‘End-of-year blisters’ – it’s the perfect metaphor for those of us who feel like it’s been a steady marathon from January to December – we are low on energy and inspiration – and what about our brands?  Yes, our brands will suffer from end-of-year fatigue too.  After months of exposure and hard work on our behalf, our brands will also need to take a break.

Unless you specialise in a brand or product that must make the most of the holiday season, allow your brand to take a break at the end of the year.  Just like top athletes need to rest and recoup, so do our brands.  Not only will this break rejuvenate yourself, it will more than likely benefit your brand as well.

5 tips for a successful brand break:

1. Take a break from social media – your absence will be intriguing and your mind will have the chance to reset itself.
2. Take in something stimulating or maybe something you don’t usually do. Visits to the theatre or to museums could inspire you and result in new branding ideas.
3. Spend time with loved ones; they are, after all, your biggest fans and nothing will recharge your batteries quite like some care, nurturing and good old fashioned family time.
4. Keep your journal/notebook close at hand. Inspiration may come at any point – doodle, reflect, write poetry or even write new brand stories. Don’t make this the purpose of your down time but if inspiration strikes you need to be prepared.
5. Above all, be safe – we want to see you and your brand strong and ready to hit the ground running in the new year.

 A re-tweaked brand identity, from great ideas that occur to you in a state of relaxation, can only result in a refreshed and strengthened brand. 

Part of personal branding, whether you are the CEO, business owner,  senior executive, middle manager or coach, is personality congruence; we have to be congruent and confident enough to let our personality shine from within the brand.  The brand should resemble who we are and what we stand for; we need to incorporate what gives us depth, outside of our business, with our personal brand.  Do we run, do we read philosophy, do we take photographs, or maybe help out at SPCA’s?  Some of us may have kids and domestic chores and challenges. Sharing this side of us allows us to build familiarity and have rapport with potential prospects.

There is, however, a fine line between sharing and over-sharing. People may not care what diet we’re on or where we find the best clothing bargains; discretion is important. You want to show people the side of you that will only enhance how your personal brand is being perceived.

If we think ‘I have nothing else to share’, it’s time to take a look at how we’re spending our time and how outside activities can develop us as people, which in turn translates into a deeper, more rounded brand.  The “wheel of life” is a tool, which you use to capture what is important to you in your life and, ultimately, it is used to create balance in our lives.  Consider life as a whole divided into segments. Each segment represents an area of your life – for example, business, money, spiritual growth, hobbies, and community contributions.

After creating your “wheel of life” you can ask yourself:

• Are you giving attention to all the aspects of your life?
• And are you aligning them to create a holistic personal brand?

Just as a person becomes dull without a personality, so too can a personal brand become invisible without any personal and individual characteristics – your personal brand should aim to inspire people not only because of what it is but because of what it stands for.

This article is further published at www.entrepreneurmag.co.za in my monthly personal branding column : http://www.entrepreneurmag.co.za/advice/marketing/branding/give-your-brand-personality/

1. Shift your paradigm from employed to self-employed;  Even if you hold down a nine-to-five, start thinking of yourself as “Me (Pty) Ltd”.  Think of your current employer as your largest and most important client.  This attitude provides freedom of scope in exploring other alternatives.
2. Build your resource reservoir;  when you’re ready to let go of your biggest client (see tip 1 above) or limit the service you provide to them, you may need to substitute your income until you secure your next clients. Think of pooling at least 3 month’s salary plus the capital you need for computers, telephone, premises etc.
3. Surround yourself by cheerleaders; people who believe in you and will offer you emotional support as you begin your new venture
4. Gather your skills; what skills do you need in your new venture?  If you need to study, do it.  Alternatively, find and collaborate with the people who have the skills to fill your gaps
5. Get paperwork savvy; research the legal and paperwork requirements that will allow you to establish your venture and stay compliant.
6. Start networking; It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Seek out the people who make up your potential target market. Find out where they hang out, and join them there.  Don’t bother with your business cards, rather ask for theirs and add them to your database.  This list of contacts becomes a valuable source for communicating your business developments.
7. Pay attention to your personal brand; people do business with people. Present yourself as a business owner, communicate as a business owner. What you say and how you be on social media sites may impact on your business success.
8. Take the plunge; at some point you must commit wholeheartedly to your new venture even if the business plan is not as perfect as you want it to be. A business is a living thing and it may change, so stay flexible.
9. Become intimate with your industry; watch the industry trends, learn who your competitors are, read the industry news, join industry forums.  Being interested doubles your impact and  opportunity.
10. Develop a marketing system that allows you to stay top of mind with your target market; newsletters, blogs, articles and talks are all powerful ways to be seen sharing your message
11. Walk, don’t sprint; building a business carefully, with awareness, one day at a time while  delivering on results is a far more solid approach then running headlong into unanticipated challenges that may overwhelm you.
12. Get an accountability partner; someone with whom you check in from time to time to confirm milestones in the business development, and who will challenge you to set stretch goals and targets for the next steps.
13. Celebrate your successes, even the smalls ones, and don’t spend hours dwelling on the failures – they are there to teach us what not to do and nothing more.

