The YOU brand, and its journey….

Same Old Brand New You (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Building a brand you is just a beginning of a long journey. Its so important to take stock of your personal brand time and again. And most of us seldom do that.

With a thorough insight of our own competency and skills circle, and added to that our formal degrees, work experience and other paraphernalia, each one of us must be able to articulate what our personal brand statement is!

Almost entire careers or work-lifes get squandered in the absence of a personal brand statement – and a personal brand statement just mens that you are sold to yourself. Only when you have been successful in selling to you, will you be able to sell to the outside world… the outside world would mean anything, just about anyone of your stakeholders – family members, client, employer, workplace, society and so on.

Another notion which we all cherish, wrongly but, is to think that our personal brand remains the way it is for the rest of our life. This is far from true.

In a world where even product or service brands re-position, re-jig, and re-invent them in appropriate phases of their life cycle, it will be foolish and rather suicidal to think that you can do with a static personal brand.

Whether your personal brand works or not at any point in time, is not just dependent on who you are and what you stand for, plus your competencies; it is, more importantly, how the brand is seen to be, by the end user – it can be the job market, employer, and strangely even a spouse. For your brand to win in the ‘marketplace’, the users have to feel the relevance of the brand and a need for the same. If it’s an employer or someone who has to invest capital in your personal brand, they need to see a value add by “brand you” to them.

So, as you can see, the brand you as seen by others can be so much different from what it really is. The essence will be to communicate and clearly articulate the value of your brand to the relevant stakeholders – by making the right noises – your brand communication.

As we see many times, choice of the personal brand which an employer makes is purely his perception of the brand. So, success in the employer market could depend immensely on reducing the gap between your brand in reality and the perception of your brand. Its all about effectively creating your brand speak. And communicating it at the right time, in the right place, in the right quantity.

The most important part of the brand you, is to make sure that you also must do a reality check of the brand. Is it relevant to what you aspire for? Are you honing yourself with the right competencies, soft skills, knowledge etc, to be in the race for mindspace (with your stakeholders)….

In todays times of upheaval in the global economies, which does not spare any nook and corner of the world, and any individual, the probability of your brand taking a beating or being battered over time is very high. It is times like these that dictate a re-jig of your personal brand.

The key ingredient of your brand, irrespective of how you reposition and re-invent is – the brand must have persistence, and stay afloat against all odds. The brand must keep going. The brand must possess and live a never say die attitude. The brand must stay relevant and must be at the right place. The brand must be a powerhouse of knowledge, and niche skills, which could be transferable across different industries, timezones, and geography.

Ensure that you evaluate the credentials of your personal brand, and see how it must be re-invented or if need be re-born, time and again

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Personal energies – where are you using them?

A red-hot iron object, transferring heat to the surrounding environment primarily through thermal radiation. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is commonly said that the human potential is unlimited, and we set our limits only as much we can imagine. And its so true – what we think is possible happens, come what may, and what we decide as impossible, in the mind, just does not happen. Not that this is a reflection of reality, but its our all powerful mind that has said so.

May be some of us have also mistook this fact about the power of the mind, and its ability to charter the unconquered.

Instead of imaging, dwelling and imagining what is important to us in the larger canvas and journey of life, we allow the mind to harp on a hundred unimportant, non-core-to-life, and even trivial things – so much that the energies and the power of the unique and mighty mind do not get channelized in a positive fashion, BUT worse, this powerful resource in us, gets drained and wasted, also draining us of our body energies.

This, knowingly or unknowingly we end up doing most of the time – to the extent that if we do a time inventory check, it will end up that we are ‘draining our mind’ most of the waken hours.

The best way to conserve energies of our mind is to make sure that we do not use it the completely wrong way – on negative thoughts, on trivia, on things that would not even matter few hours, few days and few months down the line.

This, each of us can do by conscious choice and practice and by self questioning our response to any stimuli, be it internal or external. And by making this daily practice, we can make ourself better persons, more focused on things that really matter.

Some of the questions which could be of help in making sure our most potent resource – mind energy – does not end up sapping us are –

1. Would this matter 20 minutes, 20 hours, 20 days and 20 months from now?
2. If i make a choice to respond more gracefully and positively to this situation, how would I be doing it?
3. Is my mind responding to the actual reality of the situation now, or to some imaginary, may not even happen later event?
4. Is the way I am reacting helping to get to a solution to any problem, or am I just aggravating things for the worse, for me, as well as for others?
5. Am I even focused on the right priority, or am I not spending my time in a better way, that I am being forced by boredom to attend to the trivia and unnecessary?
6. Is the way I respond the best thing to do, or would just ignoring it with a smile a more apt solution? I can always talk it over when the heat cools off!

These are just some indicative questions to yourself, and you can tweak it in a way that can be appropriate to what you chose to respond to, in your daily routine.

