Read This: Be by Jessica Zweig

I love this book. I bought it in physical, on Kindle, on Audible, and in workbook form (the workbook only exists in physical). I’ve recommended it to more friends and clients than I can count.

If you’re a solopreneur or business owner trying to build a personal brand without sanding off who you actually are, Be: A No-Bullsht Guide to Increasing Your Self Worth and Net Worth by Simply Being Yourself* by Jessica Zweig is the one I’d point you to first.

The book is about building authenticity into personal and professional branding. Zweig argues that the surface-level marketing most people are taught is the wrong move. The path is the harder one: be unfiltered, be honest, be willing to be misunderstood. That’s where the brand starts to mean something.

A lot of my coaching clients struggle with this. They don’t want to “show up” as a version of themselves they don’t believe in. They’ve watched too much of what the internet calls personal branding and decided it isn’t for them. I understand that reaction. The book offers something else.

The frameworks

Zweig has built specific tools. A few worth knowing about before you decide whether to buy the book:

• The Personal Brand Hologram™ combines who you actually are with what you offer professionally. It’s the most useful tool I’ve seen for thinking through a personal brand without faking anything.

• The Pinnacle Content Framework™ helps you build a content strategy that attracts the clients you actually want.

• Orion’s PR Roadmap™ is about positioning yourself as a thought leader in your space without the cringe.

• The Supernova™ method is for creating consistent content that builds expertise over time.

• The 10 Evergreen Principles of Social Media is what it sounds like — a set of principles that hold up regardless of which platform is having a moment.

She also includes work on overcoming the fear of being judged, which is the part of the book that asks the most of the reader. It’s the hardest part for me too. I’m still working on it.

What I take from it

Zweig’s central claim is that imperfections aren’t things to hide. They’re the material that makes a brand actually relatable. Your story, your flaws, your particular history — these aren’t liabilities. They’re what differentiates you from the people who are airbrushing themselves into sameness.

If you’ve been resisting the work of building a personal brand because it felt fake, this book is a good place to start. It’s not a marketing book pretending to be philosophy. It’s a working argument for being more honest in public, with frameworks for how to do it.