Why do I need all of this encouragement? Yes—like most, I have underlying fears.  Some of the time I am really scared about what I set out to do—it feels like I am journeying through uncharted seas not really knowing what might happen.  But, courage means going out into the unknown in spite of all the fears.  Let’s not confuse courage with fearlessness.  Fearlessness happens if you go on being courageous and more courageous.  So I collect and use my prompts to encourage myself to implement my plans.  I stay motivated by clarifying my objectives and purpose.  I keep walking.

In Count Your Blessings, Dr. John F Demartini suggests that we should learn to love our fears. He says, ’anything that we don’t love runs us and inhibits our inspired actions with fear.’  ‘Our limitations’, he continues, ‘represent all the aspects of ourselves and others that we haven’t learned to love and appreciate yet.’ So each time we take a look at a fear, a limit or a block, we give ourselves the opportunity to love and to reach a higher level of awareness.’  This, as always, requires introspection. The good news,  Deepak Chopra proffers, is that just the act of looking at and shedding light on our fears is in itself curative.

As a coach, a leader, a South African, I believe that part of my social responsibility is to be a model for others.  I must model generosity and prosperity on all levels.  I must not be wishy-washy about money, about compassion, about success, about sharing information, about taking risks and about walking ahead into the unknown.

Here’s another of my prompts—an extract from Nelson Mandela’s Inaugural speech:

‘We ask ourselves”

Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

….and as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same”

______________

What motivational slogans, ideas and philosophies do you use to propel yourself into the unknown?  Please share them!

Book early – space is limited to 21 delegates!  Interested participants to submit CV to Rosinski & Co. Don’t delay!

Details on the graphic below, with the full online brochure at  http://www.philrosinski.com/pdf/2012%20LCAC%20Cape%20Town.pdf

What really interests me about her work is the concept of ‘positive psychology’ which she addresses in her book ‘Current Concepts of Positive Mental Health’.  Marie Jahoda was a true warrior; a Jewish woman who survived World War two by fleeing to Austria in 1937. Despite these unhappy circumstances, Jahoda became a woman of great distinction and wrote no fewer than five scientific works and co-authored five others – most notably her work on how unemployment affects communities as a whole and her work on the six characteristics which generally make up mentally healthy individuals.

Marie berates psychologists on the whole for focusing on mental illnesses and not focusing on the more positive aspects of mental health and mental well-being in general. She would have made a great coach.  Coaching chooses to focus on keeping you mentally healthy and address your general well-being in order to create mental clarity, stability and resilience.

I have listed the six characteristics of mentally healthy people, as Johoda suggests , and how coaching can either get you there or help you maintain that state of well-being:

1. Effective Self-Perception

Coaching facilitates a learning around how to change your attitude towards yourself. Individuals change their attitude about themselves by observing their own behaviour, and noticing what causes the perceived negative behaviour. Work is then done to change negative perceptions, to positive ones.

2. Self-esteem and Acceptance (which is realistic)

It is of paramount importance that you see yourself as whole, that you respect and love yourself, before you can make any lasting and positive changes to your world. Self-esteem is a set of attitudes, perceptions, feelings, evaluations, opinions and actions directed toward yourself which influences your behaviour.  Coaching helps to view yourself in a positive light and accept those things which you may perceive as being negative.

3. Control of behaviour

Behaviour awareness and management is an important tool to help with management on all levels – personally and professionally. Coaches can share behaviour management strategies which have worked with other companies and clients, deeply enhancing the learning process.

