What have your tatooed your mind with?!

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…..  

Brand YOU... the journey!!

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

Conserve your "personal" energies!

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.

Great life to you! Everyday, in this wonderful journey!!

The river that is life!

As a nation, or as a culture, do we all think it's taboo to seek help to get ahead in this wonderful journey called LIFE?! I would think so.

It’s also a mindset that a happy life is one without any challenges and problems! Day in & out, almost all of us are in search of that that elusive state, where life is devoid of any problems, challenges, and adversities…

Now for an analogy if it helps...The river which finds is birth in some mountain top flows, meandering through every form of land – a peak and a valley, a hill or a fall etc – and changes courses naturally with one goal – to gather more strength and power as it finds it way – rather makes it way to the mighty ocean…. all along its path, it keeps adding immense utility value for the folks who come to its touch-points!

How stale and uninteresting would it be if the river was born atop a mountain, and from there, it came in as one ‘straight line’ to the coast, to quietly get itself into the ocean? Leave alone how it would be, the fact remains that such a river will never ever come into existence!

Reason – it is completely out of nature’s way to have such a straight, and what you would think as problem-less river to ever come into existence. Its elusive. Its unreal. It can be only in fiction!

So are our lives and the wonderful journey we make in this world! A Life, sans any adversity and challenge, climb and pitfall, joy and sorrow, with all of it in a judicious mix is just not Life. Its against the universal laws of nature to be so.

Thats why this is such a wonderful journey, and all we need to do is to live it to the fullest, taking all challenges head-on, getting into our personal quality armor tonnes of life lessons, and getting better by the day, by the hour.

That way, it is certain that our lives will be full of “LIFE”.

Accept this truth in this wonderful journey of Life… and move ahead... lets the best come by your way!

Whats your ME brand speak?!

One of the earlier posts here was about what you speak to yourself! This post is on the same lines... about what I call your brand speak!

Think about this… what is that you want to be, want to achieve, or have achieved, and how much of the 'same language' does the brand you speak? If the answer if 'not as much', as what is the intended reality, then, there is lot of work to do on your ME brand-speak!

What’s the ME brand?

Each of our ME brands are work in progress - a sort of focused, continuous & RIGHT self-speak efforts, which communicate our thoughts through our brand ME. What we are seen as is what we communicate through our ME brand-speak.

Brand ME also makes sure that you communicate your position sans any ambiguity in the professional marketplace, and equally so, on the personal front – as a spouse, as a parent and as a socially responsible person.

To throw a little illustration, if you want you/your ME brand to be seen in as a successful professional in your space, then your walk and talk ought to be in sync with all that is needed to be so – both the hardware: the efforts needed, the knowledge & skills you ought to possess, and most of all the power to execute – you will carry all this and more to be seen and also be recognized as a successful or to-be-successful professional.

And the ME brand-speak shall be seen as the ‘software’ - that makes your hardware to be seen by all those in the relevant marketplace – be it the place of work, or home, or the social ecosystem.

Your ME brand speak will talk the entire walk you can do, amply well, and sort of loud and clear in the marketplace. Loud and clear does never mean being brash about what you are made off, but is being unambiguously clear about what would make you stand out and be different out there – be it in the kind of work you do, or the sales you can achieve, or the knowledge/core competence you will bring to the table in any place.

The ME brand speak would apply equally to any work and personal situation – you need to talk the walk you do and want to do as a parent, a child, a associate in any event and so on – this can be in any place, in any time and in any situation.

The ME brand speak is also so important and crucial in bridging the gap between perception and reality, more from the extent of the value you add in any given place. I am sure most of us agree that we did not get that deal, or get that hike or promotion or anything measurable and tangible just because it was not communicated or packaged in sync with what was delivered or done in reality.

The more you think of what you keep telling everyone or what all those around you see, is more of what your ME brand-speak is. Whether this is in sync with what you as an individual are or what your true capabilities are, is more a function of your ME brand speak, that any other factor.

Its’ worth so much to gather your thoughts together to create your own ‘ME brand speak now’. It’s also a wonderful exercise to introspect all your facets of life, and create an appropriate ME brand-speak, that reflects you in the right perspective to all those in the marketplace.

So, what’s your ME brand-speak? Are you packaging you as much what your true capabilities and qualities are? Do it now, for a better & greater LIFE…..

