Why Having Personal Style is More Important Than Ever

The Rise of Sameness

We are about to live through the most average decade in human history. And it’s not because people are getting less interesting, it’s because machines are becoming really, really good at sounding like everyone. Every caption, every photo, every elevated living room aesthetic is getting run through the same tools that are trained on the same patterns and the same taste. So it feels like everything is starting to look the same. It’s starting to sound the same. It feels like life is just blurring together. But here’s the thing that a machine cannot do. It cannot be a woman who knows exactly who she is. It cannot replicate a strong sense of personal style. And personal style is something that you have to discover for yourself. And dare I say, it is one of the most enlightening journeys that you’ll ever go on because it requires that you learn and own what you love. And you have to discover what you deeply value, and what you deeply, deeply desire.

So that’s what I want to talk about today. And you may be thinking, oh my God, she’s going to talk about clothes. I’m really not. I’m going to talk about what’s underneath the clothes, your essence, because that’s what style is. Style is your self-image expressed. It’s your essence expressed. And it’s about to become one of the most valuable things you own. So let’s dive in. Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where our motto is simple, elevate your self-image, elevate your life. I’m Tonya Leigh, your hostess, and I’ll guide you to become the woman who doesn’t just dream bigger, she lives bigger. Let’s dive in.

The Invisible Feeling Women Are Experiencing

I have been doing this work for almost 20 years now, almost 20 years of talking to women about who they are and what they want and how they show up in the world. And I’m telling you that I’m having conversations right now that I’ve never had before. Something has shifted. And here’s what I’m hearing. I’m hearing women say, “I feel like I’m invisible lately. I feel like I’m replaceable.” And these are not invisible women, these are women who have built things, who’ve run things, who’ve walked into rooms and owned it. And now, something feels off, and they don’t know what to name it. So I’m going to name it because I don’t think that this is in their heads, I think they’re picking up on something really real that we probably are all feeling. And it’s happening faster than any of us can keep up with.

The world is being handed over to machines. I’m not being dramatic, just look around. The writing is generated, the image is generated, the voices on the phone are generated. The person that you talk to when you have a problem isn’t even a person anymore. We are automating the human right out of the day. And it’s happening so fast and so quietly that we feel it before we can even explain it. Everything’s getting more efficient and a whole lot less alive. And so when a machine can do almost anything that a person can do and do it faster, something in us starts to panic a little. We start to wonder, okay, what is mine? What is the part of me that can’t be copied, can’t be automated or replaced by something cheaper and quicker? And that’s the question underneath that invisible feeling. And it’s not vanity, it’s almost existential. And as humans, we are wired to survive, so the fact that you’re feeling this means that you’re normal. It means that your nervous system is like, “Hey, what’s going on here?”

Personal Style as a Survival Strategy

And that’s why I’m here to argue that personal style is our survival strategy in today’s world. The days of blending in and fitting in, it’s going to cost you. The days of playing it safe will cost you. The days of following formulas, that’ll cost you because what we need more than ever is originality. So I’m really excited for this time because I feel like this is a call for women to finally, finally live unapologetically. It’s almost like our survival depends on it. So let’s talk about the way out. And it’s not going to be what the internet’s going to tell you, because right now, I don’t know if you all are feeling this, but it feels like we are being inundated with opinions.

Why Formulas Don’t Actually Work

And you could argue that this is an opinion. You just have to see if it feels true for you. But everybody’s telling us what we should look like, how we should dress, how we should run our business, how we should raise our kids. You get online and it’s just this fire hose of it. People are telling you, “Here’s how you make a video. Here’s the top 10 hooks of the month. Here’s the right camera angle. Here’s the trending sound, here’s the formula.” What we often do is we copy it because, hey, if it’s working for her, surely it’s going to work for me too. But here’s what we aren’t factoring in. What’s actually working for her isn’t the formula, it’s her. It’s her way of being, it’s her way of expressing herself. The particular way that she does her life that is unique and memorable, that’s the secret ingredient. And that’s the one thing the formula can never give you because it’s the one thing that was never hers to give you. It was yours to discover.

So when you’re out there following everybody else’s hacks and formulas and somebody else’s style, you’re missing the entire thing that makes you you, and what makes you you is the secret sauce. Now listen, I’m not going to stand here or sit here and say that I’m immune to this because I’ve done it. And I’ll tell you what I know from doing it, it never felt right, not once. I always felt like I was missing from the equation, from the formula. I think back to when I first started my business, I followed the experts because I didn’t know what I was doing. I dressed the way I thought a professional should dress. Coming from nursing, I had no idea, so I got inspiration. I named my programs these generic titles so that I’d fit the standard.

