I don’t know if like me, you have had for the most part of your life
neglected most if not everything around you. Living a life where you
always are in expectation of something better to happen tomorrow, to the
extent that you forget and fail to see the wonderful things and people,
God has so graciously gifted you with.
Personally I have spent a lot of time looking at “bigger and important” things and I failed for the most part to appreciate the beautiful gifts of life. Many of you reading this might attest to this; that we take for granted the family, friends, children, husbands, wives, colleagues, acquaintances, etc we have been privileged to have. We assume most of the time they know that we care about them and that God knows our hearts. This in itself is not wrong but it is not sufficient.
It is so easy to loose sight of the little things that God sends our way , just because we are so caught up in our expectations of perfection that we fail to see the though not perfect but important gift God has given us.
Dr Shawn Smith recently said something that got me thinking “everything and everyone in your life is a gift from God”
I realized how passive i had been towards the people, opportunities etc that have been presented to me; rather I spent more time, looking at what is not working.
When was the last time you said in faith and with all sincerity I love and appreciate you, to your wife, husband, children, friends, mother, father etc?
It may seem so small but I can tell you it makes all the difference, as a personal brand consultant, I will say it is one of the aspects that make your brand stand out. Hand written notes for example, this is one of the ways to add a personal touch or “you” to your communication. Your audience or loved one will connect to a word you write out yourself than an impersonal gift of flowers, jewellery etc chosen and sent by your secretary for example.
Like Dr Shawn said and i quoted in my last post “if you put your heart in what you are doing with your hands, your heart will do what your hands can’t do”
Let me tell you a story, true story; I have been wondering recently about someone so dear to me and how I was going to bridge the gap that had grown so wide between us because of neglect, but thanks to this consciousness, i sent a text message to that person in all sincerity appreciating them for the gift they are to me. Lo and behold before I knew it, a response of gratitude and appreciation as well came back.
This is not to say you must expect a response in return but gratitude for everything and everybody in your life will add more life to your years.
This is a little exercise we were given and I will also like to share it with you, take out time today and be thankful for everything in your life! EVERYTHING
Gratitude is our most appropriate response to the grace of God we have received!!!
Let me end by saying I am grateful you are reading this note and you are a part of my life!!!
Personally I have spent a lot of time looking at “bigger and important” things and I failed for the most part to appreciate the beautiful gifts of life. Many of you reading this might attest to this; that we take for granted the family, friends, children, husbands, wives, colleagues, acquaintances, etc we have been privileged to have. We assume most of the time they know that we care about them and that God knows our hearts. This in itself is not wrong but it is not sufficient.
It is so easy to loose sight of the little things that God sends our way , just because we are so caught up in our expectations of perfection that we fail to see the though not perfect but important gift God has given us.
Dr Shawn Smith recently said something that got me thinking “everything and everyone in your life is a gift from God”
I realized how passive i had been towards the people, opportunities etc that have been presented to me; rather I spent more time, looking at what is not working.
When was the last time you said in faith and with all sincerity I love and appreciate you, to your wife, husband, children, friends, mother, father etc?
It may seem so small but I can tell you it makes all the difference, as a personal brand consultant, I will say it is one of the aspects that make your brand stand out. Hand written notes for example, this is one of the ways to add a personal touch or “you” to your communication. Your audience or loved one will connect to a word you write out yourself than an impersonal gift of flowers, jewellery etc chosen and sent by your secretary for example.
Like Dr Shawn said and i quoted in my last post “if you put your heart in what you are doing with your hands, your heart will do what your hands can’t do”
Let me tell you a story, true story; I have been wondering recently about someone so dear to me and how I was going to bridge the gap that had grown so wide between us because of neglect, but thanks to this consciousness, i sent a text message to that person in all sincerity appreciating them for the gift they are to me. Lo and behold before I knew it, a response of gratitude and appreciation as well came back.
This is not to say you must expect a response in return but gratitude for everything and everybody in your life will add more life to your years.
This is a little exercise we were given and I will also like to share it with you, take out time today and be thankful for everything in your life! EVERYTHING
Gratitude is our most appropriate response to the grace of God we have received!!!
Let me end by saying I am grateful you are reading this note and you are a part of my life!!!
Consciously or unconsciously we all are brand addicts!!!
