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#digitaldad: Day 3 – Driven by Hunger (Biz Lessons from a 1st time dad)



Today’s blog post is called driven by hunger.  As a first time dad my newborn daughter Kennedy Nicole Flemings is teaching me business lessons that I will be sharing. After watching my daughter nurse for the first time I realized the power of the business lesson that I just witnessed.

A newborn baby is driven by hunger and their job, vision, and focus is for growth.  How valuable would we be as business professionals to our teams, companies, and organization if we had that the same singular focus as a newborn.  When a newborn nurses he or she  latches on to get nutriment.  As successful professionals we have to latch on to our vision and be relentless until we get what we need.  Does your attitude and desire change the environment around you and demonstrate your passionate pursue of your goals?

Driven by Hunger: Kennedy Flemings

How hungry are you for your vision?



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Staying Invigorated and Forever Young

Keeping Yourself Young

One of the lessons that I received over the weekend, had to do with keeping your faith young. In most cases when we reach maturity in things we do, we are at our best. However being young in something doesn’t always have to be a direct correlation with immaturity.

I recently came a across a slide show that I put together for a really good friend’s wedding. On the soundtrack is a great song, called Forever Young, by Rod Stewart. Although the lyrics seem to be targeted towards a relationship with a son or daughter, I felt the song generally inspires us to stay young.

I strongly feel this is how we should approach our personal brand. Staying young in heart and mind allows you to stay invigorated, passionate, and most important – teachable. As we mature in life, some of the ways to maintain youth is to continue to learn different things that allow you to sharpen your skills and your knowledge base. Here are a few more things to consider:

Pay Attention to Accidental Inspiration
Although I think it is necessary to be purposeful in everything we do,inspiration and creativity many times is accidental. For instance a combination of experiences allowed for me to be inspired to write this post as explained above.  I think it is always good to keep the juices flowing by mixing up the monotony and allowing yourself to be inspired by your experiences. Allowing yourself to be open to different genres and creating new relationships are good ways to mix things up. Just like a fruit smoothie, if you don’t mix it up you will find that all the good stuff is at the bottom.

Be Prepared for a Pivot
Good entrepreneurs are always ready for a potential pivot. Sometimes you start a business or initiative going in a specific direction. However things in the market could change or your customer evolves and you find that you have to take your idea in a different direction. To be prepared for a pivot you have your hand on the pulse of the market and be prepared to make a pivot in another profitable direction. Changing directions sometimes requires energy; it helps to stay young in the mind and be able to learn new things. This can apply to career’s and passion projects as well.

Maintain Momentum
Sometimes it is natural for us to get comfortable and on auto-pilot with our day-to-day responsibilities. Keeping our batteries charged through rest and recuperation, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and constantly staying in practice allows us to keep up with the pace of our purpose in life.

These are things that can edify your day-to-day duties on-the-job or business, relationships with your spouse and kids, and in our friendships. Stay Invigorated and Forever Young.

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3-Personal Branding Types: Builders, Grustlers, & Leapers

Personal brands operate in one of three worlds: Builders, Grustlers, or Leapers. Now let’s break down the three types, as you read through the descriptions identify which one you are. As a backdrop the workplace is changing, emerging technology is impacting the way we live and communicate, and globalization is shifting when, where and how we work.

Builders (Intrapreneurs) – A builder is a worker that is wired to work in an existing corporate or company structure. Organized working structures typically have regular pay periods, access to company resources, and systems/processes in place that allows people to work in a structured environment. This type of individual enjoys working for someone else and building someone else’s dreams while developing themselves and their personal brand. Most universities and colleges teach students to auto-follow this mentality regardless of how a person is wired because it has been the safe option historically. The biggest benefits of this category are the halo effect and company resources.

Benefits of Builders

  • Halo Effect – Working for a large corporation can position you for great opportunities that are a direct result of your association with the company you work for.
  • Company Resources – The resources that are available at a large corporation can be very beneficial to your career: experience using enterprise software, databases, cool projects and access to priority data.
  • Expanded Network – Great network building opportunities: attending conferences, company networking events, and the visibility to higher-level executives.

Examples: Jeremiah Owyang

Grustlers (Hybrids) – GRUSTLE is the combination of a daily Grind (job) and a Hustle (your passion). In my book ‘The Brand YU Life’ the first degree (or principle) is ‘Identify Your Passion’ which is the cornerstone of Grustlin’.

