Saturday, October 22, 2011 marked a milestone in my Personal Branding Coaching career. As part of my personal brand plan, one of my targets was to get my personal branding message across the TED platform. Thanks to TEDxTanta, I was able to share the Personal Branding – To DON’t List with a wonderful crowd. In that same spirit of sharing the knowledge, I’m laying out the 7-points list, in the hope that the readers take this list and convert it into an action list.
A while back, I spoke about the 10 Commandments of Personal Branding, which basically laid out the basics rules that should be followed as you build your brand. Serving that same purpose, I developed a more practical list addressing the basic To-DON’T when it comes to maximizing your potential that was inspired from my working with different students and listening to their concerns post graduation.
Don’t Waste Time: to understand what I’m talking about, I want you to try to measure how much time you spend on the phone per day – be it answering calls, or text messages, or BBMs, etc … The problem is that every time you do so, it takes you an average of 25 minutes to regain absolute focus on what you were doing! If you do the math, you’d realize that it’s a great amount of time lost. This is only one example of how we waste time during in our daily routine. Recommendations Work in chunks of time at full throttle (like 90 min) and then take a break of 10 min to recover. Similarly, do so throughout your work week, and then take a full day of complete unwinding. Leave your emails, laptops, phones … and just use that day to reenergize! Read a book, spend time with your friends & family, go hiking …. whatever you do just make sure it’s a stress free day. Following this methodology, you’ll notice the ability to get more work done with less effort – this is working smart!
Don’t Blame Others: The easiest thing to do when something bad happens to us is to blame others. Ironically, we always attribute the good stuff to us, but NEVER the bad stuff – the latter is always someone else’s fault. Even as kids at school, when we fail an exam and we’re asked about it, we instantly say something along those lines “That B#$% gave me an F“, but when we score a high-grade, we proudly walk around flaunting our achievement saying “I got an A+” – when in fact, you were responsible for both results. Unfortunately, the latter situation is not limited to our high-school days, we do it on a daily basis. The jobs we’re in, the treatment at the office, the friends we have, the money we earn … if you don’t like them, you’re the only one to blame, there’s no one else! Recommendations Instead of wasting time blaming others for our current situation, why not try reflecting on it and learning from it. This will prune you for a better future!
Don’t Complain: this brings us to one of the worst possible habits that destroy our brand bit by bit. Some people blame their misfortunes on others, and others find nothing better to do than complain about it. “I have the worst luck in the world”, “I hate my job”, “I can’t stand my boss”, “They expect me to survive till the end of the month on that”, “I hate my major” … Complaining about it, is actually the easy way out (just like blaming others); but the problem is that it won’t make it any better. Recommendations why not do something about it. if you don’t like your job, why don’t you quit? trust me, you can waste the same amount of money doing nothing if you take opportunity cost into account. So stop complaining, and starting doing something about it!
Don’t Comply: “I am majoring in medicine because my parents wanted me to”, “I am veiled because society expects me to”, “I’m arriving to work at 8:00am because of company policy”, “I am going through 6 months training because its mandatory” … I see people all around me diluting their brand in order to fit in, and be accepted. Recommendations Stop trying to fit in, when you should be trying to stand out. Dare to be different! You can’t live your life trying to please others, and you can’t allow others to live their lives through you. You need to live your own life, the way you want to. Don’t be a number, just a face in the crowd … defy the norm, be crazy … trust me, it’s much better than being normal (at least you have your excuse)!
Don’t Be Afraid: ”What if I fail”, “What if she says no”, “What if there’s something really scary inside”, “What if I no body likes my work”, “What if they laugh at me” … we comply because we’re afraid. We’re always afraid because we seek recognition from the people around us. Recommendations Don’t allow yourself to live with the “What if” question … look back at the “What ifs” I had mentioned … now imagine the other side of that coin; you’ll notice that the worst case scenario does not stand a chance with a multiple possibilities that lie on the other end of that spectrum … Embrace your fear, welcome the unknown, accept the change! Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing something over and over again, and expecting a different result. If you want to reach great success, you have to be willing to go where no one else is willing to go – you have to remove the fear factor!
Don’t Pretend: people are walking around in masks, and it’s very tiring to do so. The mask you were with your in-laws, the mask at the office, the mask with your friends … so many pretend roles, we forgot how to be ourselves. Recommendations Don’t plagiarize your identity, dare to be different. Remember Personal Branding is not a beauty pageant, you’re not trying to have everyone like you, in fact, a good indicator to a well positioned Personal Brand is when there are people that hate you. You’re not a mass product, your brand should serve a niche, and to that particular niche, all you need to do, is be YOU.
Don’t Compromise: When asked what salary Layla expected in the new job she was applying for, her answer was “uh … it doesn’t really matter, I’m more interested in the experience” – the HR manager heard “perfectly naive, I can underpay her and look good in front of management at the annual reviews”; so he said “OK, we’re offering 500 USD all-inclusive” – Layla said yes to the offer, even though she thinks her work is worth at least 1000 USD, but she compromised out of fear! Recommendations Never compromise – if you believe that you are worth what you’re asking for, than don’t settle for anything less … and make sure to ask for it! Remember what I always say, “YOU SHY, YOU DIE”
Hang on to that to-Don’t list – you can print out the picture and hang it on your desk – I’m daring you to try following the list for one month, and if it doesn’t work, you can spit in my face! Think About It!
I first learned about personal branding and creating my own legacy through extensive research and by branding myself. Then became one of the first Reach-Certified Personal Branding Strategists in the MENA region. Now I stand side by side with presidential candidates, executives, and graduating students helping them understand and promote their brand DNA.
