Repackaging vs. Reinvention:
an essay by alexis campbell
There's a reason you feel disconnected from your business, overwhelmed by the options for solving this, and low-key wanna burn it all down and start over again🫢. This piece explores 2 ways you can reconnect with your business by building your most sustainable brand ever.
This is because it’s the only process that not only makes room for the inevitable evolutions that you’ll experience in life and business, but it warmly welcomes them.
Many business owners either ignore life’s call to evolve or choose a different strategy, repackaging, which is a less holistic approach. In this piece, we’ll unpack both strategies, talk deeply about evolving, and introduce you to the possibility of building a legacy brand that will help you and your work be remembered for years to come.
Reinvention is the best strategy to leave an intentional legacy for yourself.
Table of Contents
To Live is To Evolve: Will You Rise to the Occasion?
Don't Burn It All Down...There's Gold In Those Hills
5 Signs Your Invitation Has Arrived
Repackage the Exterior to Stand Out In the Crowd
Reinvent The Whole to Produce Something New
How to Know If You Should Repackage or Reinvent? The One Word That Holds Your Answer
Let's Map Out Your Legacy-Focused Personal Brand
To Live Is to Evolve: Will You Rise
to the Occasion?
The only thing that is guaranteed in this life is change.
New experiences will continue to occur in life that give us the gifts of fresh takes, new outlooks, and changed perspectives. Change is good. No, change is GREAT because its ultimate goal is to simply help us become who we’re supposed to be.
But I’m not gonna sit up here and front like I’m 1 of those people who sees change coming down the road and joyfully runs out to meet it halfway.
Nah 👎🏽 .
I’m more of the type who sees it down the street and turns off all the lights, mutes Netflix, and tells everybody to “be still,” so it doesn’t know we’re home!
But if you’re a human (and let’s just assume that we all are, yes? 😐 lol) having a human experience, called life, change will not just be a once-in-a-lifetime event passing through your city. It will be a frequent visitor, with your address plugged into its memory bank…no GPS is required.
I’m passionate about helping women in business - whether that’s service providers, coaches, or consultants, embrace the idea that by allowing a more natural intersection between their personal and professional lives, they can experience change and not have to go back to the drawing board with their business every single time.
Our businesses are a PART of our lives - so try as we might, we can’t successfully separate them. There is no “my life” bucket over here, and “my business” bucket over there.
We CAN have boundaries between the 2, yes.
But when there’s a change in our personal lives - our business IS affected.
And likewise, when there’s a change in our business, our personal lives usually have to adjust, somehow.
This is how I like to think about work-life “balance” 👇🏽.
"The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be."
-OPRAH WINFREY
Change is uncomfortable. Even for the super-enlightened few.
When we allow the spillover to occur in a way that’s natural yet still strategic, we BENEFIT from the connectedness and feel MORE balance between life and work.
The blurred lines actually PROTECT us and create stronger paths towards our goals - particularly those of us who are underrepresented and don’t have the privilege of drawing hard lines in the first place.
Also, let’s not forget the fact that we are constantly changing - or evolving - as PEOPLE. 45-year-old you, who’s been a business coach/attorney/professor, etc. for 17 years now, may be nothing like 28-year-old you, who started your business full of ideas but lacking in direction.
The fact that we’re always evolving as people greatly influences how we’ll do business in the future.
Since we can’t avoid change, blurred lines are the most ideal option for our overall sanity🤦🏽♀️, and evolution as people is inevitable…so, what do we do?
How can we set ourselves up as brands, within a safe enough space that will allow for future evolutions, both personally AND professionally?
We LEAN INTO change, allow the lines to blur (with boundaries), and rise to the occasion when evolution knocks at our door.
We put a legacy brand in place, which is a form of personal branding, that serves as a smart container for all of our gifts, talents, and skills, while also giving us the space to create a work-life system that will have our backs when it’s time to evolve…again.
The Work Life System
I believe if we create a “work-life,” SYSTEM, we’ll not only achieve the ease we desire from balance but also be set up to pivot and evolve with no one blinking an eye of confusion or disbelief.
This is what I’ve done…and what you can do too. Now I know it sounds like I do, INDEED, “have the answers, Sway.”
But I can assure you, it wasn’t long ago that I very much DID NOT, lol.
It was through my confusion, mistakes, frustrations, and later obedience that I formed the kind of brand for myself that I’d been helping women create all along. Hindset isn’t just 20/20, it’s lowkey disrespectful.