Ask such questions to yourself, as often as you can.

Conserving the most resourceful weapon you have – your mind – is easy this way.

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What are you speaking to YOU?

Cover of Positive Imaging

What are the dialogues you have to yourself? Are you aware of the conscious and subconscious internal dialogue that goes on in your mind all day and all night long, throughout this journey of life?

Make small incremental efforts by being aware of the dialogue, and then slowly controlling the kind and nature of dialogue within you! Once we become aware that there are constant dialogues within us “our precious mind”, then we also can easily ensure that these dialogues are harnessed to better our self in every way – on the personal, professional and social spheres!

Let these dialogues be powerful, making us better our personality, sending out better vibes in the place we are in, and solution finders rather than problem-brooders! Being happy, being positive, accomplishing things which we want to and just about any small or big endeavor in your life begins with the dialogue within you!

What is called ‘powerful positive imaging’ is nothing but holding a vivid image of what is desired within… and this image of the desired gets better and clearer – depending on how intense the dialogue within is!

Focusing on the dialogues within, in our minds, is one of the easiest steps to success and happiness in life.

What are the dialogues you have in YOU, right now? Let them be only about happiness, success and winning life, in your own terms!

Is the ‘porcupine’ calling you for a hug?

Line art drawing of porcupine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How does this analogy sound? Sick, for sure.

Just think of this, and you get that eerie feeling in you. And with just that feeling or visualization, seldom would you want to do this deed.

But wait. Are’nt you doing this just about everyday!

Uh, what you may be propelled to ask.

Step back, and look at your day – how many times does someone’s errand behavior set you also into an errand behavior? Once a day, twice, or in some cases even once an hour!

We all just wait for someone to set the porcupine into motion, and at the sight of that, go hug that animal in no time.

And what happens in this game is your day is gone, and your sanity for the hour or day is gone as well.

An hour or day that ought to have been spent in some good act or positive thought is wasted in hugging a porcupine and getting all the shit on you – all this in your own volition.

Think and think… who was your porcupine? and why did that porcupine set the agenda for you?

So, let someone be intent on being a porcupine and inviting you for that muddy hug.

You ignore that, and be yourself, and do things as per your plan and agenda.

So, are there any porcupines around now? Watch out! 🙂

What if you are a mind tattoo artist?

Norman Vincent Peale, Christian preacher and author of The Power of Positive Thinking (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

All of us keep seeing body tattoos on the youth icons of the day, and also many youngsters seeking to convey a message or even trivia….  Body tattoos are in vogue and indeed a fashion statement all over the globe… But what we tattoo on any part of the body for others to see is not as important as what we tattoo in our minds….  And positive, successful, energetic mind tattoos are a must to attain success…

The story goes, as I read somewhere,  that Dr Norman Vincent Peale was walking by a tattoo shop when a confused looking young man came out of the shop with a tattoo in his right arm that read “Born to Lose”. Dr Peale asked the tattoo artist about it and the tattoo artist replied…. “ I did ask the young man if he was sure that he wanted to state “Born to lose” in his arm and the young man was pretty stubborn in that. A surprised Dr Peale asked the tattoo artist – “Is’nt that surprising?” For which the artiste replied “Not really! Much before he tattooed it on his arm, he has firmly tattooed it in his brain, and his body tattoo act is just a reflection of his mind tattoo”.

That brings us to our topic, the power of mind tattoos’. Every single act of us, big or small, positive or negative, winning or losing, good acts and deeds or otherwise are a sheer reflection of the cluster of small and big thought tattoos we keep etching in our mind, be it consciously or unconsciously,  And this mind tattooing process is the most powerful in determining what the outcome is in reality.

So, it should be our conscious and subconscious endeavor to keep tattooing our mind with thoughts that are ONLY about winning, what we want be, want to reach, want to achieve, that perfect day as desired,  and about that ideal job/career and all that wealth that we would want to accrue in our lives….. ALL THAT IS SOUGHT BY US FOR A GREAT LIFE.

Call this positive mind tattooing…. And our effort here MUST BE to continuously and consciously strive to tattoo our mind, ONLY all that is desired in reality…. And what else do all of us desire than the very best in all walks of life…  Let us tattoo these desires in mind in as much positive detail as we can….   With the smell of victory, with love and affection for the near and dear ones, for winning at the work place, and for recreating the hearts’ desires to the mind… and creating an ideal life in our own terms…..

While doing this positive mind tattooing, it is quite but natural that in the mood swings we have, there will be situations when negatives get tattooed in the mind too…  The easiest way to persist on our terms of life is to quickly erase this negative mind tattoo with a more and say bigger positive mind tattoo. And when we perceive the negative tattoo is close to affecting our success/life agenda, we have to be ruthless and aggressive is working on creating positive mind tattoos, only resting when we are thoroughly convinced that the positive tattoo has erased and prevailed over the negative.