Definitions

Grind: A grind is a job; employment; typically your primary source of income.

Hustle: A hustle is your passion, what you would love to do full-time and what gives you the most satisfaction. It is what you typically do after you work your daily grind.

Your career/job is the primary source of income that you use to seed your passion. This is a minimal risk option that allows you to develop and grow your ideas without the pressure or financial weight of doing it full-time. This personal brand type tends to operate as more of a transitional phase for people shifting from being a builder to a leaper. There are various forms of Grustle: (1) Being a college student and establishing a blog or having a 9-to-5 job and starting a business on the side are two examples.

Benefits of Grustlers

  • Future Job Security – Operating in a grustle is a new form of job security. Depending upon a single employer or a single career to be your financial source for your entire career is more risky than ever before.
  • Additional Financial Stream – Grustling allows you to add an additional financial revenue stream in your area of passion.
  • Career Transition – It is a career strategy to enable you to transition into a new career that doesn’t mesh with your past work history or educational background.
  • Practice over Theory – It allows you to demonstrate your capabilities in the real world versus claiming expertise in theory. It goes beyond what you learned in the classroom.

Examples: Gary Vaynerchuk

Leapers (Entrepreneurs) – Pure entrepreneurship doesn’t appear typically to be innate because it is talked out of us as a child by parents and teachers. In college we are brainwashed to think of ourselves as builders only. It is only after years of making someone else rich, being downsized, outsourced, or fired that we are forced to follow our passion. Some do arrive here after working for someone else and having a great work experience.

Benefits of Leapers

  • You own the results – The risk and reward is greater but you own the results the fruits of your labor.
  • Lifestyle Management – Leapers have the most impact on their work environment whether it is a home office, co-working, coffee shops, or cubicles.
  • Leaders of Innovation – Small enterprises with less bureaucracy are typically the innovative companies which are lead by visionary leapers.

Examples: Kevin Carroll, Mark Zuckerberg

Note: It is possible to be a hybrid of each type as you transition from one phase to another.

People will tell you that you need to work on your own. That is not necessarily true. You have to identify how you are wired. The pressure of being financially responsible for a company is a hugh undertaking your timing and developing must be right. Being true to where you are is the key. There are great success stories in each category.

How you manage your online personal brand should be dictated by the type of personal brand that you are and the stage of your career that you are in.

Demographics

  • Baby boomers (1946-1964) – This group was born during the automotive manufacturing age in the United States and they worked for someone else. If they went to college they were taught to be loyal to their employer. Category: Builders
  • Gen Y (1965-1976) – This group started our careers in the end of the automotive manufacturing boom but were still taught to go to school and work and be loyal to your employer. Category: Builders
  • Millennials (1977-1994) – Economy tanks. They are born grustlers. This hyperconnected group is blogging, multi-tasking and developing online businesses. Category: Grustlers

Identify your personal branding type: Builder, Grustler, or Leaper. The Leaper lifestyle is glorified because it can be a great rag to riches story, or one that changes the world like Microsoft (Bill Gates) or Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg). It can be a recipe of disaster if you are not wired for it.

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NBA Free Agents vs Personal Brand Free Agents

LeBron + NikeWe are on verge of one of the greatest free agent periods in the history of sports. With NBA stars LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the host of other NBA players who will make decisions on where they will play.

The free agent period starts July 1st with an official signing date of July 8th. Careers, sports franchises and the lives of GMs, team presidents, coaches and their families hang in the balance. A wrong decision could handicap a team for many years to come.

Let’s first start with a quick history lesson on free agency. Do the names Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally ring a bell? Probably not. Well they ushered in modern day free agency in 1975 when they challenged Major League Baseball in arbitration and won.

As personal brands we are all professional business athletes but instead of playing on a field we work in a field. Let’s contrast NBA free agents vs personal branding free agents.

Free Agent Definitions

NBA: There are two types of NBA free agents restricted and unrestricted. For the purpose of this article we will focus on an unrestricted free agent, which is a player who can sign with any team he wants.

Personal Brands: According to Daniel Pink (Author of Free Agent Nation): A free agent is someone who works untethered from a large organization—a free-lancer, a sole proprietor, the operator of a very small business.
Should Daniel Pink’s definition of free agents extend beyond soloprenurs to include intrapreneurs as well who have positioned themselves for new opportunities?