If you stick with me during these first few minutes, I’ll quickly share my experiences with aggressively pivoting and burning down 2 “successful” businesses.
Then we’ll get into the good stuff: clues that your evolution is here and it’s time to make a move AND 2 strategies you can put into place to begin said evolution (PLUS which 1 recommend if you’re a woman of color in business wanting to leave an impactful legacy).
Don't Burn It All Down...There's Gold In Those Hills
When I moved from New York, back to my home state of Mississippi, I abandoned nearly all traces of my work as an agency-repped professional makeup artist.
I kept a few things. Like screenshots of my agency’s listing of me, a few recordings of my portfolio, and some fun behind-the-scenes photos, but that’s it.
I wish I could say this was the only time I “burned it all down,” but you’ll hear in a minute how it wasn’t, 😶🌫️ lol!
I knew that I was retiring from the beauty industry and would pivot into brand photography and graphic + website design - skills I’d been honing for years and even had some paying clients for.
In retrospect, knowing all that I know now - stuff about personal branding, niching down, and legacy - I would have never transitioned out of 1 previously successful career into another, so abruptly.
There are SO many ways I could have connected the dots better. I could have leveraged my big-time contacts and resources from the fashion and beauty industry to SUPPORT my pivot into branding.
It would have made sense to them, because I’ve been working in branding and marketing, right alongside them, for years - just with makeup as the medium.
See I wasn’t JUST a makeup artist. I stood out from my competitors because I was VERY much involved in the high-level strategy and planning that took place for campaigns and creative direction for different types of projects.
I even used to scout models on the street - then fully produce the photoshoots that would later get them signed by a few top agencies. I did this in New York, New Orleans, Miami, and Los Angeles, as a free-spirited 20-something year old, who had very little coins, but a whole lotta faith.
I was granted access to pull girls from IMG, Wilhelmina, and Ford, and worked on the launch campaign for JAG Models, "the first agency in New York that's dedicated solely to women of all sizes.”
Long story short, your girl is multi-faceted/multi-talented/and multi-passionate, to say the least.
I thank God for it all, but it’s taken me my whole life to see how these things aren’t at odds - but rather work together to make me, “me.”
So when I retired from beauty at the end of 2017, I stuffed ALL of that expertise and set of incredible lived experiences into a cute little box and labeled it, “my old life,” setting out to create something totally new.
By the spring of 2018, I launched Lex Creative Studios, a boutique branding agency, where I did all the things the business experts said I should do.
I positioned myself as a “lead designer,” and creative director, interviewing junior graphic and website designers to support me in carrying out creative projects and client work. It worked…until it didn’t.
I HATED managing creatives and felt like I had built a cage for myself instead of the vehicle of freedom I thought I was building.
After serving dozens of amazing women, creating my signature approach to building personal brands, (Oh, hello there intellectual property, lol!), and getting people to now know me for branding and design, I felt SO disconnected from what I’d built.
I didn’t want to be an “agency,” and I knew I had to go back to my roots of being a personal brand.
By 2022, I, once again, “burnt it all down,” deserted my Instagram page, my primary platform at the time, and sought God for guidance.
I wouldn’t describe myself as religious, but I DO have a remarkable relationship with God. I believe that Jesus saved my life and this belief guides everything about me, my work, and my life. So when I felt utterly confused about where to go next, I knew I needed to go inward and ground myself in Him for the answers.
In the summer of 2022, while on an unintentional sabbatical from my business, to figure it all out, I received the wisdom that I’d been waiting for.
The crazy thing is that what I felt God told me to do, wasn’t rocket science, nor was it something brand new. It was more like a reminder of what I’ve known for ages and what I’ve even taught women how to do.
God instructed me to a) go BACK to a personal brand and leave this “agency” stuff where I found it (okay not in those words, but something like this, mmkay?) and b) to start a podcast, helping women like me - driven go-getters focus on surrender not striving to build brands with simplicity.
My makeup career was in the container of a personal brand and I loved it because it gave me space to share all KINDS of things I was interested in - from cooking to my weight loss journey to hosting a head wrap contest, to reading and Jesus, and of course - makeup - my expertise.
Now…the first part I was like, “Cool. I can do that.”
But that SECOND one tho? I wasn’t feeling the podcast thing.
I had NO desire to be a podcaster and would have preferred YouTube since I had experience with having a channel for my makeup work.
