Or what happens when someone who shares your unique name comes along.
I never liked my surname, I mean, a leech is a blood sucker after all. At my wedding my aunt asked my now wife if she was taking my name. My wife being a success entrepreneur said no, she was keeping her name. My aunt replied, “Thank goodness, I couldn’t wait to get rid of that name.”
Mr Joe enters the building.
Leech also has strange meanings in other languages. Many years ago I was a teacher at language schools and my name was a real challenge for many students so I stopped being Mr Leech and became Mr Joe.
For many years, being an author and speaker you searched for Joe Leech and there were pages and pages all about me, it felt good to see my legacy across Google.
The key benefit of my name being Leech is that it was always unique. There were never any other Joe Leechs. Well that all changed in 2024.
People think I have been having an identity crisis.
I started to get weird emails about gut health. Very personal stories. Then I started getting requests to test supplements, promote other things gut health. This is weird I thought. Then early in 2024 people I knew kept asking about my diet videos, what?
It felt like it came from no-where, soon if you Googled me, well it was no longer me, it was someone else. Hello other Joe Leech.
Other Joe is way more popular than me, 22k followers on Instagram, similar on YouTube. His website must also be more popular than mine. His content is great by the way.
Then Google, noticed and he became a key person on influence and got a knowledge panel. I spoke to some SEO friends, short answer, I can’t compete because he is popular. It felt awful, I’d spent 20 years building a profile of content, videos. All gone when you searched for Joe Leech. Honestly I was crestfallen.
Hello Mr Joe Leech
So it’s time to embrace me, hello, I’m now officially Mr Joe Leech. Searching on Google it’s all me!
I’ve gone back and linked and tagged all that content, all those talks from the last 20 years, all linking to me. Hopefully if the great Google gods shine favourably a knowledge panel will appear.
So please, go search for Mr Joe Leech on Google. Help me to re-assert my identity.