Stop Boxing Your Personal Brand Into Your Niche. Start Building Your World.

A niche tells people what box to put you in. A world gives them somewhere to enter. The problem isn't having a niche. The problem is mistaking your niche for your entire identity.

For years, one of the most repeated pieces of personal branding advice has been: find your niche. I found myself falling into the allure of this trap too. 

The logic is understandable. If you want to build a reputation, you need to be known for something. Choose your area of expertise; identify your audience; create content around that subject; build your career around that niche idea and, over time, become associated with it.

Niche creates clarity by giving your expertise a recognisable home. It can be incredibly useful for positioning. But your positioning doesn't have to define the boundaries of your identity. I think there’s a point at which “find your niche” stops creating clarity and starts creating confinement. Because you are not a niche. You are a multi-dimensional person with ever-evolving experiences, opinions and interests.

You have interests that don't neatly fit together, hobbies that have nothing to do with your job, books you're reading, places you love, people who influence you, rituals you repeat and subjects you can happily spend hours researching for no particular reason. You are likely a bundle of captivating contradictions. Some of those things may eventually become part of your professional identity. Others may simply remain things you enjoy.

And that’s exactly why I think it’s time to evolve the idea of finding your niche into something more expansive:

Build your world.

Think like a storyteller.

1. Worldbuilding & Personal Branding

Worldbuilding is the process of creating the world in which a story exists. It can involve its geography, history, culture, characters, customs, objects, rules and atmosphere.

It is particularly associated with fantasy and science fiction. Think of Tolkien's Middle-earth; it isn't simply a backdrop for The Lord of the Rings. It has languages, histories, cultures, landscapes and traditions that make the world feel as though it exists beyond the particular story we happen to be following.

Tolkien describes the writer as a kind of “sub-creator” saying:

“He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter.”

I think that idea is highly relevant for personal branding. I'm not suggesting you fictionalise your life. I'm suggesting you stop thinking about your personal brand as one single topic and nothing else. As I shared in my earlier blog, The Rise of the Anti-Expert: How Personal Brands are Winning Over Credentials, we're increasingly interested in the person behind the personal brand and expertise — not simply the credentials attached to it.

I often talk about the idea of owning a piece of “real estate” in an audience's mind. This was something that really resonated with me when I read the marketing classic The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Law 3, The Law of the Mind, says: 

“It’s better to be first in the mind than it is to be first in the marketplace.”

I still firmly believe in the importance of owning a piece of mental real estate. But perhaps we should think less about only occupying a piece of land and also about the world that surrounds it. Build around an idea. Your expertise might be a repeating common thread in your story. But everything around it gives the story texture and layers. 

Your niche tells people what you do. Your world helps them understand who you are, why you do what you do, and how you do what you do. It gives them context.

Imagine two people who are both leadership consultants.

One talks almost exclusively about leadership. Their content is useful, and their positioning is crystal clear. Every piece of content reinforces the same category.

The other talks about leadership too. But we also learn that she voraciously reads biographies of remarkable leaders. She is fascinated by history, architecture and philosophy, and hosts elaborate Sunday lunches where she impresses her guests with her mixology skills. She shows she understands culture. She understands the context of the wider world leaders live in.

Neither person is necessarily better at leadership. But the second person has given us more to connect with. She becomes a more interesting character to connect with. We don't just know what she does. We have started to understand her world.

Context matters because personal brands aren't built entirely through information. They're also built through association, perspective and taste, as I explored in my earlier blog, Cultural Capital: The Hidden Advantage Shaping Modern Success. We want to understand not only what someone knows, but what influences the way they think. So stop thinking just about being an influencer in your industry and think more about what influences you. Remember, even main character energy still needs a world around it.

Steve Jobs said: 

“A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So, they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”

2. Your content is the exposition

This is where another storytelling concept becomes useful: exposition.

Exposition is the information a storyteller gives an audience so they can understand the world, characters and circumstances of a story. It establishes context, but good exposition doesn't necessarily arrive as a long explanation.