So, I worked on tying together ALL the loose ends of my life - and it resulted in me forming my new personal brand, By Alexis Campbell. It’s within this container that I’m currently building out my own legacy and helping women like me do the same.
By the way, the podcast thing...it happened. And I actually really enjoy it!
The Freedom Now Podcast launched in February 2024, almost 2 years after God gave me the idea for it.
Okay…that was a lot.
But if you’re still here you my people, first and foremost.
But also, you SHOULD have been able to pick up what took me so long to put down.
The thing I had to realize was that much like in life, in business, 1 thing often builds on another - 1 path always leads to the next.
But if you swiftly change directions and completely dismiss the path you were already on - you don’t get to experience the beautiful intersections that were up ahead for you. I believe that what’s for you, WILL always make its way back to you. But I often think about how if we just stay on the path before us, with a type of surrendered curiosity, we could most likely save so much time…so much pain.
Here’s what I’ve discovered.
The path of entrepreneurship is uneven, rough in several areas, a wee bit ghetto 🙄 , and FULL of distractions along the way.
But the thing I’ve learned is that we think we’re not on the path to find the gold at the END - but the truth is…the hilly path IS the gold.
Because nothing has developed me more as a person, than being an entrepreneur.
If you’re reading this, you may be like me.
An ambitious, driven, multi-talented, and ever-evolving woman in business.
Maybe you’ve had what I like to call, “a lot of lives, lol!” like me…or perhaps you’ve stayed in 1 lane your entire professional career.
Either way, you NOW feel like something inside of you is changing and you want to honor these changes and show up for what life has in store for you, at THIS moment in time.
How do you know the changes you’re experiencing are an evolution, beckoning you to move? We always know when something has shifted inside of us in a major way, although we may not have the language for it.
So that’s why I want to help you decide if you’re at a point in your life and business where you need to answer the call and evolve into the NEXT best version of yourself and as a brand.
5 Signs Your Invitation Has Arrived
Everyone’s life and work come with their own set of unique details and challenges. So this isn’t an end-all, be-all list of signs.
However, this is a combined list of my own experiences and some of my clients that I’ve worked with to build legacy brands.
Looking back, I can see how these things were all flashing lights, inviting us to be obedient to the call of evolution, but we were too busy with client delivery, life “life-ing”, relationships, obligations, and other things to take action.
While reading them, I encourage you to notice what comes up for you.
Everything in you wants to share about a big life transition, a new service or product idea - that’s kinda out of your industry “niche,” or a super polarizing revelation you just had downloaded into you. But you keep shoving these things “down,” because they’re just not “on-brand,” and won’t neatly fit anywhere your business shares ideas.
You feel like you don’t have “anywhere to put” some of your stories and experiences that you know could really help others.
SIGN #1
MEET TIA:
The charismatic DJ turned marketing strategy expert
Tia is a marketing strategist, killing it on LinkedIn.
She posts daily tips, tactics, and behind-the-scenes of you working with clients, building out strategies, etc.
But something most people don’t know about Tia is that she used to be a DJ.
And not just any old DJ, but a rrreeaallyyyy good one.
She pivoted into marketing for several reasons:
- Tia has a magnetic personality that gives her a natural flair for capturing and HOLDING attention
- Her brain is literally wired for strategizing; she just GETS it, and this was her advantage over other DJs
- Lastly, she NEEDED more stability in her schedule, since she was getting older and wanted out of the “nightlife” scene that very much accompanied the job of DJ-ing
Tia had been thinking about ways she could diversify her income, so that she doesn’t always have to take on more clients, to make more money.
She knows a lot of people who have created courses to be able to do this, but she wondered, “What could I create a course on?” Tia doesn’t want to teach marketing, because she already gives so much anyway on LinkedIn, happily.
Out of nowhere, Tia gets the bright idea to create a course for new DJs wanting to make a name for themselves in the industry. This idea lit her UP!
She was SO pumped about it she started hashing out lesson plans the same day.
Tia started to remember how many up-and-coming DJs she’s already mentored in the past, that she simply never talked about. This course would be an easy lift for her - leveraging a dormant talent that would bring in more money, without tying her down to a set of service deliverables.
Only 1 problem ...Tia currently only talking about marketing within her business, so where would she “put it?”
You know that your current business model isn’t all you’re meant to do with your life. You’re a multi-talented, multi-passionate, or multi-faceted type of woman and feel the urge to pivot encroaching upon you every day, but you don’t have a plan on how to strategically act on it.