All of us are born to ONLY win, and none of us are here to lose in Life.  If anyone of us is losing it is because we are etching our mind with unnatural negative tattoos, rather than etching it with positive tattoos, which are natural, easy and a part of the flow of life…..

Now on, be a consistent positive mind tattoo artist… not only for you but do that bit of positive mind tattooing on all those around us…  Inside each one of all us, there is a spectacular positive mind tattoo artist…..

Pilot, can you crash on that mountain?

English: Managing emotions – Identifying feelings (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How stupid does it sound when you hear something like this…. Imagine you are piloting an aircraft at 20000 feet, and someone in the crew comes and tells you something as stupid and outrageous as this…. would you ever, even in your wildest dreams be willing to do something like that…  be wantonly willing to crash YOUR aircraft by deliberately hitting it on an obstruction, be it big or small!

Now, hold, and shift to your personal front…  Is’nt that what you precisely do, when you get angry, agitated for whatever is happening to you as an event, externally? Call it anger or any similar emotion, NEGATIVE and sapping your personal energies – when you knowingly or unknowingly nurture such emotions, what you do is precisely this – YOU are crashing YOUR personal life aircraft on that hill or mountain, willfully.

Look at the journey of life, as a flight to a destination. Piloting the flight is such a joyous and indeed easy to do thing, if you make sure that the course is smooth, and the aircraft stays away from any hindrances. The analogy to hindrances in life are negative and energy sapping emotions. When there are perceived obstructions are disturbances in the flight path, the best thing and easiest thing to do is to shift course, avoid the hindrance, and then come back to the normal path.

No good pilot knowingly keeps going on into chaos and obstructions when such situations are encountered. More so, the moment the pilot sees something like that, he immediately shifts course to make sure that come what may, the journey is smooth for the flight.

Use the same analogy on your personal front – every time, you are in a situation that you think makes you turn into a negative state of mind, immediately visualize your life as a wonderful flight, which you are carefully piloting.  The more you persist with the negative emotions, the more you are jeopardizing your LIFE, knowing well the consequences – the chance that the flight (LIFE) stays on a air pocket, or goes straight to crash on that mountain??!! (even crashing life, with all the health related consequences too!)

As a good life pilot, make sure your path is smooth, and when there is a disturbance in the path, you steer to smooth road at once. Visualize this situation whenever you see that things are getting out of your hand – the reasons can be whatever – internal, external, or trivial!

Whatever be the case, as a LIFE pilot, would you want your aircraft to hit that mountain?

No one would want to! Life is to celebrate, in a joyous flight path!

Which bus do you take today? Make a choice!

English: Choice Travel 31 (N31EVT), a rare Mercedes-Benz OH1416 single-decker with Wright Urbanranger bodywork, at Wolverhampton in August 2003, shortly before being withdrawn and sold. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here’s a great new day. Be thankful that this day is special to you, and indeed unique to you.

Not many have been blessed with such a great day. Some passed on yesterday, some will today, and many will tomorrow.

But, YOU are here as you are special – the Universe has chosen to bestow on you this special day for a purpose.

So, there is a known or unknown purpose for today, and you ought to begin the journey.

There are two buses parked in front your home

• one filled with joy and happiness, which will make sure that whatever you to, happiness and joy will be with you – doings or accomplishments seldom matter in that bus. But you be rest assured that there will be loads of contentment in THIS bus.
• second is filled with stress, grouchiness, shreds of perfection and percieved biases and people thrusting their high platform opinions on what is right, what must be done, what style you must adopt, and so on. In a nutshell, this is a bus that is going to sap and drain your vitality, irrespective of what you do, how well you to and what you gain and lose.

Now, which of these buses do you want to get into to begin your day?

Is’nt the FIRST bus – that of happiness and joy, come what may the obvious choice?

In life how much of time do we chose the obvious and stay joyful?

Un-complicate life, let us…..

Someone heaps anger on you? Bless.

This is commonplace, be it home or work…   someone, for whatever reason heaps anger on you…  day in and day out, or intermittently.. for a reason or no reason…

Immediately on that, you want to react, as there is a good enough provocation…  the day which you visioned spins out of control. throwing every single plan and thought to a tizzy!

Is that what happens to you as well, and as you read this you think this post was written for you? 🙂

May be or may be not.

Yet, the point is – how do you respond to a provocation?

The simplest thing is to ignore the person and look at the content which is relevant to work or personal life. Remove everything else from the core message if there is any. And possibly, also ignore for a moment the person and her style.

You will immediately see that the reason almost comes down to half.  And also see that there is no reason at all to get you mood in a spin…

Next, and this is the best part – bless the place literally, the situation, and the person.

Just say quietly to yourself – I bless this place, person and situation, and pray to God to do the same.

Magic happens and your anger vanishes…

So, will you try this magic?

 

 

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