We live our lives daily depending on the services, brands we have grown to trust offer us.Whether you agree with this or not,there are services or products you have become dependent on and this for three principal reasons; authenticity, relevance and differentiation. Take me for example, there was a time when i was helpless without my blackberry phone. It had through the years become my most faithful and trusted companion.I evolved from curve to bold to torch etc and with each innovation I felt more comfortable with the brand. It was and still is, from my point of view, very practical,user friendly and fun etc. Any where any time and I am ready to deliver required services.prior to this I was less effective and inefficient.I no longer needed to be in my office to work.My blackberry phone permitted me to carry my office around. Now this is not to say other phones or gadgets aren't great (am using an SG tab at the moment lol). They are and i would recommend you stick to that which delivers and adds value to your service, but I got introduced to blackberry at a point where I was getting fed up with the pace at which I was going because I was confined to working in a given location.the fact that it could permit me get most of my work done while on the move all the time made it a relevant and indispensable tool for business. Many of you like me have brands you have become addicted to, not necessarily because of the beauty or buzz around the product or service, but because they are authentic, you can relate to them, they are relevant because they meet a need and they are different and unique in the service they offer. These three aspects; authenticity, relevance and differentiation are all qualities that make for a strong personal brand.
Personal branding contrary to some opinions is not self
aggrandizement based on false impressions;it is coming to terms with the
real and authentic you , which is usually the most time consuming and
important aspect of (discovering your personal brand in my opinion,) and
communicating this as your unique promise of value to your market
place. When this is achieved, you effortlessly become the brand everyone
can trust and one to identify with. Like Simon Sinek says it, people
end up buying why you do what you do and why is usually what makes you
relevant or unique.
Make no mistake, your brand is a constant expression of your unique promise of value, be it at home or in the office, in a supermarket or a barbers shop. You are either gaining trust or loosing it.
When next you set to doing something, remember you are either going to increase dependability like my blackberry phone or just be one of the millions in the crowd trying to survive.
We live our lives daily depending on the services, brands we have grown to trust offer us.Whether you agree with this or not,there are services or products you have become dependent on and this for three principal reasons; authenticity, relevance and differentiation. Take me for example, there was a time when i was helpless without my blackberry phone. It had through the years become my most faithful and trusted companion.I evolved from curve to bold to torch etc and with each innovation I felt more comfortable with the brand. It was and still is, from my point of view, very practical,user friendly and fun etc. Any where any time and I am ready to deliver required services.prior to this I was less effective and inefficient.I no longer needed to be in my office to work.My blackberry phone permitted me to carry my office around. Now this is not to say other phones or gadgets aren't great (am using an SG tab at the moment lol). They are and i would recommend you stick to that which delivers and adds value to your service, but I got introduced to blackberry at a point where I was getting fed up with the pace at which I was going because I was confined to working in a given location.the fact that it could permit me get most of my work done while on the move all the time made it a relevant and indispensable tool for business. Many of you like me have brands you have become addicted to, not necessarily because of the beauty or buzz around the product or service, but because they are authentic, you can relate to them, they are relevant because they meet a need and they are different and unique in the service they offer. These three aspects; authenticity, relevance and differentiation are all qualities that make for a strong personal brand.
Make no mistake, your brand is a constant expression of your unique promise of value, be it at home or in the office, in a supermarket or a barbers shop. You are either gaining trust or loosing it.
When next you set to doing something, remember you are either going to increase dependability like my blackberry phone or just be one of the millions in the crowd trying to survive.
Jan Koum is an American internet entrepreneur and computer engineer.
He is the CEO and co-founder with Brian Acton of WhatsApp, a mobile
messaging application which was acquired by Facebook Inc. in February
2014 for US$19 Billion.Koum was raised in Ukraine, immigrating in the early 1990s to the United States when he was a teenager. Living on welfare and food stamps, telephone calls back home to Ukraine proved to be a daunting expense.
In 1997, Jan Koum was hired by Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer, shortly after he met Brian Acton while working at Ernst & Young as a security tester.Over the next nine years, they worked at Yahoo. In September 2007 Koum and Acton left Yahoo and took a year off, traveling around South America and playing ultimate frisbee. Both applied, and failed, to work at Facebook. In January 2009, he bought an iPhone and realized that the then-seven-month-old App Store was about to spawn a whole new industry of apps. He visited his friend Alex Fishman and the two talked for hours about Koum’s idea for an app over tea at Fishman’s kitchen counter. Koum almost immediately chose the name WhatsApp because it sounded like “what’s up,” and a week later on his birthday, Feb. 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. Koum owns 45% of WhatsApp, according to Forbes. That means with the deal closed with Facebook (FB), his net worth was close to $7 billion.
