I have been meaning to write a post on Personal Branding for a while now. I spent 40 mins watching this video twice and making notes on Gary’s speech, before deciding that i cannot explain Personal Branding with more passion and energy than Gary does.

So below i have taken the 10 most significant parts from the video and constructed them into this post about Personal Branding.

First and for most, I really want to thank everyone for reading this. I mean, this is outrageously humbling. Every single person who is reading this, since your here, there’s no doubt in my mind that you’re going to kill it.

1. Have Patience and Passion

Lets starts with passion, there’s way too many people right now that are doing stuff they hate. There is no reason in 2010 to do rubbish you hate. None. Promise me you won’t, because you can lose just as much money being happy as hell.

Have patience; success does not happen over night, but it also won’t happen unless you ‘get off the bench and into the game.’

2. Listen To Your Community

Listen to your users absolutely; but caring and understanding your users is a lot more effective. People listen but they don’t do anything!!! Do something, answer those emails, give a shit about your community, care about your user base… That’s what you need to do.

You need to care about everything and it starts with yourself. Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself,

“What do I want to do every day for the rest of my life?” Do that. I promise that you can monetize that.

3. What’s Your Legacy?

Legacy is greater than currency. Has everybody completely grasped that your grand children are going to watch and see everything you’ve even done? I think about that every single day. I want my grand kids to be proud of me.

4. Hustling and Building Business

Do you know what I hustle about? I hustle about meeting every single person on earth and building a relationship to create another exciting opportunity.

Hustle is the most important word, ever… and that’s what you need to do. You need to work hard.
We’re building business here, this isn’t about parties and wasting your life away watching relentless episodes of daytime television and Eastenders.

Getting a load of users or Social Media statistics is not a business model. Make some cash along the way!

5. Believe In What You Do

If you’re pumping out good stuff, people will follow. But if for a second, a half a second, that you don’t believe in what you’re doing; whether it’s your personal brand or the product you represent; you need to get out now. Please!

6. Understand The Game Is Changing

We only get to play this game one time. One life.

The way everything is changing is unbelievable. Everybody is consuming content everywhere. The people that controlled it; Newspapers, Television and Radio are no longer in control!
That is a huge factor that people have not totally wrapped their head around. You need to build brand equity.

It’s about brand equity in yourself, because you never know what could happen.

7. Networking and Being Transparent

I love people, so networking is a huge advantage for me. Get out there and network. People are the people that are going to help you. The only way to succeed now is to be completely transparent… Completely.

Everything is exposed. Everything you do. So your legacy is your ultimate life. It’s all you’ve got. And you can build so much on that. When you have brand equity, anything can happen.

8. Using Social Media Tools

What’s very imperative to me right now is using the tools. Too many people are trying to figure out which tools to use. Shall I use Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, which tools shall i use?

All of them… Your user base, and the people that care about you; you need to connect with them anyway you can, everywhere you can, as often as you can. That interaction is essential. Communication is essential!

9. What We Do Is Real

Look at Reality TV, that’s about as real as shit! That stuff is not real. But we still like it because it’s somewhat real. This other stuff is very real. The place where we play is very real. And it is a massive, massive opportunity.

I hope people wrap there head around that, because we are going through a gold rush of branding. In the old days to become a brand you needed a lot of mainstream media attention. But now, if you get talked about enough in social media; blogs, networks, videos, you can get there.

You can build your brand. Your companies brand.

But it all starts with that first moment when you look in the mirror and you ask yourself, what do I want to do?

10. Time To Take Action

If you want this, if you’re miserable, if you don’t like it or you want to do something else and you have a passion somewhere else. Work nine to five. Spend a couple hours with your friends and family and then spend seven to two in the morning putting your game into action!
Who says you have to work to someone else’s schedule anyway?

But that’s it. It’s not going to happen any other way. You’re not going to make stickers and stand on the street selling your ideas, cos really nobody cares about you until you make yourself heard. Get off the bench and into the game!!!

“We only get to play this game one time… one life.”

Check out more from the legend that is Gary Vaynerchuk here

It’s been a kind of rough few days and i wanted to write something to help those that may also be going through any hard times whether it be work related, relationships, financial or anything else.

Our lives tend to be carried by emotions and i find that especially within myself, although my business decisions are generally based on analysis and are conservative, my personal decisions, especially when i am emotionally involved, are rash and uncontrollable.
I look back over the years and can see similar traits of where i have excelled in enterprising and understanding theory within business, but have always had weaknesses with becoming emotionally attached to something or someone (this can relate to a partner or are business you created from scratch yourself).

As time passes, we encounter challenge after challenge that sets us apart as humans, each one being more difficult, and while we should learn from previous mistakes, sometimes it’s easy to get so emotionally involved that our knowledge and our ability to analyze a situation goes out the window.

So i am sitting here wondering about the last few days and how i got myself into a situation that i never really imagined being in (not anytime soon anyway). How it got to the point, that i had forced a decision to be made, when if i had approached the scenario with the same thinking i use within business, would the outcome have been different?

While i don’t want to think too much about my decisions and the possibility of regretting the outcome, as i never want to live in regret. I can only try to understand the large gap that separates my head and my heart, without being too cliche.
I know i am not the only one in this position, and while thousands of people go through pain and anguish everyday, and moreover, while we watch as a country that has been destroyed by natural disaster, where thousands of lives have been ruined, i remain positive about my future, the opportunities that are ahead and the challenges i will encounter as time passes.