What do you speak to yourself?

Does it sound weird, that I am asking you this question? Not really.

Speaking to yourself here means the sustained dialog you have with your sub-conscious mind. And this dialog constantly happens whether you are aware or not, and also whether you control it or not!

Over years, it is this constant dialog that creates what we all call a 'mindset'! You must be completely aware that the person creating your 'mindset' is none else than YOU! And this is done by the way you speak and affirm to yourself over days, months and years, ever since you came into existence in this world; and ever since you started to have independent thoughts.

Yes, to some extent the environment et al do affect the conditioning of your mind, but YOU can decisively influence your 'mindset' by what I would call your 'mind-speak'.

Just notice now, what you are telling your mind? Are you saying that you are a confident and knowledgeable person, who can handle any situation if life, and take up the journey as a fun-trip, or are you saying to yourself that your life is drudgery and only you are constantly battered by so much of problems?

Both of them are right, and the one you chose to think and speak to you constantly, turns out to be your mindset, which in turn invites all the related events and outcomes if your life.

Constantly tell yourself that you are a miserable soul, and what else can you see happen to you in life, other than loads of misery.

Tell yourself that you will break the back of all your problems and turn them into advantages and victories, and that will essentially happen in your life.

So, this minute on, watch your mind speak - the sustained dialog you have within you - make sure that you give positive affirmations and self elevating metaphors.

Yes, there will be moments in which you, in the burden of the situation, will be forced to do some negative mind-speak - the goal must be to be immediately aware of this flow of thoughts, and replace it by self affirming, positive thoughts and mind-speak.

Once you get this in practice, it will be a part of your natural flow and personality.

It is your mind-speak that determines what happens to you and in your journey of life. And that, when it is powerfully positive can beat any of the challenges posed by what we all fancy to be the 'external environment'.

Please watch your mind-speak, now. And always.

Ensure that they shape your life and destiny in the way you chose it to be.

Are you cleaning copper? Polish your gold instead!

On how many occasions in the recent past, did you brood on what skills you did not have, and why you could not make it big? ‘Big’ - not by your own standards, but by the standards of what you perceive as ‘the world’!

This piece is to emphasize the fact that there can be nothing more suicidal to your personality and life; there is no bigger waste of time than just thinking of all the weaknesses in you, and wonder what has gone right or wrong in life’s journey!

Most of us are trained and taught to work on our weaknesses, day in and day out, and overcome them come what may!

Today, I would want to leave a contrarian thought in you – and I can assure you that it will work well for you

Ignore and belittle your inherent weaknesses, and spend all the time and resources in honing your inherent strengths… you will do a lot of good to you, your life, and work…

Many contemporary life & leadership lessons speak of the need to do what you are good at… Decisively identify your strengths and do something which is pretty close to your core competence. What else can be core competence other than you natural strengths? The strengths which sort of flow with you in life, and with which you don’t have to undergo the so called drudgery of ‘work’.

Visualize this – spend a few minutes and do this - You have a handful of a mix of shining gold coins, and some rusted old copper coins… Would it be good to just ignore the rusty dusty copper coins and just put all your time and energy into how well you can exploit and make good of the shining gold coins on hand…. Or would it be good to waste your time and energy on cleaning/making the rusty copper coins into Gold coins? You will be wasting that much time because whatever you do, the Copper can never ever turn to Gold…. On the other hand, you can make the best use of the Gold coins…hone and polish them, and take them to the market place and show your worth and mettle to the world

This, is the cardinal rule in managing time – put time to its best use here and now…. So, your time is not going to be best used by cleaning the rust and dust of the copper in you…… Just do not give any importance to the copper in you (weaknesses) and hone your gold (strengths) now and always…

We all have heard enough of why and how we should somehow work on converting our weaknesses into strengths. Believe me, if you have ever worked on any of your weaknesses for some considerable time, you will testify to the fact that it takes a lot of time…. with disproportionately small or miniscule result. Just look back in life and see how many weaknesses you have managed to convert into strengths and you will get what I mean here!

It is wishful thinking that we can completely overcome our weaknesses and even convert that into strengths. With that, we expend so much energy… almost make you feel that you are losing it and making you frustrated with yourself, and the the so called weakness in you. The only end result is that you have lost precious time and energy….