You feel a sudden urgency to pursue your other passions, gifts, and talents.
SIGN #2
MEET SHELIA:
The seasoned lawyer and secret children's author
Shelia is a known attorney - both in her local community AND online.
She’s a part of several online communities and has been a guest on numerous podcasts, providing small business owners with vital information about how to protect themselves and their businesses.
Additionally, Shelia is a very talented children’s author.
For YEARS now, she’s been secretly writing children’s fiction books that have never been published. She’s gifted a few of them to her closest friends and family members, for their children. And they have been practically begging her to share this talent with the world!
Shelia has found writing to be SO cathartic, compared to practicing law, and it’s low-key a form of therapy for her.
She’s become so obsessed with the idea of children in homes across the world pouring over the words she’s written, she can hardly sleep at night!
She wants to come out of hiding and make this special gift known - but how will she do it without confusing the people who associate her ONLY with her work in law?
You feel a growing burden for a specific group of people that you feel compelled to serve or help with your work, ideas, or resources, and need to figure out how to make it “fit” into your business model somehow.
There is a growing burden you feel for a certain group of people, that it’s becoming hard to ignore.
SIGN #3
MEET EBONI:
A compassionate entrepreneur, with a rocky path towards success
Even though Eboni, now a seasoned HR consultant, has signed contracts with major companies like Disney, Coca-Cola, and Trader Joe’s, her entrepreneurial journey didn’t start all smooth and polished.
She was a teen mom, who had to take several breaks from attending college, to properly care for her children.
Eboni made a TON of mistakes along the way, and now, she’s on the other side, seeing the type of success she sacrificed so greatly for.
But Eboni knows there are SO many single, teen moms, just like her, who need guidance and support to make THEIR dreams come true.
She desperately wants to give back and help single and/or teen moms who are entrepreneurial and want to build a business.
Eboni is SO passionate about this, especially knowing how much easier it will be for them now with social media - something that wasn’t around when she was getting started!
She now has the funds, years of experience, and deep empathy for these women's situation to make the kind of difference she wants to make in their lives.
Eboni wants to create a mentorship program and scholarship program to launch this work.
But it doesn’t need to go within her HR consultancy brand…so where can it “live?”
You like the work you’re doing and want to continue doing it, but you NEED to diversify how you make money doing it. You desire to do fewer client projects that take up a lot of your time and instead want to earn more by speaking, writing, and teaching.
You enjoy your work, but can’t stop thinking about how you wish you could do it in another way, besides client delivery.
SIGN #4
MEET HARMONY:
Our veteran hustler with a new motivation for rest
Harmony enjoys her work, but she can’t stop thinking about how she wishes she could do it in another way, besides client delivery.
She likes the work she's doing and want to continue doing it, but she NEEDS to diversify how she makes money doing it. Harmony wants to do fewer client projects that take up so much of her time and instead wants to earn more money by speaking, writing, and teaching.
After years of grinding to get her business financially stable, Harmony is FINALLY ready to settle down and start trying to have a child with her husband.
She recently got the amazing news, that yes, she’s pregnant!
After all of the initial excitement wanes, Harmony is left to decide on something she’s been chewing on anyway. She can’t keep taking on MORE clients, just to hit her financial goals, because she needs her calendar to be free. She has to figure out another way, especially now that she’s gonna be welcoming a new member to her family!
Harmony starts thinking about how many times she’s been told on her Instagram live streams that she’s such a good teacher, and people seem to love her masterclasses and free workshops.
She’d love to begin selling paid workshops and pre-recorded training videos to diversify her income and be available for sale all the time.
You’ve been in the game a LONG time and have gathered a lot of unique ways of doing what you do. Some of them are a little against the grain, but you know they work and serve your people well.
Also, you have a lot to say about how things are done in your industry, among other things, and believe it’s time to find somewhere to share it all.
You realize you need your own “platform” but don’t know what this means, and don’t want to come off as a wanna-be celebrity or influencer.
You have a LOT to say about your industry (and other things in pop culture) and you’d love to have somewhere to say it all.
SIGN #5
MEET GABBI:
The super opinionated, but well-loved wellness coach
Gabbi is a wellness coach, known for her perspectives on things that make people’s jaws drop🫣!
She thinks deeply about SO many things in her industry and is not afraid to share them.
Gabbi does it with a level of grace, wit, and intellect that is admirable.