And do you know what happened? I blended right in. It felt safe, and there was nothing wrong with it, but there was nothing memorable about it either. And my business did grow, but very, very slowly. But then something happened where I was just bored, and I felt like I was not being true to myself. And so I decided to start to do things in my own style. I started letting the things that I actually love come into my work, my love of style, my love of the French culture, of beauty, the whole way that I see the world, the whimsy that had changed my life. Well, that is the exact moment my business started to take off. And here’s the part I want you to really hear. I had so much more fun. It was so much easier. And sometimes I think when things feel easy, we think we’re doing it wrong because we think it has to feel hard.

But what if easy is your path? What if what comes natural to you, what’s easiest to you, your personal style? What if that is your guide to your North Star? I know for me, that’s what happened because I finally wasn’t fighting against my own essence anymore. And even with knowing all of that, there have been whole seasons where I’ve drifted away from my own knowing, where I ignored my intuition, where I turned away from my own style. And I have never once liked the result, not one time. So this is what I mean when I say style is about so much more than your clothes. Your style is how you express your values. It’s how you express your truth. It’s how you express who you actually are out loud to the world. I like to say style is how you do life. Style is how you express your essence.

Real Style Starts With Self-Discovery

Now, can you take inspiration from other people? Of course you can. I like to say there’s nothing new under the sun. I know I do all of the time. But you can’t copy, it has to come through you and come out in your own unique way. That right there is what style actually is, which is why real style never starts in the closet, it always starts with a question. Who am I? Really think about that. Who were you before the world told you who you should be? What do you love? What do you value? What do you deeply, deeply want? Not what you think you should want, but what do you really want? These are the types of questions that will reveal your true style. And when you approach style in this way, style stops being about clothing and decoration, and it turns into a language, your language.

The Core Shift: Becoming Unmistakable

And it’s the one thing a machine can never fake because it doesn’t have a self to express. You do. So if something in you is thinking, “Oh my gosh, I need this. This is the kind of work that I have avoided,” It’s the kind of work that I haven’t thought was that important, I’m going to challenge you to consider it is the most important work that you can do right now. And this work is about getting to know yourself. It’s about building your self-image on purpose, becoming unmistakable while the whole world races to look the same. And this is the entire reason why the School of Self-Image exists. I’ve been doing this work for a long time, and there is something so powerful when a woman gets really honest with herself about who she really is underneath, underneath all of the limitations, underneath all of the shoulds, underneath all of society’s expectations.

And it just so happens next month, during the month of June, we are going to be focused on the stylish living framework, where you are going to get so in tune with your personal style. And this will become a guide. It’ll help you make decisions. It’ll definitely help you get dressed. It will help you save money, actually, because the money that I had spent because I didn’t know my style, I can’t even begin to count. But most importantly, this work is about the relationship that you cultivate with yourself, because when that relationship is solid, you feel so much safer in the world. When you know who you truly are, I’m not talking about the anxious, worried version of you, because that’s not who you are, that’s who you’ve learned to be, those are the coping mechanisms that you’ve learned to use to navigate the world, but I’m talking about underneath all of that.

When you know who you truly are and you are so grounded in that, it becomes so much easier to navigate this world that we’re living in. So if you’re ready to stop putting personal style on the back burner and you know that this is the work that you need to do, come and join us inside the membership for the month of June. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/june and learn all about it. And fun thing I’m doing next month as a bonus, I’m actually bringing members into my closet and I’m going to be doing a styling session, because one of the things that I’ve noticed is that the outfits that we are often drawn to, it’s not about the clothing itself, it’s about how it’s put together, how it’s styled. And so I’m going to be sharing some of my styling tips and tricks with members.

We’re going to have such a fun time. I think this is such a fun way to spend the summer, getting to know yourself, getting to know your personal style. So again, you can go to schoolofselfimage.com/june and come and join us. Now, next week and the weeks beyond, I’m heading outside for the podcast. It is summertime, and I don’t know about you all, but I want to get outdoors, get some vitamin D. So make sure you hit that subscribe button and pour yourself something cold and come and join me. I’m calling this my Poolside Confession series, where I’m going to be sharing short confessions about things that we don’t often talk about, but as women, we need to. So make sure you join me for next week’s episode. Have a beautiful week, and I’ll see you on the next one. Cheers.