William’s Words By William Arruda
A note from the Founder of Reach Personal Branding.

Gratitude

The topic of gratitude comes up a lot in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. But it’s May. So why am I bringing it up now? Well, the act of being grateful is a year-long and a life-long activity. It shouldn’t be reserved for holidays!

Being grateful and acknowledging others for their good deeds feels good – and it has tremendous health benefits too (detailed in this NYTimes article).

I’m a naturally thankful person, I think, and make it a priority to acknowledge the thoughtful acts of others. The recent launch of Ditch. Dare. Do! gave me an opportunity to experience kindness by the truckload. So I’d like to use this installment of William’s Words to express gratitude for the tremendous support and generosity that I experienced. I am grateful for:

• Deb Dib for being a witty and wise coauthor who is an absolute delight. She tells me she is grateful to all these people too!
• The amazing Dick Bolles for writing the brilliant foreword for the book. He’s an inspiration to so many people!
• Team 3D – the Reach-certified Strategists who are committed to the 3D philosophy and the book’s success.
• Bestselling authors and sages Dan Pink, Marshall Goldsmith, Martin Yate and Gretchen Rubin for their endorsements and reviews of the manuscript.
• The Reach team – especially Tara Kachaturoff and Deborah Reast who managed every single step of the long – and sometimes arduous -process.
• The dozens of people who read the book as soon as it was available and provided our first reviews at Amazon.com.
• The over 30 people who contributed stories and quotes.
• Our launch partners who gave away valuable gifts on launch day.
• The countless others who provided content, creativity, support, advice, resources, wisdom, feedback, promotion…
• YOU, the reader of YOUnique who shared your encouragement and ideas as we updated you with the progress of the book.

THANK YOU!　Let me close this installment of William’s Words with a Malayan proverb that sums up my feelings: “One can pay back the loan of gold, but one lies forever in debt to those who are kind.”

Job Matchmaking – What makes you “click”?

“John, I heard you quit job! What happened?” The only thing I could say to that was “We just didn’t click!”

That got me thinking, what exactly did I mean when I said that I didn’t click with my job? So I grabbed a pen and paper and created a checklist of what I thought the perfect job offered to see just how we “didn’t click.” This is what my checklist looked like:

• Multinational Company
• Company Reputation
• Company Portfolio
• Great Annual Package
• Regional Position

To my surprise, the job I just quit aced my checklist, so what exactly was I complaining about?

I wish I knew then, what I know now. In this post, I will reveal to you an important, if not the most important, aspect to consider while exploring the next company to work for. VALUE!

Yes, value matchmaking should be on top of your checklist. Your values are what make up your belief system. You can’t detach yourself from your values … they are what make you who you are! Knowing your set of values helps you making sound career decisions. They serve like a compass guiding your career to happier and more satisfied you. Identifying your values will help you recognize whether you and a particular company of interest would make a good fit.

Let’s take some examples:

• If you value family, then you are less likely to feel comfortable with a job that requires of you to be away from yours 90% of the time. As exciting as the suitcase-life might be at the beginning, you will soon grow restless because you just miss you family too much.
• If you value fairness, then you will be frustrated to be working for a company that has a tendency of terminating employees under the pretext of internal restructuring, even if you yourself are pampered.
• If you value calmness, you are bound to blow a fuse working as a manager for nightclub.

Matching your values embraced by the company you intend to work for will leave you with a greater sense of content and in turn allow you to be more productive.

To make sure you “click” with your next job, your homework before heading of to the next job interview is unearthing your top 5 personal values. If you have difficulty identifying your values, I recommend you take note of things that bother you. Usually when something bothers us, it’s because one of our values is being violated.

… And like I always say, “YOU SHY, YOU DIE!”

John Antonios is a Personal Branding Strategist & Executive Coach. He stands side by side with politicians, executives, and graduates helping them understand and promote their brand DNA, allowing them to cash in on their passion and take control of their legacy.

Personal Branding Prescription to Fulfillment

In today’s world, where distraction is the rule, we need to focus more that ever. But the question is, what should we focus on? and what do we need to achieve? My answer to the second question is that it’s all about fulfillment. With regards to the first question, I challenged myself to come up with the shortest prescription to fulfillment, so that we can maximize our focus on it.

Being professionally successful doesn’t necessarily mean being satisfied with what we do. This happens when we’re lacking a purpose in our lives – the end-point that the more we get closer to, the happier we are, and we define our goals to set the road to go there.

