Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Personal Branding Isn’t Dead: How It Still Drives Real Income in 2026 with Ashley Stahl

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

In this episode of Right About Now, Ryan Alford is joined by Ashley Stahl to explore what it really takes to build a personal brand that creates opportunities. Ashley breaks down the critical difference between credibility and authority, and why many professionals get stuck building experience without ever becoming known for it. She shares how leveraging platforms like TEDx and YouTube can accelerate visibility—and how one well-crafted message can compound over time. This episode is packed with practical insights on positioning, messaging, and how to turn attention into something meaningful—whether that’s clients, speaking opportunities, or long-term brand equity. 🔑 Topics Covered Credibility vs authority in personal branding Building visibility that actually converts The role of TEDx and long-form content Why messaging matters more than volume Turning attention into business opportunities How to identify and communicate your unique value 🤝 Connect with Ashley Stahl https://wisewhisperagency.com https://www.instagram.com/ashleystahl 🤝 Connect with Ryan Alford https://www.ryanisright.com/ https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford

A lot of people don't realize that there is a difference between credibility and authority. Credibility to me is that you're legit. Maybe you're a doctor. You went to school. Maybe you've had a career for 10 years and you have the experience. A lot of people search for more credibility. Maybe they get trainings or stuff like that. It's the person that gets too many trainings.

But what people don't realize is that that's very different from authority. Authority is being a household name. It's the person that everybody thinks about for the thing that you're doing. This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a rad-capable. Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cash in checks?

Well, it starts right about now. A lot of people want to build a personal brand. But very few actually understand how to turn it into a real opportunity. And if you look at the people who have done it well, there's usually a moment where everything changes. For Ashley Stahl, that was going viral on TEDx, turning that visibility into book deals, speaking opportunities, and ultimately a total business around it.

Now she's the founder of Wise Whispered Agency, helping others do the same. Not just get attention, but actually convert it into something meaningful. Ashley, welcome to write about now. Hello, thank you so much for having me. I saw like counterterrorism. I saw personal branding. You had me at counterterrorism.

Then the personal branding was the icing on the cake. When in Rome, you just got to keep it interesting for yourself. Exactly. I've been doing personal branding myself for probably 10 years. I spent a lot of time doing things that would have totally built my personal brand, but didn't do any of it. I was like, wait, I looked around. We had all these ninjas on Instagram. This is in 2015.

Remember the ninja era? I was like, wait a second. They're ninjas. I'm freaking Obi-Wan Kenobi. Because I'd done a lot, but no one knew who the hell I was. That was a problem. 11 years later, I am very interested in the state of personal branding. I'm going to ground it.

I definitely talk about your story, but that just coming at you hard. I'm very curious of what this landscape is like in 2026. I think I still do it, but it's just become the default. I really love what you're sharing because what you're pointing out is the line between credibility and authority. And I think a lot of people don't realize that there is a difference. Credibility to me is that you're legit. Maybe you're a doctor.

You went to school. Maybe you've had a career for 10 years and you have the experience. A lot of people search for more credibility. Maybe they get trainings or stuff like that. It's the person that gets too many trainings. But what people don't realize is that that's very different from authority. Authority is being a household name. It's the person that everybody thinks about for the thing that you're doing.

There's a lot you can do to become an authority, but there's very little that actually works in a way that you can really count on. For example, a lot of people, they pay for heavy PR retainers and they're spinning their wheels, hoping that results come. When was the last time you watched the news and you wrote down the name of a guest on the television. Almost never. It does give you credibility and that's good if you're building a business. And it gives you authority if you're on a lot of news all the time. If you're just passing through the news, it's just a credibility builder. The reason why TEDx has changed my life so

much is because that platform has 45 million subscribers. It makes it the biggest stage in the world. My thinking is, why are we spinning our wheels doing so many things to get authority and to be seen as the person that does the thing we do, when we could just get on one stage for 10 minutes, have the whole world hear us. And like an investment portfolio, it gets found in compounds over time. Hearing you talk is credibility, experience, and authority awareness? In 26, is that kind of what that means? It's one thing if you're credible, like you're the best doctor in the world or the most experienced doctor in the world, but nobody knows your name. That's the difference. It's just a different frame. Credibility is that you have the experience. And being a

authority is people see you. People see you that way. There's a lot you can do to keep getting more credibility, but a lot of people already have credibility. They need to think differently about their brand. They need to ask themselves, how do I actually build authority? It's not just speaking. It's the ability to write a talk that is truly a work of art is what can skyrocket a speaking career faster than anything. There's a lot of speakers that come into my agency and they're like, well, I could talk about this and I could talk about that. And if there's anything I've learned, it's that every communicator or content creator has two, three, four, or even five topics living inside of them. But just because they can talk about those topics doesn't mean they should. The reality is that

of those three, four, five topics, there's usually one that you tend to have more original thought. And if you want your content to have legs and really get out there, especially for something like TEDx. People think it's a TEDx talk. It is, but it's actually a YouTube talk because it lives on YouTube. You know, TEDx is the bouncer at the door. They own the channel. But YouTube owns the party. They own the house. If you think about what is going to make something do well on YouTube, whether it's a TED talk or anything, the answer for me has always been. And the reason around 70, 80% of our clients are going very viral, it might not be easy, but it is simple. You simply write the best talk you've ever written.

And if you're not the best writer you've ever met, get a better writer to help you express your ideas. And then obviously working on your stage presence, the ability to move a room to make people really feel something to tune into where you have original thinking is crucial if you want to build real authority. I don't know if we think alike or we read a lot of the same material and then digest it the same way. You use a lot of terms that I use. I say to a lot of people, it's real damn simple, but it ain't easy. And I also say, don't fucking follow your passion. Follow what you're good at. That was another tenant I picked up on your stuff, which is there's been peddlers of this passion

following for a bit on social media. It's gotten a little better. It was my biggest problem. Gary Vee's a friend. He'll follow your passion, man. He says that shit. And I'm like, I love you, Gary, but you don't follow your passion. You become passionate about what you're good at.

And when you're good at something, put that out there. Yeah. Yeah. I really love cookies, but nobody wants me to follow that passion into baking because it's not going to go well. There's a very big difference between being a consumer of something and a producer of something. I want to say like 2010 or something. There's this tool on Google called the Ngram, like the letter N. And if you type in a phrase, it shows basically how much that phrase has been Googled.

What it really is showing you is how much something's a part of culture. Because what we Google is what we're thinking as a collective. And it's the biggest search engine in the world. Next is YouTube. which is why I keep going on about authority there. It's just so big. When you type and follow your passion, it goes crazy. Like you see the bar very low in 1980s.

And then it goes up and by the time the millennium hits, it's like wildfire. So it's almost like somebody said it and then everybody repeated it and then people believed it, which is just how anything with culture kind of works. It's true. I love the way you frame it, though, which is around. Don't follow what you love. Follow or talk about what you know or what you are.