason 4: My Brain Doesn't Work That Way

The webinars stressed me out. The pressure to "convert" felt manipulative. The email nurture sequences felt like I was performing instead of serving.

The whole funnel model: build an audience, warm them up, pitch, close… it made my skin crawl.

Not because it's inherently bad. But because it didn't align with how I actually want to work.

I'm not good at performing. I'm not good at polished. I'm good at real conversations with real people about real problems they're actually facing.

And the model I was trying to copy didn't leave room for that.

What My Actual Model Looks Like

So I stopped trying to replicate someone else's business. And I started building mine.

Here's what that actually looks like:

Core Principle 1: Sustainability Over Scale

I'm not trying to build a million-dollar business.

I'm not trying to scale to six figures in my first year, or hit seven figures ever, or whatever the industry leaders say I should be aiming for.

I'm building a business that lets me live the life I actually want. That means turning down opportunities that would burn me out. It means saying no to growth that isn't sustainable. It means prioritizing rest over hustle.

This doesn't make me less ambitious. It makes me realistic about what I can sustain.

Core Principle 2: Meeting Real People's Real Needs

I don't start with "what can I sell?"

I start with "what do people actually need?"

My offers evolved from client conversations. From noticing patterns in what people were struggling with. From building solutions to real problems I was seeing over and over again.

I didn't create offers because some formula said I should have a mid-tier product or a high-ticket program. I created offers because people needed them.

That's a completely different starting point than "what does my funnel need?"

Core Principle 3: Networking Like My Life Depends on It

I don't have a huge audience.

I don't have tens of thousands of Instagram followers or a massive email list or a viral presence.

What I have is relationships.

I know people. People know me. We refer to each other. We collaborate. We support each other's work.

That's more valuable than a big email list. That's more sustainable than trying to "build an audience" through content marketing alone.

I get clients through relationships, not funnels. And that works for my brain and my business in ways that paid ads and lead magnets never did.

The Shift in Thinking

The real shift wasn't just about changing tactics. It was about changing the questions I was asking.

I stopped asking: "What would [big name] do?"

I started asking: "What works for my brain? My life? My clients?"

Your business model should fit you, not fight you.

There's no "right" way to build a business. There's only what works—for you, for your capacity, for your nervous system, for your life.

And what works for someone else might not work for you. That doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It means you need a different model.

Permission to Do It Differently

You don't have to follow the playbook.

You don't have to build what everyone says you should build.

You can network instead of funnel. You can serve instead of scale. You can build for sustainability instead of growth at all costs.

You can skip the webinars if they stress you out. You can skip the courses if you don't want to create them. You can skip the whole polished personal brand thing if it doesn't feel authentic.

Your business doesn't have to look like anyone else's.

And your year 1 doesn't have to look like anyone else's year 10.

The industry leaders you're comparing yourself to? They had different timing, different advantages, different contexts. You're not starting where they started. And that's okay.

You get to build something different.

What I'm Not Saying

I'm not saying the big-name model is wrong.

It works beautifully for a lot of people. It's a legitimate, effective way to build a business.

I'm just saying it wasn't right for me.

And if it's not right for you either, if you've been trying to force yourself into a model that doesn't fit your brain, your life, your values, that's okay.

You're allowed to build something else.

You're allowed to look at the "successful" model and say: That's not for me.

And then figure out what is.