Belief, Brand & the Brutal Truth | #82

By Armaan Athwal

Brand Indentity

This past weekend, I kept checking in on BPN’s Last Man Standing event. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a brutal endurance challenge: every hour, on the hour, you run a 4.2-mile loop until only one person remains.

Everyone else is disqualified. Little to no sleep. Just relentless movement. A true test of physical and mental limits.

But what I realized during this event was how powerful the BPN identity really is.

BPN (Bare Performance Nutrition) is technically a supplement company. But it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like a movement.

Their tagline “Go One More” isn’t just slapped on a bottle. It’s embedded in the DNA of everything they do, athletes pushing past failure, documentary-style content that highlights real struggle, and events like Last Man Standing that don’t just showcase performance but embody it.

It made me think about brand identity in a deeper way.

A company sells products. A brand sells meaning.

People don’t come to BPN just for the supplements. They come because they believe in something bigger—commitment, discipline, and the drive to push beyond their limits. BPN isn’t just a way to fuel performance, it’s a symbol of the mindset they’re building. That’s powerful. That’s rare. And it’s not fake. You can feel when a company is saying something to look inspiring versus when it is inspiring.

Patagonia does the same in a different lane. They sell jackets, sure. But the second you hear the name, you probably think of something bigger. Sustainability, environmental stewardship, and activism. They built that through decades of doing more than talking. Repairing clothes instead of replacing them. Suing the government over public land. Even giving away the company’s ownership to a trust that will funnel all profits into environmental causes. It’s a clothing company, but it’s also a mirror. When people wear Patagonia, they’re choosing to say, “I care.”

Another brand that has caught my attention is Notion. On the surface, it’s a workspace tool for notes, docs, databases, and etc. But what they’re really selling is clarity. Mental clarity, workflow clarity, even life clarity. Their aesthetic is calm, minimal, focused. Notion isn’t just helping people stay organized, it’s helping them feel like their brain has room to breathe.

So if you’re building something, whether it’s a traditional business or a personal brand on social media, this is worth thinking about. You’re not just sharing posts or selling products. You’re building a story people can attach themselves to. And if you want real connection, you can’t fake the narrative. You have to live it.

This is something I’ve been reflecting on personally. Going forward, I want to shape and share a clearer identity behind what I build, whether it’s through this newsletter or other projects. Not just “what” I make. But “why” it matters. And to who.

Because at the end of the day, it’s not just what you say or who you are. It’s what you stand for and what you show through what you do.

Quote of the Day

“Startups are painful, stressful and at times demoralizing. You need to be a true believer in the vision of what you are doing. You need to be passionate about it and love what you’re doing. If you don’t, there is no way you can sustain the hours, stress and disappointment. There’s no way you’re going to be able to convince investors, customers and most importantly recruit a world-class team if you not building something you think is going to change the world.” - Steve Blank