She talks about her niche expertise on social media every week, of course, but she also LOVES discussing popular cultural topics in our modern world. From the latest Hailey Bieber lip combo to the vegan enchilada recipe she accidentally created last week, Gabbi’s pumped to share it all!
A friend casually mentioned how dope it would be for her to create a podcast, featuring all her random musings, wellness ideas, and new life discoveries. It got her thinking, and now she can’t STOP thinking about it! Does Gabbi need a whole new brand to pull it off?
In all of these examples, the person’s evolution was right there on their doorstep and they were tasked with deciding whether or not they’d swing the door open or keep it closed to the possibilities of something new.
I know what it’s like to know that the way you’re doing business right now, can’t continue if you’re going to become this new version of yourself fully. You WANT to become this “elevated you,” because you don’t want to miss out on ALL that God has for you. I get it because I’ve felt the same way!
So you may be wondering, “Okay, Alexis, this sounds good and everything, cute little life story too, girl, I enjoyed it, 😉 lol! But what do I do with my business NOW? If I feel disconnected from it and realize things need to change, what should I do?”
Well, let me remind you again of what NOT to do - don’t burn it all down, like I did…twice.
Here’s what you should do instead.
You should pick 1 of 2 strategies that will help you enter your next evolution (and the one after that!)
The 2 options are repackaging and reinvention.
- attract new people into your audience and community
- increase your income potential
- gain newfound confidence in your work
- become more of a thought leader in your industry
So if both can technically get you to your destination - how do you know which option is right for you?
That’s what we’ll explore soon, hang with me for a little while longer. I want to show you a bit more about EACH option, so you can make the best decision for you.
Let’s quickly dive into each strategy and see them in action, in real-life scenarios.
Repackage the Exterior to Stand Out In the Crowd
OPTION #1
Repackaging your business is most helpful for experts in their field who realize their increasing need to stand out from the OTHER experts, who are just as good as them - OR, not as good - but know how to market themselves extremely well 🤭.
Repackaging also allows you to respond to what the market is demanding, in terms of marketing tactics, offer and product formations, rate ranges, aesthetics and visuals, messaging and copywriting, etc., and adapt your business to become more competitive.
Some advantages of repackaging are:
- A spurt of more “eyeballs” on your new brand presentation - causing a general increase in traffic (social media profiles, website, landing pages, etc.)
- Gained the attention of the audience you’ve been wanting to attract - giving you a community that could make your business more profitable
- Instant competitive alignment - repackaging shoots your business higher up the totem pole, allowing you to increase your prices or successfully launch something brand new
What Repackaging Is Usually Like
When you decide to repackage your business, you’re choosing to focus on updating or elevating the external assets that represent your business.
This is usually referred to as “rebranding.”
A typical repackaging process usually involves:
- Rebranding or taking the old assets and giving them a new twist.
- Logos, colors, photography, advertisements, social media templates, website landing pages, etc.
- Focusing on meeting the demand of the industry and the needs of the ideal client/customer.
- Surface-level exploration of the brand’s foundational elements;
Repackaging rarely involves going back into the FOUNDATION of the brand to deeply redefine or recreate it, this is because the internal truth about the brand has likely NOT shifted, so they only need to focus on repackaging the externals to appease the marketplace.
Repackaging can happen as many times as it needs to, to keep up with the marketing maturation, desirability trends, and overall sophistication of your industry and those who engage with your work.
Let’s look at 2 examples of repackaging - both a major corporation AND a personal brand.
Dunkin'
In 2019 America’s favorite coffee, aka, Dunkin’, underwent a major repackaging. In addition, they dropped ‘Donuts,’ from their name and now go by, just Dunkin.’
This update was likely done to reflect how much they’ve advanced in meeting the demand of consumers wanting more from their coffee retailer than just coffee.
Dunkin’ also likely dropped ‘Donuts’ from their name since Starbucks added a full-on menu of breakfast and lunch options. Dunkin’ assessed the marketplace trends, listened to the consumer demands, and decided they would need to step it up.
Aside from the name change and updated visual identity systems, nothing changed on a deep, internal level about the brand. They have the same vision, mission, and company values.
SOURCE: DUNKIN DONUTS
Marie Forleo
A 2nd example is 1 of the online business world’s favs, Marie Forleo.
These are some screenshots from Marie’s online profiles over the years, ranging from 2015 to 2018, to her most current profile is last (at the time of publishing this) in 2024.
After reviewing her website, YouTube channel, and Instagram page, it’s evident that she’s had a few rebrands.
