Serve the Person You Once Were
Find your strongest audience by identifying the past version of yourself.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 97%
This audience-selection model starts with biography rather than market size. The person you once were gives you direct knowledge of the audience's fears, language, misconceptions, and desired transformation. That history can reveal both the “who” you are called to serve and the “why” that sustains long-term effort. The target need not be a narrow demographic; it may be a psychographic identity united by a shared mission or struggle. After identifying the former self, the expert names the problems that person knowingly experiences and connects those problems to lessons earned through lived experience. The resulting audience is commercially useful because it is precise, but its deeper advantage is emotional: the expert can serve with conviction when rejection and setbacks make the work difficult.
Origin
Rory Vaden says Brand Builders Group recognized this pattern after guiding hundreds of clients through personal-brand strategy; he explained it on The Jasmine Star Show.
Core principles
- 01Your strongest service position often comes from lived transformation.
- 02A personal why is frequently a specific who.
- 03Pain can become practical empathy and credibility.
- 04Calling matters alongside commercial opportunity.
- 05Psychographics can define an audience better than demographics.
How to run it
- 1
Return to your former self
Choose a meaningful period before a transformation you have already experienced.
Pro tip Focus on a version of yourself whose emotions and daily challenges you can still describe vividly.
Watch out Do not select a past identity merely because it fits an attractive market.
- 2
Inventory the struggle
List the problems, fears, beliefs, and circumstances that shaped that person's experience.
Pro tip Use the language you actually used at the time.
Watch out Avoid rewriting the past with knowledge you acquired later.
- 3
Name the transformation
Identify what changed and what knowledge, behavior, or support enabled the change.
Pro tip Separate transferable lessons from lucky or one-time circumstances.
Watch out Personal survival alone does not prove every lesson will generalize.
- 4
Define the psychographic
Write a one-sentence description of people who share that struggle or mission today.
Pro tip Describe their internal state and aspiration, not only demographic traits.
Watch out Do not make the audience so broad that the shared experience disappears.
- 5
Validate your calling
Ask whether serving this person would remain meaningful through difficult seasons.
Pro tip Notice subjects that create strong emotion, conviction, or a sense of responsibility.
Watch out Emotion should guide exploration, not replace evidence that the audience needs help.
- 6
Build around service depth
Design messages and offers that solve the former self's problems in a specific, credible way.
Pro tip Use examples and language that demonstrate genuine familiarity with the struggle.
Watch out Do not turn vulnerable history into performative marketing detached from useful service.
In the wild
Rory and his team serve authors, speakers, coaches, and entrepreneurs trying to become better known. He connects this audience to challenges his own team had already navigated while building a successful coaching and speaking business.
→ Prior experience gives the firm a precise audience and the ability to serve it deeply.
The coaching conversation traces Jasmine's possible audience back to a past self who felt life happened to her. Her repeated pivots and persistence give her experiential material for helping others replace victimhood with resilience.
→ A broad interest in empowerment becomes connected to a specific person and lived transformation.
Common mistakes
Choosing an audience for money alone
Commercial potential without emotional commitment may not provide enough motivation to sustain the work through rejection and setbacks.
Using demographics without psychology
Age and gender may describe people without explaining the struggle or mission that unites them.
Assuming experience equals method
A personal transformation must still be codified into transferable principles and actions before it can reliably help others.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for coaches, speakers, authors, and founders whose expertise grew from a meaningful personal transformation.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when the work requires expertise unrelated to the creator's lived experience or when the creator has not yet processed the underlying experience.
From the transcript
“our why is a who our why is a person.”
“money is subservient to the mission.”
“you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were.”
From the episode
How to Discover Your Uniqueness and Gain the Recognition You Deserve with Rory Vaden
Rory Vaden