For the longest time, I didn’t know what to write about.
Design? Business? Marketing? Personal development?
I studied viral content. Analysed formats. Reverse-engineered carousels. Tried to find my niche like everyone told me to.
And for a while — it worked. Sort of.
The Accidental Viral
One post changed everything.
It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t strategised. It came from genuine irritation.
I was tired of seeing manipulative ad copy flooding Malaysian social media. Lines like:
“Sanggup ke hidup dengan muka berjerawat?” “Tak takut suami cari lain?”
Everyone felt the disgust. Nobody said it clearly.
So I did. In Malay. With my own illustration. Directly and without apology.
“Berhenti tulis ayat iklan yang menjentik emosi.”
The post went viral. Meta flagged it and blocked the ads feature on that post. Two clients landed in my DMs.
I wasn’t trying to go viral. I was just tired of something — and honest about it.
Then I Made The Classic Mistake
I tried to replicate it.
Same format. Same energy. Same approach.
It didn’t work.
Not because the content was bad. But because the pressure of posting consistently had quietly changed something. Content became a production line. I was posting because I had to — not because I had something to say.
The algorithm rewards consistency. But consistency without genuine observation produces content that looks the same but feels empty.
I was performing a voice instead of using one.
I See The Pattern Now
When I read content on Threads today — I notice something.
A lot of people are posting big ideas. Frameworks. Thought leadership. Positions on things.
And some of it is good. But some of it — I can see the source. The template underneath. The borrowed framework dressed up as personal insight.
It’s not that the content is fake. It’s that it doesn’t come from them.
I recognise it because I’ve been there.
The Shift
When I started focusing on personal branding — something clicked.
I realised I had been searching for a topic when I was already sitting on one.
I am the topic.
Fifty years of lived experience — just waiting to be published bit by bit.
Every family gathering has a business insight hiding in it. Every crisis I’ve witnessed has a UX lesson underneath. Every conversation at a surau AJK meeting, every client who couldn’t articulate what they really needed, every kaset I bought at pasar malam because the cover design stopped me —
All of it is material.
I don’t search for topics anymore. I just ask myself: which of the thousand things I’ve already observed is worth sharing today?
That’s a completely different relationship with content.
The Formula That Was Always There
Here’s what I’ve realised about how I think:
Everything connects. Problem. Solution. Anecdote. Hypothesis. Life experience.
I can trace a line from a surau renovation in my neighbourhood to a failed fintech product. From a fanzine I published in the 90s to a personal branding strategy in 2025. From a door gift brief that kept getting rejected to the fundamental principles of UX research.
The topics were never the problem. The permission to use my own life as the source material — that was what I was missing.
What This Means For You
If you’re stuck wondering what to write about — I want to challenge you with one question:
What have you been quietly observing for the last 10, 20, 30 years?
Not what you’ve studied. Not what you’re certified in. Not what your industry says you should talk about.
What have you lived?
That’s your content. That’s your niche. That’s the thing nobody else can replicate — because nobody else has lived your specific combination of experiences, failures, observations and recoveries.
The person who grew up in Felda and ended up writing to black metal bands in Norway and shooting fashion with AI at 50 — that person has a perspective that no content framework can manufacture.
So do you.
You are the topic. You just need to give yourself permission to say so.
P.S. At Majalah BIKIN, I write about human experience, UX, and business psychology — drawn from 30 years across airlines, banking, design, and the field. Read more and follow along.