Identity Sticks When People See Themselves In It

It helps people make an association and to say ‘that’s me.’

It took me a long time to realise this.

For years, I believed that sounding complex made you look serious. I took a content marketing approach to the underlying YATM theme. 

I led with answers and detail, assuming trust was something you earned through volume. The problem? None of it made it easier for people to understand who YATM was for. 

People showed up because it felt relaxed and different, but they didn’t always understand the role it could play for them. I was asking people to associate with ideas, not with an identity.

It took me a decade of building You Are The Media to realise, clarity beats clever, and identity beats description.

People stay because they recognise themselves in what you do and that matters so much. Today, YATM is for people who choose to not fit in and would rather figure things out with others on their side.

Let me show you how that identity formed. It’s intended to help your side to galvanise people around your campfire.

In 2025, the YATM identity is clear, we’re a home for misfits. It doesn’t mean chaos, but thoughtful non-conformists.

It’s for people who don’t want to follow the industry rulebook, the “best practice,” or the behaviours that supposedly make you look legitimate.

We’re for the people who want to build something they can put their own stamp on, personal, and meaningful and bring others with them who are already familiar. 

Needles to say, this identity didn’t arrive fully formed. It happened from listening, watching, and noticing how people behaved when they were part of YATM. The best affirmation I hear is, “I finally found my place,” or the one we all secretly love, “I’ve found my tribe.”

Identity isn’t something you’ve created in the moment, it just takes a little bit longer to figure out. 

When people see others like them inside, they understand the role it plays, “People like me belong here.”

Identity is what helps people join, engage, participate, and contribute not just follow.

Longevity comes when people see themselves in the story, not when they admire the founder.

People stick around when the work helps them recognise something true about themselves. When you share clearly and confidently, people connect their own experience to yours. They feel represented, understood, and seen.

It took me years to realise, but identity to what you do is the connective tissue. It’s not about how you describe the work, it’s how people describe themselves through the work.

At YATM, people don’t say, “I joined because Mark writes about community.”

They say things like:

“I like being around people who think like this.”

“I don’t feel like the odd one out here.”

“This feels like where I fit.”

Many people join the identity before they join the activity.

For years YATM continued as I simply wanted to figure out how to build community. 

People turned up because it felt slightly unusual from the familiarity of networking, but this idea of togetherness and not having to fit in has helped create a reason. 

It’s just taken a long time to figure out, but that’s ok. I know that identity helps to act like a magnet, where it attracts the right people and it filters out the people who don’t fit.

What it does is that it starts to give the right people permission to take part. One of the biggest lessons I have learned is that if your identity is unclear, people won’t know if your space is for them.

They may like your work, give you a nod, look at from the sidelines, but they probably won’t step forward.

You can’t force people to join, but you create the conditions where the right people want to.

Let’s break identity down to something workable, a simple structure that creators, business owners, and community builders can apply immediately.

1) Know the people you serve

For YATM, it’s small business owners and solopreneurs, not corporate entrepreneurs or influencers.

It’s for people who are finding their voice, building something from scratch and shaping their own space.

If you don’t know who you’re for, everything becomes generic, which doesn’t help anyone make an attachment.

2. Know the problem you solve

For YATM, this is around the important of learning and figuring it all out together. Doing it alone is hard, doing it together is so much better.

People join because they want learning, support, momentum, and connection. They want a place where they’re not the only one figuring it out.

When you solve a real human problem, identity forms around it naturally.

3. Know what makes you different (your clear identity)

For YATM, it’s the misfit identity, people who don’t fit neatly into usual categories and don’t want to perform the behaviours others tell them to adopt.

It all comes down to lived experiences. For many people going to a work event and starting with a World Record to break, just isn’t for them, that’s fine. Your difference isn’t what you claim, it’s what your people take from it.

Put these three together and identity becomes a natural outcome:

People like us (misfits), solving this problem (audience growth and not wanting to be isolated), in this particular way (learning together).

If you can articulate that, you already have everything you need to build something meaningful.

In “Why People Join Networks,” I made the case that belonging is built from the sense that a group or community is “for people like me.” Humans are wired for association and we’re constantly scanning:

Who here behaves like me?
Who sees the world the way I do?
Who wants the same things?

Identity hugs the edges of those questions and it makes the answers obvious.

If you’re building your own thing, newsletter, business, community, side project, here are the questions that sharpen identity and help people associate themselves with your space:

🤔 What do people feel when they find you?

🤔 Do they recognise themselves in what you stand for?

🤔 Can they see themselves beside you, not just watching from a distance?

🤔 What behaviour or belief do you give people permission for?

🤔 What do you want to be remembered for?

🤔 And importantly: who is this clearly not for?

When you know who you’re for, people come closer because they can finally see themselves in the picture.

Identity isn’t your logo, or your content strategy, or the messages your share. It’s your invitation and the reason to step up.

When the right people recognise themselves in it, they don’t just join, they stay.