“A brand is nothing but the promise of an experience.”Robert Jones, Wolff-Olins

We accept that companies have a brand. We study it. We consciously work on ways to improve it. We hire expensive consultants to develop it.

What is lost on many people is how they, as individuals, also have a brand. Consider the quote above: “a brand is nothing but the promise of an experience.”

As a person, you have a particular perception of yourself. You’ve probably wondered whether that perception is in line with how other people perceive you. This outside perception is the first part of your brand.

While many of us have a hard time thinking of ourselves as offering an “experience,” we certainly understand that our personality and reputation can have effects on others. This is how your brand begins. Compared to a business, where clever PR and advertising campaigns can bolster a brand, most individuals must develop a brand through personal interaction.

In a job interview, your brand is largely created by your resume. You establish it in the interview process. Your brand is a promise – one that your future employer is buying into. Just as businesses must work hard to ensure that their actual performance (customer service, quality, price) lives up to their hard-earned brand, you must live up to the expectations of your employer in order to maintain your brand.

One of the worst things you can do to your career or business is to let your brand be damaged. You have to live up to the brand you desire.

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From techdirt.com:

On top of that, those who do go on vacation don’t disconnect. 72% say they stayed in contact with the office by email or phone while on vacation - and, once again, many do so in order to avoid having a huge pile of work on their return.

This is a big deal to me. I’ve decided to go off the grid for Christmas vacation. We’re going to Arizona for nearly two weeks and I won’t be taking my laptop. I don’t check email on my phone. I’ll have access to computers occasionally, but I don’t plan on using them more than two or three times . This is part of my plan to better compartmentalize: work, other work, and the rest of my life.

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“”A good cook changes his knife once a year—because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month—because he hacks.”

“A good cook changes his knife once a year—because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month—because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as thought it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of room—more than enough for the blade to play about in. That’s why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.”

From The Secret of Caring for Life

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I’m a Notre Dame fan. I’m a Cubs fan. I’m a Bears fan. I’m a Colts fan. I know the pain of loss and frustration of futility. This manifesto is based on Hugh’s manifesto guidelines.

• Love sports for sports’ sake.


• Recognize greatness in even sports you don’t like.


• Recognize talent and dedication and skill and success for what it is—a positive thing.


• Respect players for their abilities and success, even if they are the “enemy.”


• It is wrong to hate a team or player for their success.


• Don’t let your own fandom blind you to reality.


• Failure helps you see where to improve.


• Being a fan is a fickle, arbitrary experience. You cheer for a team because of location, because it’s your school, or because you were born into a fan’s family.


• It’s OK to temporarily care about a game even when you don’t care about the teams, the game, or the outcome.


• Sports are entertainment, but can be addicting. Don’t let sports ruin your relationships, your job, or your health.

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Monday mornings starting foggy? Do you take a couple of hours before you can get anything done? You might grab a cup of coffee (I sure do), but don’t just count on the caffeine to get going. Try these tips for perking up.

1. Exercise. Getting your heart rate up also means increased blood flow to the rest of your body (including your brain). It also pops your metabolism.

2. Eat a healthy breakfast. Fruits and fiber go a long way. Avoid heavy, greasy food (which often makes you feel sleepy).

3. Play a game. Not just any game, though – one that forces you to start thinking and concentrating right away. I like to do a Sudoku or three to get my mental muscles pumped. You might also try crossword puzzles or Yahoo! TextTwist (Windows only, unfortunately).

4. Start with a clean slate and a schedule. Review your agenda and put together your daily to do list. You’ll be able to concentrate on what you have to do rather than the clutter around you.

5. Start with small stuff. With your new to do list, get the distractions out of the way. I usually have a handful of no-brainer tasks to do – updates, quick emails, scheduling, etc. Knock those out and you’ll feel like you have momentum, as well as give yourself room to focus on the bigger things.

Try these out and your mornings can go from zero to productive in about fifteen minutes.

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Paul Graham recently posted an essay about the gap between wealthy and poor. It had me thinking about the values we hold in society.

“When we say that one kind of work is overpaid and another underpaid, what are we really saying? In a free market, prices are determined by what buyers want. People like baseball more than poetry, so baseball players make more than poets. To say that a certain kind of work is underpaid is thus identical with saying that people want the wrong things.”

He goes on to say admit that people want the wrong things but that such a conclusion doesn’t imply that it’s unjust:

“Well, of course people want the wrong things. It seems odd to be surprised by that. And it seems even odder to say that it’s unjust that certain kinds of work are underpaid. [7] Then you’re saying that it’s unjust that people want the wrong things. It’s lamentable that people prefer reality TV and corndogs to Shakespeare and steamed vegetables, but unjust?”

Generally speaking, I agree with him. But people wanting the wrong things can have disastrous effects not just on the undervalued but those who rely on such undervalued groups. My first thought in reading Paul’s essay? Teachers are an exception.

Teachers are a group traditionally considered underpaid and overworked. The average starting teacher’s salary is about 30% under the average liberal arts college graduate’s starting salary. It’s no wonder that schools have a hard time attracting qualified, talented teachers. Schools aren’t willing (or capable) of paying teachers enough to compete with higher-paying careers like, say, managing a video rental store.

