How to become the most interesting person in the room.
Emma Grede shared yet another viral TikTok clip a few weeks ago, and naturally, the online world hasn't stopped dissecting her message.
*"I'm working on building my personal brand." Said no man ever.*
She went on to say how she never built a personal brand herself, that there was no strategy. She built businesses, built a career, did the work, and because she did the actual doing, the personal brand naturally followed.
Her ending quote was:
*"Stop worrying about being the most interesting woman on the internet. Focus on becoming the most interesting woman in the room. Do something. BUILD something. Get really bloody good at it."*
As the co-founder of Skims and Good American, you can't disagree that she did indeed get really bloody good at her thing. Yet many did disagree with the rest of the sentiment. Especially given the personal-brand frenzy that seems to have hit business people in 2026.
But I don't think it's a simple black or white answer.
A big part of my work is making brands interesting, with my self-assigned slogan of "saving the world from boring brands". I work with incredible founders who have no doubt build something incredible, and gotten really good at their respective fields. Of course, especially since working with me, they have a very interesting business. But does 'doing the thing' automatically make them an interesting person? Is becoming an expert in their subject all that's required for an interesting personal brand? I think not.
I agree with almost every word Emma Grede said.
You can't be interesting about nothing. If you haven't done anything, you don't have anything to say, and no amount of pretty carousel templates can hide the actual words having empty meaning.
But equally, doing the thing doesn't instantly make you interesting.
Plenty of people have built something, worked hard at it for years, got really bloody good at it, and are still someone you might not prioritise speaking to at a networking event. Doing the thing might give you the credibility Emma alludes to, but it doesn't guarantee anyone wants to listen.
So what's the other half?
Taking Emma's words literally, I've been reflecting on what does actually make someone the most interesting person in the room. Who is it that I would actually try to get a conversation in with at an event, in the hope that they'd spare me a few minutes of their time.
And in my experience, those people who'd make the cut are doing at least one of three things.
1. They make it easy for anyone to join in
The approachable expert.
They're clearly incredible at their chosen topic of expertise, but they have honed their communication skills in a way where they can bring people into their thinking. People can follow along with their deep dives or posts, and understand what they're saying without having the same knowledge themselves. Nobody is made to feel stupid for chipping in, so everybody does, and the person who started it becomes the centre of the conversation without trying.
CatGPT (@askcatgpt on IG) does this excellently with AI. It's a subject so many people are interested in or want to know more about, but almost nobody feels qualified to talk about it other than (stereotypically) 'geeky' men that explain it in a way you need to have an equal IT degree to understand. Cat has built an audience of nearly a million on Instagram by being one of the few people who break it down in a way more people can actually understand. There's plenty of people talking about AI who wouldn't be described as interesting, but she is because she effortlessly brings you into the conversation.
Shameless (my fave podcast) has the same result. Zara McDonald and Michelle Andrews started in 2017 with a podcast centred around the topic line "for smart people who love dumb stuff". Their subject matter of choice is pop culture. Which is again something that a lot of people (stereotypically "dumb" girls in their twenties) already talk about, but Zara and Michelle instead eloquently bring you into their conversation. They go deeper into news stories and bring you on the journey of properly reflecting on cultural events. Taking an accessible subject many would refer to as boring or unintelligent, and making it borderline intellectual. Now with more than 100 million podcast downloads, they're a definite example of being really bloody good at their expertise area.
2. They care so much that you can't help asking questions
Simply having passion.
You don't need an accessible subject with a wide audience (like AI or pop culture) to be interesting. You can easily be interesting to someone who doesn't care about your subject at all. Providing you're really clear on your view and confident in it, people will want to get involved because of the passion you show for it.
Francis Bourgeois is my favourite proof of this. He started posting trainspotting videos to TikTok in 2020, and his reaction to a passing freight train went viral because of how joyful and passionate he was about it. I personally don't care about trains, and I couldn't name a single model or make. But you can bet I watched his videos, because I loved how much he cared. Naturally, so did a few million other people, and by January 2022 he was starring in the Gucci x The North Face campaign. I'm fairly certain none of Gucci's client base was into trains, but they were still into Francis. They found his passion interesting.
3. They build a way to share their taste
If you're trying to be interesting for a purpose, say to aid your personal brand or business, then building a next step after gathering an interest is a must.
What are you actually giving the people you're talking to? How do they get a bit of your experience, your insight, your taste, without having to be you?
Dua Lipa launched Service95 in 2022, which started as a newsletter, a podcast then eventually a book club, named after the year she was born and the idea of being "of service" to the people around her. This is a perfect way to bring people into her world and her taste. You (sadly) cannot have Dua Lipa's life (or her husband, Callum Turner). But you can get slightly closer to her world by reading the book she picked this month for you. You can emulate part of what makes her interesting.
Reese Witherspoon did the same thing but with a clearer business angle behind it. She founded her own production studio, Hello Sunshine, in 2016, after 25 years in Hollywood doing the thing. Her studio was born from her clear view that the film industry wasn't developing good roles for women, despite there being plenty of books with good female characters. So Reese's Book Club launched in 2017 as a way of finding out which stories readers loved before spending the money to adapt them. Again, you could emulate part of Reese's taste by reading her recommended book of the month. And Reese could then use that data to turn the best performing books into films (like she did with 'Little Fires Everywhere' and 'Where the Crawdads Sing'). In 2021 Hello Sunshine sold for around $900 million, so an excellent example of someone becoming very good at their thing, then using the personal brand off the back of that to share their taste as part of a very profitable business.
Experience gets you in the room, but it doesn't make you interesting once you're there.
To do any of these three things, you first need confidence in your subject. You can't explain something simply or passionately if you don't thoroughly understand it yourself. And you definitely can't build the next step without that knowledge either.
That confidence and insight come from experience, and so I absolutely agree with Emma that you need to start by doing the thing.
But being inclusive, passionate, and able to build a world people can step into off the back of that experience are skills too. They don't arrive automatically with your tenth year in industry, and plenty of people have the experience but never learn them. Which is why so many credible people are so easy to overlook and scroll past.
So Emma's right. Build something, and get really bloody good at it.
But then you still need to work out how to make the rest of the room care. Especially if you want to be the person that others make the beeline too.
