The best way to build a personal brand is to be yourself.
Being authentic is the most prized asset in today’s world. For people who want to become a personal brand or have their company connect with the customers, the decision is simple: be authentic. Your audience can easily see right through when you are not being authentic. It’s far more easier to just be yourself than trying to be someone else.
Here’s a good read on 4 Ways To Be A More Authentic Person
For a student to be successful academically, its takes a total team effort. From the students’ parents, friends to their teachers and students’ themselves, it takes a village to help the students be successful.
What are then the responsibilities of teachers, parents, and students?
Teachers: They are instrumental in gaining the students’ interest, engagement, and ultimately their learning. The teachers have so much influence and the impact of a great teacher on a student or students is lifelong. Anyone in a teaching profession should go above and beyond to make sure each student in the class is learning, being challenged, and ready for the next step in their lives.
Parents: They are important in providing the environment for students to focus on their student life. Parents know the value of a good education and should continuously take time to understand what their child or children like/dislike/want to be. I’m sure every parent wants a better life for child or children than they did. From being there to help out with homeworks and assignments to motivating them when grades fall short of expectations and giving them perspective on everything in life, parents do so much that it’s really hard to describe.
Students: The success of the students’ ultimately depends on themselves. Teachers can do so much. Parents can do so much. However, if the students do not understand the value or need to have a good education, put in the effort/time to succeed or manage things properly, everything will go in vain. The students’ responsibility is for them to fully focus on their education, manage their expenses and time accordingly, and be the main drivers of their success.
We all have our personal narratives. When we go through life and experience the high’s, low’s and everything in the middle, we build experience and look at life from a certain lens. Our personal experiences, our personal and professional networks and what we see/hear/feel influence us to create our own personal narratives. Those personal narratives are powerful on how we go about each day and how we see the world around us.
A Psychology Today article states that if we can consistently empower students to tell stories about their lives in a more positive way, we can help them become resilient and motivated as they pursue their goals. Personal narratives are very powerful and it greatly impacts our successes and failures.
What story are you telling yourself?
Watch this thought provoking and insightful video of Tony Hawk and Chris Sacca talking on various subjects.
Appreciation is best when it is authentic, unexpected, and heartfelt.
When someone does good work, we should acknowledge their efforts and results. That acknowledgement can mean more to the person than anything else. A lot of times we are all craving to be noticed, to be seen and be heard. Just as it’s important to point out to our team members when they did not do something right, it’s equally important to point out to them when they did something right. Acknowledging their effort(s) means the team members feel that they are being trusted upon to deliver, are accountable for it, and recognized as important contributors to the goal.
Recently, I’ve come to love this proverb:
“If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together.”
The proverb is said to be an African proverb. The meaning of the proverb is pretty straightforward. There is some discussion online whether the proverb is actually from Africa, what part of Africa is it from, and the meaning/context of the proverb itself.
An article on NPR titled “It Takes A Village To Determine The Origins Of An African Proverb” dives a bit deeper into this conversation. In the end as the article states ” What we found is that it takes a lot of phone calls to track down the origins of a proverb. And in the end, the answer might be: We just don’t know. “
The reality is that we all make mistakes. Even when we have the best intentions, best plans, and best execution, something falls through. You shake your head and say how did it happen, what could have been better, what could I have changed and so on.
By accepting responsibility, we feel less of the weight on our shoulders and less guilty. By denying responsibility, we shift the blame to others, circumstances or something beyond our control. The energy and time taken to prove someone else or some external factor was responsible for the outcome is draining even if that was the case. The better move would be to accept responsibility, work on improving next time, and just move on. When we accept responsibility, we also become self aware, transparent, and relatable .
Most of us desire to build good habits and stick with them. However, it’s so much easier said than done. From the research done on habits and my own experience, I can attest that there are very simple ways to make good habits stick.
First and foremost, start ridiculously small. It is extremely easy and rewarding to do the smallest thing possible to get started on the new project, new diet, new workout, a new blog or a new podcast. Then once you do that smallest part, you feel you can do more and it keeps you motivated. This is one of my favorite tools to make good habits stick: start small. As Lao Tzu said A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Other ways to make good habits stick are to celebrate small victories, design your environment according to the habits you want to enforce/act upon, surround yourself with supporters. Read more at How to Make Good Habits Stick: 7 Secrets From Research
It’s refreshing and inspiring to learn about Convoz.