We can learn about a fictional world through the:

• Places a character visits

• People they spend time with

• Objects they keep around them

• Language and references they use

• Rituals they follow

• Details they notice

Your content can work in the same way. You don't need to simply tell people who you are; you can show them and give them evidence from which they construct an understanding of you.

A simple photo of a book you're reading can tell us something about how you think. An image of your workspace can reveal something about your process. A story about something you learned on a walk can introduce an unexpected interest. The people you collaborate with can reveal something about your professional ecosystem.

You don't have to announce, “Here are all the things that make me who I am” in an essay. You can let people discover your world through the nuanced details.

So, what belongs in your world?

Start by looking beyond your job description and consider:

• Interests: What are you genuinely curious about? What subjects do you keep returning to?

• Hobbies: What do you do simply because you enjoy it? Not everything needs to become a content pillar.

• Supporting characters: Who influences you, challenges you, teaches you, or collaborates with you?

• Places: Where do you work, think, read, walk, create or reset?

• Objects: What books, notebooks, clothes, tools or everyday objects surround you?

• Rituals: What do you repeatedly do that has become part of your way of living or working?

• References: What books, films, music, art, design, fashion, food, architecture or ideas have shaped your taste?

• Behind the scenes: What does your process actually look like before the polished result appears?

None of this means you need to post about everything. Worldbuilding isn't about turning your entire life into content - unless you want to, of course! It’s about recognising that the things surrounding your expertise can provide context for the person behind it.

Let’s look at one of my favourite go-to modern-day business examples, Rhode. Rhode sells skincare, but it has created something considerably larger than a catalogue of skincare products. Its imagery, colours, textures, objects, rituals, collaborations and references all contribute to a recognisable world.

Even the food imagery is interesting. A strawberry, dessert or beautifully arranged table isn't necessarily communicating a literal skincare message. Instead, it contributes to the sensory world around the brand: pleasure, freshness, appetite, texture, colour and everyday ritual. The food doesn't have to be the product to belong to the world.

That is an important distinction for personal brands, too.

Just because you share your lunch photo doesn’t mean you have to become a food creator. You don't have to become a travel creator because you’re photographed somewhere beautiful. You don't have to become a fashion influencer because you occasionally show what you're wearing.

The content doesn't necessarily have to become a new niche. It could be an experiment, a momentary interest or a recurring storyline - one of a few. Because it’s likely your interest will evolve as you do.

3. The End of History Illusion

In my blog, Be Your Future Self Now: Hi Me in 10 Years. The Decisions That Shape Your Future, I discussed research into the End of History Illusion. This found that people tend to recognise how much they've changed in the past while underestimating how much they are likely to change in the future. In the original study, more than 19,000 people reported substantial changes over the previous decade while expecting considerably less change in the decade ahead. 

Think about what that means for personal branding. You may be building your brand around the assumption that the person you are now is the person you will continue to be.

But what if you're not?

What if…

• The subject you're obsessed with today changes?

• You discover a completely new field?

• Your career evolves?

• A hobby becomes a business?

• Something you've been doing privately becomes the thing you're known for?

A narrow niche can make those changes feel like a distraction - a problem even. A world makes them feel like an expansion.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't have a point of view. As I shared in my earlier blog, Everyone is Yapping. But Do You Have a POV?, you absolutely should. A strong personal brand needs clarity, expertise and a distinctive perspective. But clarity doesn't require confinement. Give yourself room to grow. You can be known for something without being only something. Your niche can be the doorway into your wider world. 

Brand & Worldbuilding

So instead of asking yourself, “What's my niche?”, try asking:

“What world am I building?”

What would someone encounter if they followed you for a year? Would they understand what you know, what you care about, what influences you and how you see the world? And perhaps most importantly: What parts of yourself have you left outside the door because they don't seem to fit your niche?

You don't need to turn every interest into a content pillar. You don't need to manufacture an aspirational lifestyle or force unrelated hobbies into your professional positioning. You simply need to give people enough glimpses of the world around your work that they can begin to understand the person behind the positioning. 

Your personal brand isn't a box you have to stay inside. It's a world you get to keep building.