Market Value

As I watch the story of Powered a full-service social media agency unfold it is a great business story on personal branding free agents.

How do you develop a team? In sports, teams can build through the draft getting young players and building around them. In the business world this would be the evaluate of hiring millennial and developing them. The other option is signing free agents or trading (acquiring). Recently Powered has acquired talent through the free agent route acquiring: Crayon (Joseph Jaffe), Step Change, Drill Team, and Conversation Agent (Valarie Maltoni). For more details on this story read Jeremiah Owyang, article, FirstTake: Powered, A Social Marketing Suite, Acquires Crayon and Social Media Agencies

Q: Performance impact in NBA vs. Personal Brands

• NBA: Stats and how you perform under pressure
• Personal Brands: Popularity of your blog (Adage 150, page views) and engagement online (Klout Metrics), book sales, and speaking gigs to name a few.

Q: Reputation impact in NBA vs. Personal Brands

• NBA: Background checks, family history, off the court history and run ins with the law
• Personal Brands: Online Brand Reputation, valid your activity in social networks, and listen to your data stream in your social networks

Total Compensation

As a personal brand it is a great time to diversify yourself to create greater marketing opportunities. Establishing a personal brand is really about more than just creating a blog and tweeting but being portable and leveraging your personal DNA being who you were designed to be.

Q: Endorsements for NBA vs. Personal Brands

• NBA: Shoe deals, product commercials, etc.
• Personal Brands: More and more opportunities for influencers with a strong personal brand presence to experience endorsements with large brands: For example Usage of Ford’s Fiesta Movement Challenge and GM’s Chevy SXSW

Q: Rock Stars NBA vs. Personal Brands

NBA: Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Dirk Nowitzki
Personal Brands: Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Charlene Li, Wayne Sutton

Would you rather be an NBA star or a strong personal brand? Goes back to the Michael Jordan v Bill Gates argument. Would you rather be an NBA Free Agent or a Personal Brand Free Agent?

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i Finish: The app that defines Personal Branding

One of the biggest challenges in life is not starting but finishing. Anybody can start something but to the finisher goes all the spoils. What if Fred Smith founder of FedEx stopped with his term paper at Yale, when his professor told him overnight shipping would never work? Fred is a finisher and the impact of his start is still being felt today.

History chronicles those that finish. We rarely talk about the runner-up, second place, or the 500-page book manuscript that you wrote but never published. Personal branding is captured in one word is finishing. One of the people that I have a great deal of respect for is Seth Godin who has talked about this topic at length and has packaged it as shipping.

Reasons Why we Like Starting Stuff

  • Big Bodacious Teams: At the start of a project, leaders and teams are galvanized and inspired to change the world.
  • The Shiny Objective Syndrome: People love working and focusing on new task, projects, and the flavor of the day. Even entrepreneurs believe that they can do the impossible.
  • Excitement – Launching an idea is typically very energizing.
  • Drinking Bathwater – People who would drink your bath water because they think you are the greatest thing since sliced bread gassing your head up.

What is the value of finishing?

  • Building Mindshare: Mindshare is owning a slice of mental real estate in the mind of your target audience. Building a strong personal brand is established over time by finishing projects that are consistent with your personal brand objectives.
  • Creating a culture of execution: You begin to approach projects, ideas, and businesses with the mindset of starting things that you are intentionally planning on finishing. Your life becomes a series of completed projects or ideas that slowly build or speak your consistency. People began to identify you as a person that executes.
  • Conversion: Finishing is about converting objectives into strategies. To complete anything that is significant you have to create small victories on the road of completion. Finishing forces you to strategically approach your work in a way that will result in measurable objectives you complete.

Tips for Finishing

  • Set measurable goals and objectives.
  • Validate the objectives align with your personal mission and purpose. The end result should add value to your personal brand.
  • Shorten your list: You are not creating a list to sound or look important.

What Finishing Means to your Personal Brand

Finishing is not about being a rocket scientist or throwing junk together but about establishing clear objectives and aligning strategies to make those objectives a reality. Personal Branding taken a step further is about completing projects that are mission and purpose driven and align with your passion, the way you are wired and your personal brand DNA. The end results is attaching your name and your legacy to finished projects, ideas, or products that aligns, builds, and strengthens your personal brand.

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