Precious resources that should have been used in focusing on the positives with us and getting to the point of perfection….

Your goal and intent must be – only focus more and more on the positives.. Make the best out of the inherent strengths you possess and shine your ware in the market-place of the world.

Many business leaders have opined that working on weaknesses is not a great personal growth strategy….More can be achieved by getting more time and focus into what you are good at….

Mediocre to Good is a journey of high improbability. Gold to Diamond, if you can see is a more successful endeavor.

So, pick up three to five things you are good at and work hard and toil to make them great personal offerings! See the difference it makes in your life…. And you will enjoy the journey of life more…..

Power to brand YOU.

1. Have a vision for yourself. Articulate it well. The more clarity you get in this articulation – put it in writing and revisit/rework in it time and again – the easier it is to position BRAND YOU.
2. Create your ME brand-speak – how do you wish others speak about you/see you/perceive you. Check with your close friends how you are perceived – it will help you position the YOU brand powerfully.
3. Make BRAND YOU Vision boards – this is a powerful tool – vision boards that help you get to where you want – in most cases vision/imagination translates to reality. What does BRAND YOU stand for, and what are the offerings, competencies. Let all this be in your vision board. This will make sure that BRAND YOU eventually gets powerful!
4. Keep a goal book and iterate it again and again. Put your goals in present tense, and feel the sense of accomplishment, right now. These goals can be personal, professional, social and so on. Goals are not necessarily measured in money – and many a times, you would see that by accomplishing something else, money will flow in naturally.
5. Discover your natural ‘flow’. Flow is something that will use your strengths, make you be at your best always, without you feeling the heat and stress of slogging. When you do something you enjoy, ‘natural flow’ sans any effort does happen. You have to discover your flow understanding yourself well. And no one else can do it for you – off course your family, friends, colleagues can help you spot your ‘flow’ – the success of BRAND YOU depends so much on knowing your ‘flow’
6. Work on a time-bound IDP (Individual development plan). All of us are ‘work in progress’ and discover more of us as we live life fully. Drawing an ICP creates a great sense of self discipline – in figuring out where we are, and where we would want to be, on the basis of our strengths. It helps us build new qualities, which make us better BRAND YOU.
7. Image your BRAND ‘outcome’ personality – this is a time tested technique, with many authors dedicating books on how to image a better ‘BRAND YOU’. Imaging is pretty simple – visualize the BRAND YOU, and feel that you are that in this moment – behave as if you are already there – use all your energy to do this with sincerity, passion and commitment. Most of what you image turns out to reality sooner that you want.
8. Play only to your own rules – this is to say that your goals shall be by your standards, and not by comparing you with others. That never works, and added to that leads to energy leaks. Focusing on things besides YOU, you are wasting your time and energy, only to get you to a less resourceful state. Why do that? Every living minute, you must spend only in a manner that will better the BRAND YOU – it’s your life.
9. Attitude determines your altitude. There will be when things come to a naught, things don’t work as you wished – worst thing to do when such things do happen, is to move to the negative resourceful state. Blaming you, others, the environment, the recession and what not. When things do not seem to be their best, take a break from what you do. Loosen up. Relax. That state of being will throw up new features of the BRAND YOU, which you can use to promote, reposition, or even re-launch YOU. All this will happen when you carry the best of good spirits, great humor and a sense of balance. Stay alive and stay positive. Be a positive outcome addict – there is great power in being a positive outcome addict. Always wear that attitude to YOUR brand.
10. Be your own success coach – you will come across endless volumes of success literature, which no doubt will serve as tools of inspiration. And some of that mentioned by success coaches will be useful if you can practice. But there is a caveat: YOU are unique, and you alone are the author of BRAND YOU. Only you will know what needs to be done, worked on, corrected, promoted better, and played down in the YOU product. So, use all the coaching tools that you can lay hands on: You are the powerful river, and you know your strengths. Decide how to course through the highs and lows, with the objective of getting to your own magical ocean of accomplishment and satisfaction.
11. Play to the best of your strengths: It’s now become fad for coaches to suggest, work on your weaknesses. That would be to squander away opportunities of a lifetime, only to brood on a couple of qualities which are in us. And there is enough research to show that in most occasions, you don’t fully overcome some weaknesses. So, why waste useful energy, time and resources on weaknesses – instead, it would be a great thing to work and hone your strengths, see what best use the strengths can be put to use to create our own victories in life.
12. The power of discipline and persistence: If there are 2 great qualities that will make the difference between what you could have been and what you are – it’s discipline and persistence. Great careers in any walk of life have been brought to a halt, killed in infancy by the lack of discipline and persistence. Bear that in mind, and you certainly will be unstoppable in your course. They say discipline comes by repeating right acts for a month, on which habits are formed. As for persistence, it’s just that you refuse to be put down, come what may, until you reach your highest potential.
13. Replace your ‘no no’ habits – this is a follow through of being disciplined. The only challenge to discipline is we doing things that are no no – things that neither gives us short term happiness, and long term benefits/satisfaction. Work to throw any habit that will answer in the negative for these 2 questions. This done, you will be so quick in erasing all your no-no habits. (The best example is being worried. Pose these 2 questions, and you’ll see how ridiculous it’s to be worried – being worried is the least resourceful state for any human being, who has been gifted the joy of Life)