4.  True perception of the world

The word perception can be deceptive because by nature, we will all perceive things differently based on our filters and past experiences.  However, there will be common ground in all our perceptions.  Coaches work from the the perceptions you have of the world and your place in it.  You may perceive the world negatively because of some present experience, or view your environment as hostile or stifling.  A positive thinking space can help you unpack and rebuild why you feel this way – working towards a more realistic perception,  based on a clearer frame of mind.

5. Sustaining relationships and giving affection

It is easy to be around someone who is feeling great, however there are very few people in this world who feel great all the time without fail.  Strengthening mental health leads to healthy, sustainable relationships with friends and significant others.  In the workplace this is also very important and coaches will give you the tools to enhance this state of being and make it sustainable.

6. Self-direction and productivity

I’m sure we have all felt sluggish and unmotivated, many of us feel like this every day which could be sign that not all is well with your general wellbeing.  When your values don’t resonate with the values of your company, or if you don’t see how what you do is contributing to the bigger picture, then productivity usually suffers because your motivation is down.  To be able to direct yourself on your life-path is what I make sure everyone I coach, is able to do.

If you are eager to explore changes that help you enhance your mental health and wellbeing, please seek me out via my links and let’s get a conversation started.  

Clarke, Rosinski, Zavrski-Makaric

Buenos Aries, April 2011; I join 21 experienced coaches from Canada, The UK, Argentina, Peru, Chile and Brazil to experience the sought-after material developed by European pioneer Philippe Rosinski and his partner Australian Dina Zavrski-Makaric.  Day 1; we’re divided into smaller teams—ours is called The Blue Team, and our brief is to submit a collaborative team project by day 3.  Right. That seems easy enough. Except…well, we not getting along so well.  One of our Chilean colleagues is struggling with her English and the other Chilean Coach feels it necessary to translate for her.  This means we work slowly.   This frustrates the India coach who prefers to move fast.  One of the Argentine coaches looks set to sulk, she doesn’t enjoy the bad vibe that’s brewing.  I want to grab my bags and leave, that’s my conflict-averse nature.

This is it folks—the subtle drama that plays out when people of different cultural orientations are asked to work together.   Its not simply that I am South African and you are from Brazil.  In our own country, it may be as simple as I am from Johannesburg and you are from Durban.  Countries and regions have cultures, as do corporations, organizations and professions. Within groups there are individual differences, class and educational differences, ethnic and racial differences, personality type differences and gender differences.  Our collection of personal experiences also determines our cultural lens, such as the way we were raised, the environment we grew up in, our nationality, geography, the culture of our religions or work place and our individual preferences.  Without identifying and highlighting these cultural differences, we’re hard pressed to find solutions to satisfying working relationships in the short term.

Thanks to Rosinski’s Coaching Across Cultures Orientation Framework  (COF), each member of The Blue team was able to identify which of our cultural triggers was being pushed.  The Indian coach  saw time as scarce, the Chilean coach leaned toward a control orientation, I prefer an indirect communication style, and the Brazilian wanted us to take a universalistic approach.  Once we’d shed light on the differences (7 categories with sub-categories under each), we knew better how to adjust our own style while honouring  each others.   We delivered our project on day 3 with new respect for what is needed to embrace cultural differences and use them as a platform to leverage understanding.

Rosinski and Zavrski-Makaric are coming to South African in March 2012. I will be joining them to deliver this 3-day dynamic certification.  If cultural impact within the coaching dynamic interests you, or you want to elevate your company’s success rate, let me know so that I can add you to the special database.

It is human nature for us to assign labels to each other. This may not happen consciously, but the mental associations that are automatically formed when meeting new people and digesting information connect certain labels with each other, like joining the dots. People are going to form opinions of you, whether you want them to or not. These opinions can either be what they pick up in the media or from pictures others paint of you – or you can take an active role in shaping their minds about you by owning who you are and branding yourself the way you see fit.

Here are five steps to get you started on making, and owning your own personal brand:

1. Brand Yourself! – Before it is done for you.

Undoing preconceived ideas about you is much harder than creating fresh ideas in someone’s mind. Create a strong picture about yourself through social media, networking, and by word of mouth. Don’t be judged by popular opinion alone. There is plenty you can do to influence how people see you. Don’t overlook things like manners, tone of voice and enthusiasm levels, it’s not just the car you drive and the way you dress that makes a first impression.

