Its common knowledge that you need a personal brand to succeed on the job and on the job market. Yet many people – even those with a personal brand – find themselves underemployed, unemployed or simply dissatisfied with their current position.

Hence dissatisfaction, stagnation and boredom are viewed as normal and even acceptable.

Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. Your can create a new reality by re-shaping the way that you think of your personal brand.

In fact, the success that you are looking for is both much, much harder AND much easier than its ever been to attain.

How can that be?

Well if you do everything exactly as you are supposed to; you turn in your assignment on time, your resume is excellent, you possess the technical skills you need, it is MUCH harder to get ahead. The reality is that the competition is unrivaled today.

But, if you change your mindset, if you radically re-evaluate what it means to be successful, it is actually easier than ever to achieve it!

When you stand out effectively, you create opportunities to achieve. Those in power are looking for success themselves and anything you can do to help them achieve that, will you success too. Whether this is being such a standout job applicant that they don’t have to weed through 500 other resumes or being known as the person who can get anything done in your office. When you stand out as a rockstar, you will achiever your success.

And don’t worry – you can be a rockstar. You don’t have to be a genius or work more hours in a day; you just need to work smarter. And, at the core of working smarter is a simple mind shift will transform you and your personal brand.

The three components of your mindset shift

  1. “Normal” is not enough. 
    Look around you, do you want what everyone else has? If you do, normal is enough. If you want more, if you want different success, if you want your own vision, normal will never be enough. You need to stand out. You need to be remarkable. And, most importantly, you need to be you.
  2. It’s not about you.
    I say this all the time. Your personal brand is not about you, its about them. It’s about creating value for others. When you create meaningful value for other people, you are rewarded. That is success.
  3. Quality is better than quantity.
    20 mediocre assignments is less than 1 amazingly good result. 100 template resumes is less than 1 full-blown love-affair with a job opportunity. Doing things well and really standing out takes effort – but, its worth it.

Changing your mindset around your personal brand isn’t always easy. In fact, it can be downright hard and even intimidating.

Over the next 3 weeks, we’re going to look at some concrete strategies that will help you put these mindset shifts into action.

But first, take the next 5 minutes to really consider what this could mean for you. Close your email, silence your phone and list out 3 things under each category that you could do to change the way you present yourself.

How could you really stand out?
Who do you help on a daily basis and how could you do it better?
What is the one thing that, if you did an amazing job, would be a game-changer?