I believe that every challenge we come up against is a test of our character; our ability to overcome. The theory that ‘whatever doesn’t kill me, can only make me stronger’ is one that i fully accept and understand. Yet in many situations i have this involuntary desire to object against my inner strength and ability and can fall weak to my emotions, especially the memories of what we once regarded as ‘that perfect place’.

I recently found, that although ‘life’ (in inverted commas) gets us down, depressed, negative, upset, worried, confused, uncertain etc, it is the art of ‘progression‘, that keeps us believing in ourselves. Meaning that if you are able to move past this challenge and conquer whatever has the potential to hold you down, then you have progressed. You have moved forward, and while your brain and heart will still hold the memory, the wound will heal; thus in short, you have succeeded in that challenge.

I like to think of things on an annual cycle, for example, is the position you are in now, a step further than the position you were in this time last year? Was 2009 a successful year for you? Did you end it further ahead than you was at the end of 2008?
It was for me; as i graduated from University, participated in a great challenge with Orange Rockcorps, created and established an array of business ventures, networked efficiently thus creating new opportunities, made some great friends and also met a wonderful girl (i really don’t have to explain the outcome of this though).

This is just a brain dump of my thoughts and feelings, merely because writing this out, allows me to read about myself from an external angle. It will also act as an archive that i can look to further down the line, to monitor my progress.

I want to end this post, by stating this analogy.

Every challenge is like a chapter in a story; the story of your life. While the chapter will eventually come to an end, it does so to let another chapter begin. The next challenge will not be the final chapter in your life, and as your story goes on, each chapter will make it easier to understand what this story is about. As you progress, the book will become clear and you can conquer the rest of the story with ease.

As always, this is a blog of my honest thoughts and feelings, and if this helps you in anyway, please post your comments below. Any comments are appreciated and i hope you enjoyed the read.

Yesterday i decided to get back into the blog game, i was actually sitting in the steam room at the leisure center when i began to brainstorm. I hadn’t written a decent post in a while and where the majority of my readers type the iamluca url and expect to watch a new music video or free download, i hate to disappoint but that chapter has taken a leap off a 80 story tower block. If you do want your daily Urban Music fix i suggest you check out my good friends at Team Supreme, cos they have the Urban Music Blog game locked down.

Back to the story now; so i am sitting in the steam room, towel over my head and all that, deep breaths soaking up the aroma and Aloe Vera the chap next to me has sprayed, when i remembered something that Andrew Davis told me a few weeks back. Now for reference, Andrew is a mentor, a colleague of mine, and the creator of The Worst Kept Secret.

“If you do something 21 days in a row it becomes a habit.” Andrew stated. I don’t usually question Andrew, i prefer to just Google something and i haven’t yet found a time when he speaks out of his arse so i can take his statements as a valid argument.

This got me thinking about what i needed to be doing and not only habits that i would like to create, but also those that i could break. So that simple Google Search lead me to a blog post by a guy called Steven Aitchison. Steven writes a very interesting blog focused around ‘positive thinking and challenging the mind.’ You should definitely check it out!

Now i didn’t care too much about finding further research about whether this is a credible statement, i mean, why waste more time when i have to get off the bench and into the game. I was more interested in what habits would help me move forward in 2010 and a step closer to that bright light (success by the way, not heaven).

So what was the first habit i wanted to imply with a 21 day challenge? It had to be the all important fitness task. Having exchanged regular exercise for selection boxes, Cadburys Heroes and weeks old dry turkey for the last three weeks, it was time to get my Spiderman physique back on. (That means im hoping to just wake up hench and pose in the mirror).
21 days of hardcore fitness await me… well actually 19 cos by the time of writing this i have been to the gym the last two days. If i cant make it to the gym, i have to make sure i go for lengthy hour run, armed with snow boots and a fur coat Rocky IV style.

The second habit goes hand in hand with the above one: 21 days of healthy eating. What would be the point of training like Ivan Drago if im gonna polish off a portion of cheesy chips for dinner.

Healthy eating consists of three main meals:
- Breakfast: A bowl of Special K or two boiled eggs with wholemeal bread and a glass of fresh juice.
- Lunch: A Salad with olive oil dressing or a sandwich (no crisps).
- Dinner: A meat or fish, freshly cooked with minimal seasoning and hand cut potatoes with a side salad.

Fortunately i am actually a pretty good cook, compliments of the Italian parents, so this won’t be a problem. If you think not being able to cook will put an end to your washboard stomach regime, i suggest bookmarking a Jamie Oliver site.

The third and final habit i am installing is this one. To write a blog post every day for 21 days; and like i said in yesterdays post it doesn’t really matter what you are writing, as long as you are writing something. If it stops you chatting waffle on Facebook to friends that you hoped that you got rid of five years ago, its a good thing. It will also be a good chance for me to keep track of my progress also, so im excited about doing this one.

So these are my three habits:

• 21 days of Fitness training (Gym, Running, Home workout).
• 21 days of Healthy eating (Three healthy meals per day)
• 21 days of blog posting.

And there we have it, i will be enforcing these until Sunday 24th January. If this theory is correct i should be rocking a string vest with a pair of bulging biceps that will get me a date with Katie Price by the following Monday.

I actually don’t have any habits that i would be interesting in breaking, maybe to stay of Facebook cos it is that distracting, but my blog posts feed to Facebook and it would be rude of me, giving Social Media advice to people, when i don’t use the site myself.

Good habits that some may want to break are: Stop Smoking, No Chocolate, Sweets or Crisps, No Fast Food, Don’t use your computer after a certain time etc.

If this post interests you and you decide to take the challenge also, please feel free to contact me and keep me updated via a reply to this post, via my email which is info@iamluca.co.uk or via my twitter.