What I find interesting in this story is the fact that years earlier Koum was like every other person, looking for a better paid job and even failed to get a job at Facebook, and later he sells an app to Facebook worth US$19 Billion! I don’t know what this does to you but to me, it is fulfilling to be an original not a copy!
You know,it is amazing how much the Chinese have popularized the culture of copying today! You can get anything you want, at the any rate. Interestingly we go for their copy most of the time with the pretext that they are affordable…don’t get me wrong, am not judging, just wondering how durable are they?
The same applies to us as individuals or as brands. We tend to go for the easy way out when it comes to our vision for our lives. We copy the things that have worked for others and apply to our lives, hoping they will last, but we get frustrated when we can't keep up as new ideas come up and rival the ones we ones thought were ideal.
When we dare to be an original we are in essence daring to be "ourselves" and everything that encompasses who we really are.
This will not be so easy in the beginning because it means putting ourselves on the line, subjecting ourselves to scrutiny, judgment, rejection like Koum and possible ridicule. It means exposure and vulnerability. I have had to remind myself of this truth time and time again, on those days when i looked at the progress and success of others and said to myself, why don't you just copy that? Certainly there is more comfort to be found in conformity, lying low, and blending in with the crowd but here is also boredom, complacency,frustration and the prospect of never living to your potential. I knew i cannot settle for less than who i really am and be happy, so i continued on the path of discovering what my unique promise of value is.
It takes courage and self-confidence to dare to be an original - to reveal your uniqueness and to show that you're one of a kind.
As Steve Jobs noted in his speech at a Stanford University graduation commencement:
"Your time is limited; so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
It takes Faith, courage, audacity, persistence, resilience, focus, investment, study, pursuit to be YOU.
Don't let a lack of self-confidence or self-doubt prevent you from pursuing what you know is best for you. Let go of your personal insecurities. If you strive to be someone you're not, you will never be happy. Be yourself. Be proud of who you are. People who have a more positive view of themselves live better, healthier lives. Life has a lot it expects of you, to live it trying to be anything other than your true, original self. Be who you are and celebrate your individuality and uniqueness.
Dare to be an original because You Matter!
Authenticity is a real bone of contention when it comes to finding your personal brand and marketing it
This for the most part due to the fact
that many still consider personal branding as unimportant or a facade.
This is not the case.
Personal branding is about finding your
true self, your values, passion, mission and with the skills and
knowledge you have acquired you are able to present your unique promise
of value to the world in a way that differentiates you from the rest.
The process of finding yourself can be
daunting,because of the so many influences awe are faced with at various
stages of our lives. Peer, family or environmental pressure can lead to
us settling for obvious, trending and comfortable choices. It takes a
desire and quest for something greater, different, meaningful to burst
this bubble called mediocrity and rise up above the ordinary or obvious.This desire when fueled can develop into a passion that can become a profession.
BUT, we need to find that passion.
Most of the time in the quest to be better and more
productive citizens, we hurriedly put ourselves out there with many
questions still unanswered. Its just a matter of time with one
challenge, and we are back to the drawing board but not without
consequences; we will be branded as fake or not trust worthy.It is
better to walk slowly and stay the course than to race fast and leave
the course.
I discovered in my ongoing journey of
finding myself that the surest and most secured way of coming across as
authentic is by discovering your passion and living it fully.
Passion is born when you catch a glimpse
of your true potential and worth. This entails looking on the
inside.Those who seek to know what they are passionate about by looking
outside always end up with another persons vision for them.
Passion is that quiet voice within that
calls out to you when you least expect and when you heed it, it swells
up and becomes a world of ideas that appear scary and unrealistic most of the time.
The exciting thing about passion is, you
are ever ready to do,irrespective of whether you get paid or recognised
for it. The satisfaction and joy of being able to serve a client or a
need suffices.
But this is what I love again about
passion, when you seek to understand and cultivate your passion, in the
long run, it becomes your profession.
I have always loved to help people become
self confident,and for several years I never hesitated to be of help or
contribute something, it gradually grew to become a lifestyle and at
some point I knew I want to do this for the rest of my life even if I
don't get paid for it.
What makes you unique is what makes you
different and when you bring that to the market place, clients will be
willing to pay anything. People don't buy what you sell, they buy why.