She’s visually updated the way her brand looks and is expressed online, but her core message and the foundational truths about her brand, have not evolved. You can see that even in 2015, she was sharing her central message, "Create a business you love," the same message she spotlights today.
I think it's safe to say she’s at a place in business and life, where she’s simply repackaging every few years.
SOURCE: MARIE FORLEO
In a lot of ways, repackaging keeps you chasing a moving target.
It focuses primarily on the marketplace and ideal client/customer, which isn’t a sustainable driving force for a personal brand or solopreneur.
Repackaging may include SOME strategy work to get to the root of where things may be off and inauthentic within your business - but the strategy will still be from the vantage point of the “ideal client,” not you - the brand owner.
When it comes to repackaging, everything that is updated or revamped about the business is done to get more in alignment with OTHERS, not themselves.
Even though you may be a solopreneur or small business owner, I have to tell you, this approach carries some, rather “big corporate energy.”
Let me explain.
In the corporate world, everything is about the customer. That’s because they’re a non-human entity selling a product. When it comes to service providers, coaches, and consultants, our businesses are more personal and directly affect us differently.
Now, I’m all for making my clients happy - as I’m sure you are, too.
But what I’ve discovered over the years of working with and developing personal brands, is that the business CANNOT be all about the ideal client, when it comes to a personal brand.
Personal brands are meant to give the brand owner a source of freedom, inspiration, and sustainability. But when you’re operating like a corporate brand, you often get stuck only making the content they want to see, offering services they want you to offer, etc.
Here’s what I know, and I don’t know everything.
The Biggest Drawback of Repackaging
But to build a brand that lasts, as a service provider, consultant, or coach, it must serve them AND you.
Reinvent The Whole to Produce Something New
OPTION #2
Where repackaging is all about updating the externals to meet the demands of others, reinvention is the exact opposite.
It’s about producing something that will look and feel brand new, because it starts from within, allowing you to rebuild from the inside out.
When you choose to reinvent yourself, you’re showing up to honor the nudge in your heart and spirit to do something different, because something has changed in you on a foundational level.
And the nudge is making you so uncomfortable you know you have to shake things up.
Reinvention calls for you to:
- do a deep reflection and audit of your life and work to discover what this nudge or spiritual pull is trying to tell you
- realize the changes that need to take place in how you live and work to reflect your acceptance of said nudge or pull
- create a new brand that will showcase your growth thus far - as a holistic being, personally and professionally.
- work in a way that serves both YOU the person behind the brand, AND those you’ve been called to help with your skills, talents, and gifts
Let's look at a couple reinvention stories!
People Who Successfully Reinvented Themselves
Gretchen Rubin
Gretchen is a prolific and celebrated author, but she didn’t start as one.
She studied at Yale and had a successful career in law, but it was while working for a Supreme Court Justice, she realized she wanted to take a risk and become a writer!
“Well, it was less about leaving law and more about going toward writing. I wasn’t terribly unhappy with my career, but I realize now that throughout my whole life, I have been preparing to be a writer.
Earlier on I just didn't see how to fit myself into the writing world. But there were several moments when I was clerking where I began to see the new possibilities. I started doing large research projects, for instance, and I finally thought, "This is what some people do with their job, and I could do this as my job."
I just slowly began to embrace the idea that I wanted to give writing a shot, and there just came a time when I thought, "At this point, I'd rather fail as a writer than succeed as a lawyer. I need to try."
Gretchen now hosts the top-ranking, award-winning podcast, has been interviewed by Oprah - scoring a column in her O Magazine, and even had her work featured in a medical journal.
She approached reinvention with an open hand, heart, and mind, ready to honor what she’d always known about herself.
SOURCEs: GRETCHEN RUBIN
Here’s a quote from her in an interview that’s documented in Forbes. She shares:
Maya Angelou
Maya endured countless setbacks and challenges throughout her life, starting at childhood. But through it all, she persevered and became a renown poet, author, and activist.
She is remembered as a pioneer in the civil rights and equality movement and her legacy of inspiring writers, activists, and world changers continues to live on.
Maya Angelou reinvented herself several times throughout her lifetime.
She went from a child who didn’t speak for years after undergoing a series of traumatic events, to a singer and dancer, earning a scholarship for dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School at just 14 years old.
After having to drop out of school, because she couldn't afford to live in San Francisco, Maya went on to do MANY things - with each one showing how she wasn’t just doing something to be randomly doing it, but she was truly evolving as a person.