2. Deal with any incongruence

If your internal and external brands do not merge, have a look at why this is the case. Is your personal branding poor because you reflect yourself poorly, or are you actually not the person you are portraying? You must address this as it could lead to potentially disastrous struggles in the future.

3. What makes you unique?

You must be able to identify what makes you stand out from the crowd, and be able to communicate that to the rest of the world. What skills do you have that make you extraordinary?

4. Put a spin on “negative” traits

If you have personality traits that you know potential clients or employees may see as negative, try looking at them in a positive light. How might somebody else view your reclusive tendencies? They could see you as an observer or a deep thinker. You won’t be able to make everyone happy, all of the time but you can certainly be true to yourself and your image.

5. Make it yours

Take what others have already said about you, be it positive or negative – a trait you can’t seem to shake, or a peculiar hobby you enjoy, and work with it. Accept who you are and who you have been. Turn quirks into attractive qualities that are endearing, and win people over with your openness. Own it!

This article will shortly appear at www.entrepreneur.com blog in a series I am writing as the Personal Branding Coach contributing author.  Please subscribe to follow and stay updated with relevant information on this topical subject.

From their article, here is a series of 25 generative questions that stimulate new knowledge and creative thinking in a wide variety of situations.  Look at the questions to stimulate your own thinking about questions related to your own specific situation.  Play.  Use your imagination.

Questions for Focusing Collective Attention on Your Situation

1. What question, if answered, could make the most difference to the future of (your specific situation)

2. What’s important to you about it and why do you care?

3. What draws you/us to this inquiry?

4. What’s our intention here?  What’s the deeper purpose (the big “why”) that is really worthy of our best efforts?

5. What opportunities can you see in this ?

6. What do we know so far/still need to learn about it?

7. What are the dilemmas/opportunities in it?

8. What assumptions do we need to test or challenge here in thinking about it?

9. What would someone who had a very different set of beliefs than we do say about it?

Questions for Connecting Ideas and Finding Deeper Insight

1. What’s taking shape?  What are you hearing underneath the variety of opinions being expressed?

2. What’s in the centre of the table?

3. What’s emerging for you?  What new connections are you making?

4. What had real meaning for you from what you’ve heard?  What surprised you?  What challenged you?

5. What’s missing from this picture so far?  What is it we’re not seeing?  What do we need more clarity about?

6. What’s been your/our major learning, insight or discovery so far?

7. What’s the next level of thinking we need to do?

8. If there was one thing that hasn’t yet been said in order to reach a deeper level of understanding/clarity, what would that be?

Questions That Create Forward Movement

1. What would it take to create change on this issue?

2. What could happen that would enable you/us to feel fully engaged and energized about it?

3. What’s possible here and who cares (rather that ‘what’s wrong and who’s responsible?’)

4. What needs our immediate attention going forward?

5. If our success was completely guaranteed, what bold steps might we choose?

6. How can we support each other in taking the next steps?  What unique contribution can we each make?

7. What challenges might come our way and how might we meet them?

8. What conversation, if began today, could ripple out in a way that created new possibilities for the future?

Ouch. These words from a recent client are not music to any coach (or manager or leaders) ears. How to proceed?  With calm caution.

Here is the first fundamental of coaching; that people are more likely to take action toward change when they choose to do so.  Consider the self-determination theory which introduces a continuum from “controlled behaviour” (taking action because you have to”) and autonomous behaviour (doing something because it is one’s choice).  Now the coach might take a confrontational approach to this individuals need for change, setting themselves up as the expert with the prescription. Even if the coachee agrees to participate and does change, she or he may do so under pressure and feelings of coercion.  On the other hand, the  coachee who operates within a framework of autonomy believes that he or she has personal control and that initiating, performing and maintaining behaviour change is an internal matter.  The individual has identified the value of coaching and chooses to become involved in the partnership.

Coachees who are referred for coaching are initially sceptical and uncommitted. Coaches, whether in external or internal roles, need to increase the coachees level of autonomy, and, therefore, motivation.

Here are some questions presented as discussion points that may sway the situation;

• What are the gaps between where your business unit is now and where it wants to be?
• What are the advantages of coaching and changing?
• What are the disadvantages of coaching and change?
• Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

After considering these questions and engaging in dialogue with the coach, the coachee may decide that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.  Because the coachee has made his or her own decision about this, he or she can move further along the autonomy dimension and improve the probability of long-term success.