The why is your passion, values, mission.
A truly passionate person cannot hide and
cannot lie. Passion is like the fuel of the soul. It keeps bubbling and
the more you fuel it, the clearer it becomes, the more it attracts and
the more authentic you become.
Being authentic is not dependent on a set
of rules you follow to become, it is realising who you already are and
developing it into a clear and consistent mission statement, that can
inspire trust.
Being the best is good but being You-nique is better.
You are original, you are YOU don't die a copy.
Who am I? This is one of the most researched
question on planet earth. Every man is designed with an inner desire and
quest for acceptance, a sense of belonging. Many have taken on diverse
forms of identity as a response to this question.Discovering and defining who we really are has proven to be one of the most daunting challenge one can ever face in life. As we advance in life, everything we do consciously or unconsciously contribute to either discover who we are or define who we are in the eyes of others. We usually face difficulties in our workplaces, with our spouses, parents, children..., because we are yet to harmonize our being,so as to communicate an authentic message on who we are, why we are and what we stand for. What we mean when we say or do the things we say or do, most often than not is misinterpreted or misunderstood by the opposite party, and this gives birth to a response that creates an image of us, that might or might not be authentic. It can be very frustrating when your intentions don't translate accurately when implemented or executed,be it by word or action.
This is the frustration that many of us unfortunately face on a daily basis, in their different spheres of influence, in spite of the brilliant ideas we have or projects we are engaged in. In my research and study on personal branding and its importance, if there is a statement i came across several times and totally agree with is, people do not buy what you are doing per say but WHY you are doing what you are doing. The core values and authenticity of your brand story is what attracts clients to you.
I strongly believe and agree we all have personal brands and managing our personal brands is one of the few processes that bring us to a conscious realization and harmony between who we are on the inside (brand within) and how that translates in the way we come across to others (brand without).
We need to come to a realization of our true self, in so doing we can communicate clearly our persona through our product to the clientele.
I will like to share with you a summary of what I learnt during a life changing seminar by Dr Shawn Smith, a Dr in Theology and Divinity, titled theocentric psychology.
He is fond of saying , and i agree,if you can't quote others, no one is going to quote you in turn and so am quoting him!
In this seminar he said man is one individual with 4 selves. A spirit living in a body with. a soul and this soul perceives 4 selves:
1.The Public self
It is the you that God knows, that you know and you want everyone to know. The identity we perceive as us and when we are in public it is the part of us we show as the us we want everyone to see. Part of us that has been trained, educated, refined to act in a particular way in public.
2. The Private self
This is the you according to Dr Shawn Smith, that God knows and the you that you know but it is the you that nobody else knows. And you don't want anyone else to see. Irrespective of who we are, we have things about us, that no matter how much we love those around, we don't want them to see. We all have insecurities about ourselves, things we don't like about us. This is not the us, we show in public. It is the us, we are disappointed with, the self that is always doubting, afraid, refusing to believe. The part of us, we have not yet mastered. We all have skeletons in our closets and if we don't understand this we will not understand our weakness. When we know this, we will not expose ourselves to conditions that will cause us to compromise, we keep it private. The good news here is the more you grow and mature, the private self reduces and the public self increases.
3. The Unknown self
This is the you that God knows, that others know but you don't know. They are things about us that others will see and we will never see and no matter how much they tell us, we will never see. We are always blind to our unknown self. There are attitudes we have that we don't know. The root of all frustration in relationships is trying to inform someone about their unknown self. That is why we must always have someone in our lives with the authority to correct us.
4. The True Self
Dr Shawn Smith says it is the you that God knows, that you don't know, and no one else knows. The only way we can know this self, is through a relationship with the one who knows that self. Only God can introduce us to our true self. This self is to dominate the three first selves. The first three selves are all external as a result of determinisms; genetic, environmental, educational, cultural etc He concludes by saying the true self is an unveiling of your identity otherwise known as purpose or destiny. This self emerges following a threshing or sifting process. This may hurt but when it is done, we realize our priorities, core values, are realigned and the authentic brand story or mission stands clear and strong.
This journey of dicovering one s true self like I said earlier can be very daunting because it requires deligence, patience, dedication, discipine...it is my persuasion that though results are very important in the market place, intent (brand within) is of more importance if you are to be around for a long time and influence your market. It is the bedrock to discovering relevance and differentiation in our brands and products.
To know yourself (brand within) you need to know why of your existence.