Sharpen Your Brand (eBook)

1. Vision, Goal Setting and Activity Planning
   1. “If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.” (Confucius)

Success does not happen by chance. One really needs to think and plan to enable success. Planning helps one to: (i) clarify the objectives; (ii) determine what activities are important and need to be executed, their dependencies, logical sequences, and timelines; (iii) assess what resources and efforts (e.g., knowledge, skill, manpower, funding and even time) are required to deliver the activities; (iv) identify the enablers and blockers to the plan; and (v) know the stakeholders who need to be properly managed during plan delivery.

Guess what, the starting point in planning anything is to define a goal. Goal setting requires a vision and understanding of available opportunities in one’s environment.

1. “In business, I believe that if you focus only on the journey, you’ll miss the whole point of the enterprise. There has to be a goal, an end game of some kind; otherwise, you’re just spinning your wheels. Yes, the journey is important, but the destination is important, too.” (Ivanka Trump)

Try to avoid embarking on activities without clear objectives, plan, and timelines. Otherwise, you may not be able to properly assess the opportunities and risks you may encounter along the route, or how you are making progress. What on the surface seems to be an opportunity could actually turn out an impediment if you started off with no clear goals.

1. “The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The one who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has been before.” (Albert Einstein)

Do you want to be different from what you are now? Do you want to accomplish something beyond your current position? Elevate above your peers by developing yourself, defining higher goals, doing things that make you stand out, going the extra mile, achieving topmost performance on assigned tasks or job, upgrading your networks, etc.

1. “The tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.” (Benjamin Mays)

It won’t be a calamity to die with unfulfilled dreams provided you have given your best shots to all the challenges you faced. What would really be disastrous is to not dream at all, not have any credible goals or plans, or to be unwilling to venture forth; but instead, so easily succumb to difficulties or live a life of mediocracy. Mind you, it won’t really help if you just give up so easily or blame the gods for your misfortunes and lack of enterprise. Here are the steps you can take to start changing your life:

1. Get busy on activities that create value: Draw up a schedule to fill up each day, with stuff that excites you, such as: important on-the-job tasks; home improvement projects, reading a book; sporting activities; learning of new skills; academic activities; and learning to play a musical instrument. The activities must be things that create some tangible value.
2. Go the extra mile: Do things no one else is willing to do. So long it is beneficial, not very risky, and has some long-term value, check that it is feasible and give it a shot. Become the person everyone goes to if they want something handled that is too hard. In high school, I used to aspire to be the one student others would want to go to if they needed help with Mathematics. My learning goal therefore was not just to be able to pass the exams, but to be so knowledgeable about a subject that I could teach fellow students. That ultimately made me excel.
3. Put more energy in self-development: Determine your strengths and weaknesses and think of what you need to do to address your competence gaps and also make yourself emotionally stronger.
4. Make it a habit to read books: Reading makes you think, helps your imagination, and ultimately, promotes creative thinking. Don’t just fixate on novels and love stories. Try to include books in your areas of possible future career interests. If you are yet to make up your mind about your future careers, find books on how to make money and grow wealth. Try and make sure you have a book that you can read during the next long journey or flight.
5. Quit addiction to TV, video games, and porn: This is self-explanatory. In addition, consider ditching friends and associates who are suffering some type of addiction you are trying to avoid or quit from. If you want to stop smoking, it is counter-intuitive to be hanging out with friends who are smokers. Use book reading to help yourself spend less time on the TV screens and “distract” your mind from routine indulgences.
6. Always wake up early: If you can wake up early, it shows that you are in control of your life. To do so, you also need to go to bed early. This is the first evidence of personal discipline you can show. Given that it is not wise to take decisions when one is fatigued (see Quotation No. 1.6.5), rather than take decisions late at night, it is often better to go to bed after a stressful or long day, and wake up early, say, by 4 - 5 a.m. to evaluate what you need to do the next day.
7. Stop believing that money is evil: Lazy people often see money as evil. Money is not the problem. It is how you go about getting it and what you do with it that makes it bad or good. After all, poor people commit as much if not more crimes than the rich. You need money, to take care of yourself, family and be able to give a little bit to humanity. If you don’t have money, there are many things you will not be able to do. Sooner or later, you will have very few friends. The issue with money is about whether we throw away our values while chasing it.
8. Never surrender on the things you truly want: Don’t give up on your dreams. Oh, you need to first have dreams, not so?
9. Be positively excited: Many people are often bored, upset, annoyed, or even all three put together, perhaps due to their circumstances. If you want to be above average, then force yourself to be ecstatic about life. Try and stop worrying about things that have passed that you cannot really change!

1. “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” (Napoleon Hill)

It isn’t enough to just have a dream. To actualize it, you need to translate it into an objective or goal with a credible plan. It’s the plan that not only helps determine what resources and support are needed but also enables setting of short-term targets that aid tracking of progress toward the goal. Therefore, take steps to translate your dreams into plans.

1. “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” (James Sherman)

Humans don’t have power to reverse lives, and time lost cannot be recovered. Instead of dwelling on the past, please reflect on it for learning purposes only. We should embrace the present and plan the future we want [“the ending”]. The starting point for any journey is actually the destination or goal. Do you really know where you are going?

1. “Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.” (Epictetus)

We often want instant results, but great things take some finite time to mature. We must do our homework and not just rely on sheer luck or miracles. A venture starts with an idea; a sensible plan of action, a clear scope of work, energy, and commitment; regular monitoring of progress; and reflection to improve performance. This is what will make your dream a reality.

1. “But I have other virtues, father; ambition - that can be a virtue when it drives us to excel.” (Commodus, to Emperor Marcus Aurelius, in the epic movie, The Gladiator)

Keys to achieving breakthrough are vision (dream), ambition (drive), clear objectives, and a workable plan. Without ambition, you will not achieve much no matter how hard you dream or plan. You also need to be sufficiently motivated to achieve resilience during execution.

1. “If you’ve built castles in the air, your work needn’t be lost; that’s where they should be. Now put foundations under them.” (Henry D. Thoreau)

A solid base is normally a precursor for success, and such foundation includes your knowledge and skills, vision, ideas and plans, available resources, understanding of issues and risks that can affect your plans, situational awareness of where help is needed, and understanding of when to optimize the plan.

If you do not have a framework or structure to support your dream, try constructing one. Think of ways to improve yourself to make some progress from your current condition or situation. It can be knowledge-acquisition, skills broadening, and networking to improve situational awareness or to...