My wife pointed out a fascinating quote from the textbook in the Adolescent Development class she’s teaching:

“Studies have shown that the quality of an adolescent’s home environment—as measured simply in terms of the presence of such items as a television set, dictionary, encyclopedia, newspaper, vacuum cleaner, and other indicators of family income—is more strongly correlated with youngsters’ level of academic achievement than is the quality of the physical facility of the school they attend, the background and training of their teachers, or the level of teachers’ salaries paid by the school district (Armor, 1972).”

Well, then. Are teachers undervalued? I still say yes. Teachers and schools are the vehicle through which education happens and is measured. While families provide the fuel for this process, teachers are expected to use this fuel to facilitate the education. However, we do not give them the tools to succeed. When they do succeed, it is in spite of their resources.

We’ve misplaced our values in a way that’s harmful to all of us. So while the market rewards SUV manufacturers, reality television producers, and sports teams, we ask our educational system to spin gold from straw. This is an exception to Paul’s claims. We demand output without the proper input. And that’s unjust.

Additional Sources

Armor, D. (1972). School and family effects on black and white achievement: A reexamination of the USOE data. In F. Mosteller and D. Moynihan (Eds.), On equality of educational opportunity. New York: Random House.

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“You only have to talk about what you do for five minutes at parties, but you have to live what you do every day of your life, so better to do what you love and forget about how it looks.” Yolanda O’Bannon

NPR runs a series called “This I Believe.” Today’s was a good one, one that reminded me that it’s more important what you think than what others think. Living What You Do Every Day.

This is why I started my own company. This is why I accepted a full-time job in addition to my own work. This is why I volunteer my time for various non-profits and worthy causes. It’s your life…enjoy it.

I noticed that one of my recent posts, 12 Tips for Staying Productive and Avoiding Burnout has attracted some searchers coming in looking for advice on keeping your temper. To be honest, I have a short temper. However, I’ve found that I have a large capacity for managing my temper.

1. Pause. Take a few seconds and ask yourself why you’re angry.


2. Breathe. Get some air. When I get really angry, I sometimes have physical reactions such as shaking, turning red, or holding my breath. Bring yourself back to a centered, calm place by taking a deep breath.


3. Think. Force yourself think rationally about what’s making you angry. This helps you keep a clear head about the situation.


4. Think ahead. If you decide you have a reason to be upset, consider the ramifications of your actions. Is there anything to be gained by saying or doing what you want to say or do?


5. Empathize. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Why is there a problem? If you can identify the problem, you can start working toward a solution.


6. Express yourself calmly. If you decide you need to let the other person know how angry you are, do it calmly and in a non-threatening manner. Don’t blow your top just yet—explain you are angry and that you would like to resolve the problem.


7. Don’t shoot the messenger. Is the problem you’re angry about really caused by the person you’re working directly with? Taking it out on this person won’t help. Sometimes you can make this work to your advantage by letting them know just how upset you are, but that you know it’s not their fault–and you need their help to make it better.


8. Get away. Take a break. Go for a walk. A nap can clear things out. Get some exercise. If you’re going to lose it, keep your cool until you can blow off some steam somewhere safe.


9. Share the burden. Vent to a friend (who knows you’re venting, lest he or she make the situation worse). If you feel advice would help, ask for it.

Communication Barriers

I studied in Japan for a year. It was there that I learned patience and communication. Trying to express yourself to someone in a language in which you are barely proficient is frustrating beyond belief. I found myself trying to use words for which I knew no English equivalent. Sometimes I fell back on charades, using a Japanese-English dictionary, or drawing pictures.

As mad as I was sometimes, I discovered that I was more upset at the difficulty of communicating. This isn’t just true for different cultures or languages–it’s true for different sub-cultures and the special languages they use. Imagine a doctor trying to explain a complicated procedure to a patient. Or a technician walking a customer through the process of troubleshooting software. It’s maddening.

Give them the benefit.

It’s probably not personal. Mistakes happen, and you’ll find it’s easier to resolve them calmly than it is to get angry. Angry people aren’t necessarily rational, so it becomes very difficult for someone to reason with you and explain where the problem came from. Assume the person either made an honest mistake or they were not at all responsible for the problem.

Talk with your money

If you are angry at a business, you should let them know you are upset (do it calmly) and why. Let them know the consequences—that if the problem cannot be resolved, take your business elsewhere. Don’t make threats.

Patience and Attitude

It’s all about patience. Your time is valuable, but it’s often faster to keep cool and let things work themselves out. After I lived in Japan, I worked for over a year as a help desk phone support technician. I dealt with a range of problems and people, troubleshooting and fixing problems on the phone. On the phone (and Internet), people are physically distant from you so they find it easier to cast social niceties aside and be rude. Some of these people might have spent hours trying to fix their own problem before calling me, so I decided that it was best to treat them all as if they were just about to give up. Because most users aren’t experts, an impatient technical support person is even more frustrating. Here’s where attitude is a huge help. Friendliness and endless patience is very disarming. I found it helped to lighten the moment with a joke or by striking up some personal connection. It can bring the other person over to your side.

Compromise

You can’t always get what you want. In the end, you may not be perfectly happy with the situation. But you can feel some relief in its resolution. I once heard that “a good deal is one where both sides feel like they lost.” I don’t know how much I agree with that, but I’ll say that if you have an opportunity to clear up your problem by giving in a bit, you should consider whether it’s even worth your time and blood pressure to keep fighting.

So… what tips do you have for cooling off and keeping yourself from losing your temper?

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