The Mojo is ME

In today's world everything you wear, everything you own or would like to own is branded. Each gives an own individual identity.

Peter Montoya and Tim Vandehey’s ‘The Brand Called You’ highlights the need for ‘Personal Branding’ (PB) and its benefits’ for anyone who is searching for success and beyond. According to them, PB is the tool that takes ones skills, personality and unique characteristics and packages them into a powerful identity that lifts you above the crowd of anonymous competitors. They go on to elucidate that ‘Personal Branding’ lets you control how other people perceive you. In essence, you are influencing what others think of you. You’re telling them what you stand for – but in a way that is so organic and unobtrusive that they think they have developed the perception all by themselves. That’s the beauty of ‘Personal Branding’: It’s YOUR ‘powerful Mojo’.

Tom Peters – often referred to as the father of PB due to his 1997 article ‘The brand called you’ – has changed the common perception of self presentation. Peters has been a forerunner for the need of ‘iBrand’, pointing out the subtle power it provides. If we aren’t branding ourselves rest assure someone else is and that could be a dicey way of how other people think about you. Hence, you are your business. Period.

I also couldn’t put down Peter’s book ‘Brand You: Build Your Legacy’ because it clearly draws the map of success, and I believe that if we plan to achieve anything in today’s world, the right image and style needs to be packaged well with the powerful, clear and positive ideas is what people should be triggered by while thinking about YOU. He explains how to build our legacy each day and to achieve, in whatever measure something that would ‘satisfy us, wow us’. And that we need to learn from our share of crapy days too, it’s all a process of powerful emotions which influence branding.

But even before Peters it was Roger Alies, an American businessman, President of Fox News Channel, chairman of the Fox Television Station Group and Spin Doctor for three US Presidents (Regan, Nixon, and Bush Sr.) who constructed an outlook that even today creates a mental picture when you hear their names. ‘How to Make a Good Impression’ (1989) is the bible for those who want to learn the impact of a positive first impression. You must own this masterpiece. One quote says: ‘Amp-up your attitude’. It’s a powerful statement which gives you another reason to believe why Personal Branding is not just the latest vogue but has always been the need of the hour. Your brand is in your hands. You can mould it; shape it in any way you think will offer you visibility.

My father always told me that it is not that intelligent people do something different; it’s just that they do things differently. To survive the cut-throat competition one should be smart enough to be able to distinguish themselves from the other smarties. Right from school it was ingrained in us that "It is not necessary to be perfect in whatever you do but to excel in whatever you take up." They always asked us to introspect and realize what YOU are good at and then make it your strength and hence you’re USP. Your USP is something that will take you places in this highly competitive world is what they always said.

The need to differentiate yourself from the crowd has become paramount in the search for professional glory. Dr.Seamus Phan emphasis in his writing for branding, ‘DotZen’, “...the core of branding, beyond telling truth, is to be true to yourself.” I couldn’t agree more. Once you know where your strengths lay working on your weaknesses becomes easier and you have a more focused target to achieve which is a process of branding.

To sum this post, “If you’re not appearing, you’re disappearing”, said legendary jazz musician, Art Blakey. Absolutely true. No matter what your “thing” is – student, marketing exec., or English Literature professor, whatever! – Standing on the merits of your great work alone is not (usually) enough. People have got to know about you and your great work. They have got to meet you, see you. If you want people to talk about the wonderful things you do, then you must give them the opportunity to experience YOU. Bottom line: Amp-up your attitude. Be yourself.

Natasha