14. Get the Action habit – Action is the only antidote to a non-resourceful state. Just try this – when you feel a bit down, whatever silly the reason is – just set in motion yourself – jog, walk, climb a staircase, or just step into the coffee shop next door. You will see that your non-resourceful state vanishes. That’s why we are all taught never to be idle.
15. Be infectiously enthusiastic and incorrigibly optimistic – this is a must. Enthusiasm and optimism will score the highest, amongst qualities of a great player of life. In a sense, enthusiasm happens so naturally, when you are in your flow. Do something that is not natural to you, and your enthusiasm wanes and dwindles. There is another way of looking at this. The moment you begin enjoy doing some of the inevitable chores of life – which all of us, any case, must do – then enthusiasm sets in. Enthusiasm is also, all about being in the present, and enjoying the present – the now, and the YOU in the now. Optimism comes by always firmly believing the power of a positive outcome – a positive outcome addict, is necessarily an incorrigible optimist.
16. Pick up the best from past experiences; learn and move on, or ignore and move on. When we sit back and think how much time we spend introspecting why things did or did not happen this way or otherwise, beyond some point, we are wasting the present. Things have decisively gone behind, and that’s why it is called the past. So many of us willfully want to hang on there, with no value add to the BRAND YOU. Not to say that you should be a rock. Do look back at the past, and see what lessons can come to us. Be done with that. Possibly, if there have been some wrong steps, wisdom would mean that we do not repeat it. Period.
17. Focus on playing well, winning will be a by product – Playing well happens when you are fully in the present, engaged in your ‘flow’ and be in a positive outcome mode. With all this, playing well will happen so easily. And once you play well – with excellence by your own standards – winning by your terms is bound to happen. That’s why it is said, play your game well and winning will be a by product. That’s precisely how it should be also. Most time, when you look around, you will get a feeling that someone had it easily. It’s just that their focus is on just playing well and nothing else. Somewhere I read that ace athlete Ashwini Nachappa said exactly this when quizzed how she beat P T Usha – Ashwini never aimed to be better than P T Usha, she just wanted to better her own record, and winning happened. Truly, winning is just a by-product.
18. Stand by your own Brand – You have to be the spokesperson for the BRAND YOU, and no else can ever be. Think of that, when, even for a moment you think of blaming some external factor or some person for what you are and what you aren’t. Nothing can be comical than blaming someone. You are the owner of the BRAND YOU. All the attributes of the brand are as demonstrated by you – the place, the features, the promotion, packaging… This essentially means that the ownership of whatever happens to BRAND YOU is only YOU alone.
19. Get the right advice – all of us love getting advices, from all and sundry. The point is you know your brand best. Advice, unless it comes in from a stakeholder in the brand, or a well-wisher who thinks the brand should flourish, is of no use. All the more such advice taken from an unconnected quarter will harm the brand, more than an iota of any good it does. So, beware of who YOUR brand consultants and advisors are.
20. Core competence – be aware of your core competence. This comes in from understanding what you flow is, which you will spend a lot of time discovering as you play the game of life. And once you be aware of the core competence – call it the core values of your brand, you must keep improvising on the value offerings of the YOU brand, day in and day out. Look around brands that have thrived long times, and you will see that the value offering was improvised, price points tweaked, customized offerings made, re-positioning done almost every season or every year. BRAND YOU is no different. Sustain the value offering, reposition if need be, package well, and customize time and again.
21. Use the 10000 hour study tool to increase your circle of competence – this is a great thing to do, once your goal is to excel in your circle of competence. Spend approximately 10000 hours of reading/understanding better in the area of your competence, to make you an authority. This gives immense power to the Brand YOU. It may sound tough, but just think about the fact that the life cycle of the BRAND YOU is going to be anything like 20 to 30 years, depending on when you launch the YOU brand. The time you will spend honing competencies will shape your brand across 3 decades.
22. Never brood on your weaknesses – If you read point 11, then this is just a take away. Once you play by only your strengths, then there is hardly any energy that can be spent on thinking about your weaknesses. Nothing would have been ever accomplished in this world if some of the greatest people of our times chose to spend time brooding. They all accepted their weaknesses, and assiduously positioned/honed their strengths. You just do the same for the BRAND YOU.
23. Sell you to YOU first – This is about you being a buyer of you. Unless you are convinced that you will buy your brand for what it offers, then who else will invest in the BRAND YOU. So, sell you to you. Create that YOU sales talk/promo/30 second spot. Believe you and the world will come flocking to your brand. BRAND YOU.
24. Say no to gossip and whining – doing this is absolute energy leak for BRAND YOU. When you gossip, whine and complain, or do anything in a negative resourceful state, you are wasting time on some other brand. And what good does that do to BRAND YOU? Nothing, absolutely nothing. So forever, never even spend your precious time worrying about some other BRAND. Decide that your time will be spent only on BRAND YOU, come what may.
25. Be deaf to negativists – there are a whole lot of people who would not even remotely know what BRAND YOU stands for. Yet, they have an opinion, say that will not work, say you will fail, and what not. Keep the BRAND YOU deaf to such naysayers and energy drainers.