She has credited “curiosity,” and “self-discovery,” as the sources for every time she chose to reinvent herself. Her evolutions as a person influenced her to change how she worked because work and life are often inseparable.
She leaves behind a legacy of courage, resilience, epic publications, and quite a few “firsts,” including the first African American woman to work as a streetcar conductor in San Francisco, the first Black woman to write a screenplay for a major movie release, and the first female inaugural poet in U.S. presidential history.
In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded Angelou the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.
SOURCEs: MAYA ANGELOU
It’s a process that starts with deep reflection, so it’s not as “shiny” of an adventure as repackaging… at FIRST.
Reinvention can be scary. It forces you to be mindful and go inward. It calls you to do the kind of inner work that you may have been avoiding for YEARS - or simply never made the time to. So this is something to consider as you begin to think about starting the journey of reinventing yourself.
Finally, let’s talk about decisions.
We’ve gone over both strategies, repackaging and reinvention, and even threw in some real-life examples for fun.
But after ALL of this, if you’re STILL wondering which 1 is best for you…I got you.
All you need to do is consider 1 thing and it’ll become clear which path you should take.
The Advantages of Reinventing Yourself
- You will feel incredibly “in your purpose,” or like you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing with your life, at the present moment.
- You get to become more of who you already are - who God called you to be, holistically.
- You get better at confidently using your voice and taking up space with your brand! You start to conquer the fear of “being seen trying.”
- The process of giving yourself the freedom of proper alignment truly begins:
- Reinvention shows that you’re committed to always showing up as the most authentic current version of yourself…even if it’s hard and even if it takes people a while to “get it.”
- You get in a position to do more of you’re life’s work and attract the kinds of opportunities you may have been denying yourself by sticking to what you’ve always known and how you’ve always done things.
The Disadvantage of Reinventing Yourself
That 1 thing is, impact.
Let’s look at the spectrum below to see this clearer.
How to Know If You Should Repackage or Reinvent? The One Word That Holds Your Answer
If we want to get granular about what’s at the heart of the word, “legacy,” we can boil it down to this question.
“How big or how wide of an impact do you desire to make with your life and your work?”
I like to think about impact, in the literal sense.
Merriam-Webster defines it as:
the force or impression of one thing on another: a significant or major effect
Some synonyms are words like shock, jolt, smash, influence, and strike.
Sounds a little intense, huh? But I actually think that’s the whole point.
When I think about someone having an impact on a group of people, an industry, or the world around them, I envision their ideas, work, business, lifestyle, moral code, etc., literally arriving on the scene and shaking things up in such a way that people are forced to awaken from their slumber and pay attention.
This type of impact - the positive and effective impact you likely hope to achieve one day, isn’t the kind that comes from a violent force, but simply a passionate one.
It’s not an aggressive type of impact, but one that encourages urgency.
- helping to improve the lives of people who look like you or who have had similar experiences as you, by exposing them to new ideas or resources
- having the privilege of “space” to understand yourself more or heal from things that have left you in a place of paralysis or stagnation
- creating a future full of wider opportunities for your children than you had
However, for some of us, it’s also, about:
Yes, having a business and building a brand is 100% about gaining financial freedom.
There are SO many reasons to start a business other than making money.
And at the root of them all, lies the desire to have a more substantial impact on SOME area of your life and the lives of others.
I want to be clear in stating that I DO believe you can still achieve impact if you decide to stay within a traditional business brand model. The type of brand container where you stick to your specific industry niche, and don’t pursue building a personal brand.
Your potential for impact will still be there, it’ll just be a “deep” impact, rather than a wide one.
Let’s look at the spectrum below 👇🏽 to see this clearer.
The Impact Spectrum
The numbers 1-2 represent where most of us start in business as service providers, solopreneurs, and consultants. We likely come from corporate careers where we decided to strike out on our own and go full force with our talents and offer them through a business.
Or maybe you didn’t intend to go full force with your business, but it sort of took off on its own and you just decided to make it work.
However it started for you, those first few years involved you focusing solely on getting really good at your craft and developing an audience around your work, so you could get clients or customers. You were in “establishing” mode, putting your name and work out there as an expert in your field.
But somewhere along the way, over the years, a “deadlock” moment likely presented itself, represented by #3.
So a deadlock can be any of the following:
- you may have evolved as a person due to a major life event or circumstance and realized that you HAD to shift how you do business for your mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, etc. well-being.
