May 2011

When the Smoke Clears: Overcoming Adversity

As I started to doze, in a state of half-way-awake and half-way-sleep, I heard noises. The room I was in was located on the neighboring side of a corner lot. My bed was positioned below the window, just on the other side of where I thought I could hear footsteps in the grass. The sounds were faint, the time was late and my mind was mush. However, fear set in so I muzzled it by squeezing my eyes shut and pulling the blanket over my head. I soon fail asleep…

…but then I woke up to the sound of a loud continuous beep. When I heard this, I was in a half-way-in and half-way-out of sleep daze, so the beeping didn’t fully register. As I became more present, the beeping got louder and louder. Soon I fully awoke and quickly jumped out of bed and opened the door to investigate. I heard multiple alarms chirping throughout the house. DANGER WAS PRESENT!

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Personal Branding, Self Promotion and the Art of Marketing Yourself

How do you feel about marketing yourself?

Does it feel too self-focused, conceited or arrogant? Whenever I write about personal branding, self-promotion or anything along those lines – I feel like I’m coming off a bit shallow. But marketing is a powerful tool for a reason. Corporations spend millions and millions of dollars on marketing efforts to create a brand, distribute the awareness of their brand, and of course to promote products and services. It’s a natural and essential part of business. Today I’m going to talk about the human side of the marketing coin – marketing yourself.

Self Promotion: The Road to Getting Known

To me, self promotion is a bit awkward at times. But no matter how we slice it, everything we do shapes our personal brand in one way or another. It’s a matter of us owning the promotion ourselves or allowing others to define who we are from their own perceptions or misconceptions of us. If we don’t own it, we risk being labeled in a light that doesn’t accurately represent who we are.

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Reality Check! Physical Fitness is a Serious Aspect of Personal Development

I’m big on fitness. I think it’s a serious aspect of personal development. In fact, I believe that if a person isn’t willing to develop themselves physically, then they’ll struggle all the more in developing in other areas. I understand that it’s hard and it adds another thing-to-do on our already exhaustive list, but it serves a serious purpose; health and self-worth to name a couple.

Imagine taking your car to get a $1000 tune up, but not paying an extra $30 to get the oil changed (after 10,000 miles)…it’s just matter of time until you’ll be back at the shop because you didn’t take care of all necessities.

Physical fitness is part of the package of personal development that can’t be omitted.

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