Personal brand journey....

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

Happiness tip - keep the mind free of 'things you intend to do'.

Happiness is a choice of our state of mind. This is the basic premise of life and those who think they can be otherwise are actually challenging natural laws.

That said, do we realize what is the biggest hurdle or stumbling block for a HAPPY AND JOYOUS state of mind? It is simple... we deliberately clutter our mind with things and tasks that are not in the horizon, and imagine situations that will never ever happen in the journey of life.

Yet, we day in and day out bother ourself, and take move away from happiness by just exactly doing that - cluttering the mind and imagining a load of things, events and even people behaviors.

One simple and easy way to de-clutter the mind is to STOP thinking about tasks that we are not going to do, or do not have a time frame committed. If you don't plan to do something - be it a simple chore or a project (big or small, simple or complex), then what is the point in thinking about it all the time; neither does it help doing nor does it favor a HAPPY state of mind.

Practice this -

1. If something is there in your mind - a thing to do, or a task or a worry, see if you can write in on a piece of paper or note pad or on your PC.
2. Is it something you can do now - DO IT. Is it something you can give a timeline - attach a date and time slot to do it, or allot a time to complete it.
3. If it is a project kind of work, make a project map on a sheet of paper, mapping our all the major and minor tasks with timeline.
4. FINALLY, if the thing in your mind does not fall into the above scheme of thing - in your being able to transfer it to penning down on a piece of paper, then TAKE IT AWAY FROM YOUR MIND.

This is easy to practice and once done for a while, becomes a habit.

This single habit will make your worry-free (in-fact even the worries are imaginary, as you are just dumping your minds with the intention of filling it and not really wanting to act?).

As far as imagining events or people is concerned, the outcome is mostly what you vividly image in your mind. So, rather than imagine a bad day, replace it with thoughts of how a great day of your life looks, and how every single event of the day unfolds as precisely as you like it to.

Imaging is simple, and yet, when repeated in the mind, transforms into reality - when you intend a negative thing or event again and again, it essentially means that you are giving out a open invitation to 'negativity'.

Instead, make an open invitation in the mind to "positivity" - and you will see positive and successful things occurring in your life journey.

How do you kill the negative stream in your MIND? Just REPLACE it with POSITIVE EVENTS, THOUGHTS AND PEOPLE. This will also make you consciously watch the occurrences in your mind-space. Comes easily with practice.