- perhaps you were finally ready to admit that you DON’T enjoy operating your business in the way you’ve been doing it, and you need to change something about how you’re delivering your expertise.
- some changes happened within your industry as a whole, that you don’t ethically align with, but the changes are beyond your control
Pretty much, one of the 5 signs showed up at your door, like, “What up, what we doing?”
This left you in a bit of a deadlock, where you realized you needed to decide on how you would respond.
Now, you may be at that spot RIGHT NOW, as you’re reading this essay.
If so, perfect timing!
But when you arrive at this moment, the 2 options you have are represented by 4a and 4b.
If you choose 4a, you’re opting to continue to grow as a business by possibly repackaging and updating your externals to a) give the business some fresh energy and b) meet the marketplace’s new demands.
But in doing so, you’re also choosing to have an impact that is deep within an industry, rather than wide within the world.
The reach of your impact will be primarily (if not only) experienced by those involved in or associated with your industry of niched expertise.
You’re essentially saying, “I prefer my impact to be deeply felt within this specific industry and I choose to keep contributing to it in this particular way, and I’m okay with my impact NOT spilling over into other industries or forming a community of its own.”
You could then go on to advance even more within your craft, get new certifications or degrees, and grow a team that supports you in supporting your clients.
You will likely be remembered as someone who worked extensively in the “X, Y, Z industry,” and did amazing work to inspire newcomers in said industry.
Then there’s the trajectory of choosing 4b - reinventing yourself when this deadlock moment occurs.
If you choose 4b, you’re opting to create a legacy brand.
This is the type of brand container that gives you the space - physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, etc., to evolve into the version of yourself that wants to be shared with the world.
You would start positioning yourself to operate within this type of container so you can achieve a wider impact with your life and work. You KNOW you’re not called to have an impact within just 1 specific industry, service, or audience.
You feel deeply that your TRUE impact is meant to reach several different types of people.
The fact that you’re also a multi-faceted person supports this feeling!
Your various talents, gifts, and skills are all signs that your contributions to the world are here to be spread WIDE, so more people can be served.
Your legacy brand will form its own community of loyal advocates, who will happily gather around your work and unique ideas, and who are drawn to your essence and shared values.
When you reinvent yourself you choose to create the kind of brand you can continue to evolve in over and over, as life continues to present you with new opportunities and experiences.
Reinvention is the strategy for:
Reinvention is THE ideal strategy to position yourself for the kind of impact that you were uniquely designed and purposefully born to do.
I believe that so many entrepreneurs doing business online, shortchange the lives God intended for them to have because they’re too loyal to a “niche,” and being “on brand.”
They neglect the truth that the niche is simply part of the brand, it’s not the entire brand itself.
We’re all dynamic beings, with several interests, and talents - we can’t live our lives only letting 1 aspect of our being run the show. This is how we die “full,” not emptied of the gifts we were meant to leave in the hearts and minds of others.
If you’re a multi-passionate, multi-faceted, or multi-talented person.
In that case, you NEED a brand container that will give you the space and confidence to continue evolving and sharing more of yourself with the world.
By creating a legacy brand, you’re permitting yourself to claim the freedom you likely envisioned when you FIRST started as an entrepreneur.
A legacy brand puts you in a position to have the freedom to:
- Pivot into new ways of serving others through business
- Talk about things that you find incredibly important, besides your niche
- Diversify your income by shifting your focus to OTHER interests, talents, and gifts you’ve been ignoring
If you’re a founder or CEO, your life’s work encompasses MORE than your startup or company…maybe you want to get into philanthropy, speak more, write books, or just create a brand where you can do whatever you want next!
You have the right to be known for more than just what your skills can do for people. You get to be known for what you’re passionate about, the things you think deeply about, and your ideas that deserve to be heard.
Not only have I reinvented myself repeatedly, and now work within my own legacy brand, I’ve helped women like you do it too 😊.
I almost dropped my phone (or laptop, lol!), because this is SO me! I need to reinvent myself and build a personal brand that allows me to do it with ease and freedom! How can I get started in this process?
👋🏽 I'm ready for a reinvention
Whether reinvention or repackaging is calling your name, I can help
I don't need to rework my brand from the inside out, doing foundational work to strengthen it's identity, all I really need right now is to get fresh, authentic, and modern visuals to repackage how I show up!
i THINK I just need a rebrand 🤔