Convoz is an app for creating public collaborative conversation through video, which is what we call a convo. Users can create a convo to share their opinions and receive video responses from others. A convo allows individuals to communicate face-2-face sharing their thoughts and feelings as if they were speaking in the same room. – Convoz.com
Founder and CEO Chamillionaire talks passionately about Convoz. Confident, classy, and a cool presentation.
Recently, I came across Learning Day on the OpenAI website. It said:
At OpenAI, each Thursday is Learning Day: a day where employees have the option to self-study technical skills that will make them better at their job but which aren’t being learned from daily work.
Creating an environment of learning and making it part of their DNA is a powerful initiative by any company. College degrees can help you get a foot in the door but it won’t help you thrive once you’re inside the door. As continuous learning becomes ever more crucial, the employees and companies that will stay ahead of the game are the ones that take learning seriously, really seriously. Companies that take their employees’ learning and growth seriously spend more on training, calculate its ROI, push each other to become better, and make it a part of their work schedule like OpenAI.
Some stats:
Average training expenditures for large companies increased from $17 million in 2017 to $19.7 million in 2018. The number for midsize companies rose $600,000 to $2.1 million in 2018. But small companies decreased from $1 million to $355,731 (back to slightly below the 2016 level). Source: 2018 TRAINING INDUSTRY REPORT
If you are scared that you will make mistakes running a project or organizing an event, you are consumed by fear and discouraged to take action. No project or event runs as perfectly as planned. And by the way, what does “perfect planning” really mean? It’s better to prepare the best that you can and be extremely detail oriented/honest to make improvements next time.
If we don’t make mistakes now, how will we learn, improve or do better next time?
Becoming financially savvy will help any individual manage their personal and professional lives easily. The sooner you start becoming financially aware and responsible, the better prepared you will be for different stages of life.
Teaching kids and teens about good money habits early is key for their long term financial security and personal/professional success. Some things that I learned through an article about money and kids/young adults are:
For kids, money is a lot more visual. The best way to help them understand the concept of saving is to use a jar that lives in a visible place, so they can watch money being put away and spent at a later date.
Use a summer job not only as an opportunity to start the conversation about budgeting and finances but also about the responsibility of earning money and saving it.
Encourage them to ask questions when it comes to money and create a safe environment where they can come to you about it.
Source link: An age-by-age guide to teaching your kids about the value of money
I love this productivity tip.
A Fast Company article cited how former President Barack Obama made decisions when he was in the White House. The article stated how the former president preferred written advice to spoken ones and how “decision memos” get delivered to his desk with three checkboxes at the bottom:
This simplicity allowed the decision maker to make decisions easily while understanding the context. The decision maker can then spend more time solving the problem than spending time trying to understand the problem.
If you want to stay ahead, you have to constantly challenge yourself. Taking on challenges keeps you hungry, humble, and in a learner state of mind. The hardest part is not just getting to the mountain top but staying there as long as possible.
Do your goals scare you? If they don’t, then it’s time to change your perspective and your goals.
At a recent award ceremony, one of the pioneers of taking wireless technology to rural parts of Nepal, Mahabir Pun was honored with the Pioneer ICT Award. On stage, he gave a short speech where he made a humble request to the media and people present in the audience to not nominate him for any other awards going forward. He said the weight of the awards keeps him from moving his work forward.
A very interesting perspective. My hats off to him. It takes courage and guts to say that on stage and also makes us aware of the significance of awards to the work we do everyday.
Well…one is never “completely” ready. Launching a new project, starting a business, or something major in our personal or professional lives, an individual is never completely ready. We can prepare ourselves to be ready as much as possible.
From the outside, the new project or the new venture or the new change in personal or professional life can seem to be smoothly executed. The reality is that most people who start new projects and businesses are anxious, nervous but equally thrilled to venture into the unknown. Circumstances favor those who go through the “challenges” and “problems” and come out on the other side. Being ready is just a state of mind.
I love Seth Godin’s thoughts on podcasting so I’m sharing it right here.
A podcast helps us think hard about what’s next, about how we describe what’s now, about what’s worth sharing.
A podcast is a great chance to find your voice, and a marvelous excuse to reach out to people and have important conversations.
Not as a way to make big dollars (blogging didn’t do that either). But as a way to share your ideas, to lead your community, to earn trust.
Podcasting is a proven technology that is still in its infancy. It’s an open mic, a chance for people with something to say to find a few people (or perhaps more than a few people) who’d like to hear them say it.
And podcasting is the generous act of showing up, earning trust and authority because you care enough to raise your hand and speak up.
I took The Podcast Fellowship last fall and loved it. I recommend you look into it if you are interested. Visit Podcasting is the new blogging
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