Have a great, happy and positivity-packed day..... not just today - but every day in your LIFE.

What’s your ME brand-speak?

This is a quick follow for the earlier post!

Think about this… how much have you wanted to achieve, or have achieved, and how much of the same language does the brand you speak? If the answer if not as much as what is reality, then, there is lot of work to do on your ME brand-speak!

What’s the ME brand?

Each of our ME brands are work in progress, and a sort of focused and continuous & RIGHT self-speak efforts are needed to communicate our thoughts through our brand ME. What we are seen as is what we communicate through our ME brand-speak.

Brand ME also makes sure that you communicate your position sans any ambiguity in the professional marketplace, and equally so, on the personal front – as a spouse, as a parent and as a socially responsible person.

To throw a little illustration, if you want you/your ME brand to be seen in as a successful professional in your space, then your walk and talk ought to be in sync with all that is needed to be so – both the hardware: the efforts needed, the knowledge & skills you ought to possess, and most of all the power to execute – you will carry all this and more to be seen and also be recognized as a successful or to-be-successful professional.

And the ME brand-speak shall be seen as the ‘software’ – that makes your hardware to be seen by all those in the relevant marketplace – be it the place of work, or home, or the social ecosystem.

Your ME brand speak will talk the entire walk you can do, amply well, and sort of loud and clear in the marketplace. Loud and clear does never mean being brash about what you are made off, but is being unambiguously clear about what would make you stand out and be different out there – be it in the kind of work you do, or the sales you can achieve, or the knowledge/core competence you will bring to the table in any place.

The ME brand speak would apply equally to any work and personal situation – you need to talk the walk you do and want to do as a parent, a child, a associate in any event and so on – this can be in any place, in any time and in any situation.

The ME brand speak is also so important and crucial in bridging the gap between perception and reality, more from the extent of the value you add in any given place. I am sure most of us agree that we did not get that deal, or get that hike or promotion or anything measurable and tangible just because it was not communicated or packaged in sync with what was delivered or done in reality.

The more you think of what you keep telling everyone or what all those around you see, is more of what your ME brand-speak is. Whether this is in sync with what you as an individual are or what your true capabilities are, is more a function of your ME brand speak, that any other factor.

Its’ worth so much to gather your thoughts together to create your own ‘ME brand speak now’. It’s also a wonderful exercise to introspect all your facets of life, and create an appropriate ME brand-speak, that reflects you in the right perspective to all those in the marketplace.

So, what’s your ME brand-speak? Are you packaging you as much what your true capabilities and qualities are? Do it now, for a better & greater LIFE…..

Mind-speak – What do you talk to yourself!?

Our mind is full of chatter… we may look to be calm and serene from the outside, but that belies the real fact – the human mind is full of chatter – it is said that over 60000 thoughts come across in our mind every single day! And what we are is the result of probably the most predominant though/thoughts we carry all day and all along!

Goals, challenges, problems and worries mostly tend to dominate these thoughts! For example someone who is extremely goal driven thinks about it most of the time. And so on. Even when we are asleep, the mind chatters!

One simple way to train the mind to focus on the better side of life… what you are capable of and what you have accomplished.. is to speak to yourself in the mind.

Make affirmations to yourself, re-run your happy or winning moments, assert in your mind your capacities and your ability, rehearse the kind of happiness and victories which you foresee, and are working towards, deliberately focus your mind on the better things you have, and the great person you can be…..

In a nutshell, make sure that you sustain your mind-speak in the most productive and positive way, always, than the opposite. You can adopt your own style, and the script for the mind-speak MUST only be yours. What it also means is that you set the standards for your LIFE – never make comparisons in the mind.

If you wish, you can make a written script for your mind-speak, detailing it as per what the things you wish to be and accomplish. (Also take the help of a handful of great books which are available in this space).

Once you practice this mind-speak regularly, you will also see that your mind is better controlled in the way it straddles. And you will also make sure that you decide the dictate the predominant thought in the 60000 odds thoughts that come across in you.

Initially it may seem difficult, but with a bit of practice, and consistency, there will be profound changes in the way you think, and also in the way you act and carry yourself!

It does shape your personality in a decisive way!

What is your mind-speak now, and today?