I used to get interesting answers when I’ve asked some people about the most important things they want to do everyday – their job in life. My answer to this is that our life job is to work each day on our goals to achieve them. Each achieved goal is a step forward toward our purpose and more fulfillment.

But the challenge is double. The first is, are we really able to productively act each day on our goals toward our purpose? And the second is, how to make sure that we stay motivated all the way?

My vision of how purpose, goals and activities relate to each other is like a concentric set of circles, what I like to call “goals circles.” From inside out, the central part is our purpose. The next layer is the long term goals, followed by the intermediate, then the shorter-term, and so forth. Each goal sits on a segment of its layer. The size of that segment is proportionate to the relative importance of that goal toward achieving our purpose. The outermost layer contains the tasks that we should do each day to achieve our goals.

Most of those tasks are repetitive in nature, such as content curation, follow-up with our network, etc. That nature makes them rapidly overwhelming and frustrating. We need systems to streamline those tasks and integrate them into our lives. Saying it differently, it’s about turning tasks into habits. Integrating a seemingly very simple habit, such as efficiently managing our mails, can have a turbo-effect in achieving our goals and getting closer to our purpose. So you need to consider simple tasks first and turn them into habits. You’ll get big result with little effort.

It is also critical to highlight the importance of motivation while acting on our goals each day. Monitoring our progress and seeing that we’re moving forward is key to staying motivated, and accomplish more. Obviously, you need a tool for that. One of the tools that I really like is Goalscape, where you’re able to see how far completing one simple task moves you toward your purpose.

So my prescription to you is to set your goals, turn your tasks into habits and use a tool to monitor your progress toward your purpose each day.

Emery Kaze hates conformity and is skilled in reinventing businesses and careers. He is Luxembourg’s personal branding pioneer and creates awesome medical and dental brands for the world.

Community News
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William Arruda and Deb Deb Write for MarketingProfs!
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Have you read the latest article from William Arruda and Deb Dib on MarketingProfs?

You can find it here: Career Management – Manage Your Marketing Career in 3D.
 


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William Arruda quoted at length on Forbes.com’s: 10 Ways To Be More Confident At Work
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William Arruda talks to by Jacquelyn Smith about 10 ways that you can be more confident at work! You can find the article on Forbes.com here.


 


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Walter Akana talks to Liz Lynch about “Crafting Your Personal Brand Story”!
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Master Strategist Walter Akana talks about how to craft your personal brand story in this short video with Liz Lynch.
 

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Use HUE to Build Brand YOU
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Check out William Arruda’s new article in the International Coach Federation’s latest issue of Coaching World!

The article, “Use HUE to Build Brand YOU”, is on page 24 at this link!.




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William Arruda Quoted in Success and Wealth Secrets in Men’s Health!
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William Arruda is quoted in a new article in Men’s Health that talks about “Success and Wealth Secrets”. There are lots of great tips for each stage of a man’s life from his 20s to his 50s!

You can find it online at the link above or in the magazine’s March 2013 edition on page 27.

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Personal Branding Trends for 2013
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It’s that time once again when William Arruda publishes his annual Personal Branding Trends Report. From curation to QR codes and a lot of other interesting trends in between,you’ll definitely want to download a copy of this free report.

Download your complimentary copy of William Arruda’s Personal Branding Trends for 2013 here!

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Peter Sterlacci on the Ambitious Entrepreneur hosted by Annemarie Cross!
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Peter Sterlacci appeared on a podcast called The Ambitious Entrepreneur hosted by Annemarie Cross: Break away from the pack and ride to success with key personal branding strategies.

They discussed:

• Tips on being a ‘solopreneur’ in another culture;
• How to brand yourself across cultures using the ‘personal branding style dial”;
• Key strategies that will help you start branding yourself today;

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Purzue Interviews: William Arruda on Personal Branding
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Justin Webster from Purzue sat down with William Arruda, personal branding guru, author, and founder of Reach Personal Branding, to talk about the benefits of branding yourself in the current job market. Read the interview here.

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YOUNique for the iPad is coming soon!
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Reach and YOUnique are mentioned on Readz as a featured customer with the announcement of the YOUnique for iPad coming soon. Here is the link. Just scroll down and you will see the announcement!

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Subscribe to William Arruda’s YouTube Channel!
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If you’re not already subscribed, head over to YouTube and become a subscriber to William Arruda’s YouTube channel. Please share it with your friends, associates, and clients too.

Thanks and see you there!