By now you’ve probably amazed yourself with your ability to stick to your resolutions! LOL.
Don’t worry. Now is NOT the right time to assess how 2010 is going – or how you’re doing. The only thing to judge during week two of the year is this:
Do you have a clear, crisp, compelling focus for your personal brand in 2010 – and are you planning to relentlessly pursue your goals?
Have you taken THE PLEDGE?
Before your brain hears the refrain of anyone else’s plans, commands or demands: pledge allegiance to yourself, every morning.
That’s all you need to deserve a celebration, every day. Celebrate that you have vowed to overcome any obstacle. Take pride and joy, you’ve joined an elite corps of people living on purpose. Everyday, take the pledge to honor yourself, your goals, and your sense of purpose. With this ritual, you earn the badge of personal branding, and the cascade of success and happiness that comes when you decide how to live your life to its peak.
Intention + Affirmation + Determination = Celebration
What’s the point of personal branding? It’s to be widely known, appreciated and paid for the talent, quality, service or accomplishment you decide is authentically who you are and what you want to do.
Before you become famous, you’d better decide who you are. Otherwise, you’re going to be known for what other people think of you – and what they want from you.
There’s an old expression that uses the word “famous” in a way that applies to all of us. The host at a party would use the term, when you were being introduced to a stranger. In hopes of quickly helping the two of you find something to chat about, the host would announce something like, “You’ll be interested to learn that Ellie is famous for her chocolate chip cookies!” Wow. Ellie is writing a novel based on her travels to Sri Lanka and seeking a publisher. But now – because someone else decided what is interesting about her – she is about to spend a precious half-hour with a new contact, answering questions about semi-sweet versus milk chocolate chips, and how long to cream butter and sugar before sifting in flour.
What worse: because you never get a second chance to make a first impression, she will be known forever as the chocolate chip cookie lady. She could be standing face to face with the executive publisher of Pegasus Media World, and completely miss the biggest opportunity she’d ever have to be a published author. Plus, the publisher misses out on a best-selling author.
What are YOU missing, if you fail to hone and convey a crisp, clear and compelling message of how you would like to be introduced, known and celebrated? You risk being famous for something that OTHER people like about you or want from you. That could be staying in your position as an assistant, when you really are ready to be a director. Being seen as a new college graduate looking for work, rather than a chef deciding on how to best channel your culinary prowess.
What are you famous for now? When others talk about you or think about you, is it for what you want known about you? Have you known some people for quite a while – and they don’t know what you want to do, where you want to go, and what opportunities you are looking for?
That’s where the pledge is your greatest asset in creating the life you want. You train your brain to not let a minute go by without helping you find the right opportunities, and stay on your path – no matter what distractions there are. Without conscious effort, you won’t let anything come between you and what you visualize as the big juicy prize. You see yourself taking the victory lap with a stadium full of screaming fans who can’t believe their good fortune. They’re celebrating your success. They got to pay you to do what you most want to do in the world.
Before you shut your eyes tonight, crisp up an ideal image of what your personal brand is – what you are doing that you want to do more of, or want to do that will actualize the ideal you. Then, wake up in the morning and take the pledge. Put it up on your bulletin board.
Tweet it to people who need to know: this is your year and it can be theirs, too! THE PLEDGE:
This is my year.
I’m fighting for it.
Fighting to keep the big, juicy prize in mind so it lands in my hands by the end of this year.
Fighting to see and stay on the road, high or low.
No stopping for distractions, no matter how attractive.
I have no respect for roadblocks: inadvertently or purposely cast in my path.
I’m fighting to obliterate my own inclination to please, appease or do anything less than seize the day; every day this year.
I’m exploding with energy, but conserving it, too.
I vow to plow through walls that surround me and beat anything that threatens to defeat me.
I own my ideas, my process, my results and my truth.
I own the rights. I own the turf. I own this fight, from round one.
I will make it to the big dance with a performance that’s bigger than a personal best.
I will cross the line in record time, with a valedictory lap on the track, flashing the victory sign.
This is my year.
I’m fighting for it!
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You might say: “Our clients consistently report we improve their performance in these three ways. One: peace of mind – they know they have a back up of their data offsite. Two: cost-sharing – they get the benefit of gang-run, because we batch them with others and give them the discount. Three: communication – a trained, live, employee is always just a phone call away.”
You might say: ‘We have five success stories in your industry. They range from one-person consulting firms to a multi-national with 12,000 employees. Where do you think you fit on that spectrum?”
You might say: “As a communications consultant I can tell you the seven reasons why people buy. If you like, I’ll use your company’s products to illuminate those.”
You might say: “We have a ten point plan to optimize your presence on the web. Would you to like look at that map and see where you might be missing out on some key success factors?”
Like big product brands, your brand identity must be clear, crisp and compelling – and YOU need to be relentlessly advocating for it.
I’m laying here injured. The worst of it isn’t the aches and pains. The real crime is that I did it myself.
So, once you have framed your personal brand (no small feat), your next step is to relentlessly deliver a clear, consistent and compelling message. Every communication tells people what you do – and describes how you benefit the people who know you and work with you.
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