I got a Kindle for father's day and I really like it. I can't quite explain why, maybe it's the eInk screen (no glare, no back-lit eye fatigue), or maybe it's just because it is single purposed around reading books). In any event, I downloaded The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - you know the guy: one of the founding fathers of the United States of America. He's on the $100 bill! The book has been very inspiring, and one section in particular has resonated with me: the art of virtue. Benjamin Franklin articulated for himself a list of virtues, and what they meant for him. These are the standards he tried to live by (admitting failure on several occasions!). He even went so far as to devise a scheme to measure his progress in living up to this personal code of conduct. Given his success in life, perhaps a personal code of conduct is something we should all articulate for ourselves. Here is Benjamin Franklin's:

1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. MODERATION. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

I see a little bit of Zen Habits in this list, specifically Ben's item on Resolution: isn't this just like purposing your day by articulating your Most Import Task? What is your code of conduct? What would you add or change in Mr. Franklin's list of virtues?

I Collect Bad Wines

Ric realized that life can change in an instant. He thought about all the things he wanted to experience and all of the people he wanted to reach out to but had put off. He now says that "if the wine is ready and the person is there, I'm opening it". He no longer wants to postpone anything and this urgency has changed his life.

My Only Regret

Even though Ric felt pretty good about his life and that he had been a good person, he had one regret: wasting time on things that did not matter with people who did matter. As he puts it "I no longer try to be right, I choose to be happy". We often let our ego get in the way of what is truly important.

Dying Is Not Scary

In the final moments, Ric realized that dying is not scary and how in a way it felt as if he had been preparing himself for that event his whole life. However, it was sad. It was sad because he realized he wanted more than anything to see his kids grow up and he realized that all that truly mattered for him, his main goal and purpose in life, was to be a great father.

Watch below as Ric describes the gift of being able to see into the future, come back, and live differently:

photo credit: dSeneste.dk

How do you get more done in less time? Business Insider recently presented the results of a study by Dr. K. Anders Ericcson in which the musicians were evaluated to see what the best performers did differently from the rest. The four significant practices of top performers:

1. Work for shorter periods of time: 4 hours of deliberate, hard work is more effective than 7 hours of steady work. By working for shorter periods of time, you are motivated to optimize each working session since you know it is limited in length.
2. Set goals for each work session: Leo Babauta at Zen Habits describes this as having three Most Important Tasks for each day - the goals that must be accomplished that day. Before starting any work session, know what you want to accomplish.
3. Take Breaks: In Dr. Ericcson's study, they found the best performers took significant breaks between their intense work sessions. I'm much more productive in the afternoons if I take a long break for lunch and hit the gym. Enlightened work environments even encourage afternoon naps.
4. Rest and Recuperate: I've mentioned this before - when we put our work aside it percolates in our subconscious. Our minds have a great way of working things out in the background. There are countless stories of scientists and inventors literally solving big problems in their sleep! They immerse themselves in the problem, and then when they put is aside and sleep, they wake up with the solution. There is a good reason the advice to “sleep on it” is given out so often: it works!

Read More: Why Successful People Leave Work Early.

• Contingency staffing
• Executive search

Contingency Staffing

Recruitment firms that specialize in contingency staffing typically have an ongoing relationship with the companies that task them to recruit staff. They typically hire for positions where the required skill set is well defined in the labor market. Typically there exists a ready pool of people in the labor market that have the required skills. Examples include such positions as a payroll administrator, a database administrator (DBA), a java programmer, an accountant, a project manager, etc. These need not be low level positions, they are just typically easier to fill. Given the more liquid nature of the labor market for these types of positions, the recruiters get paid when the positions are filled which from a business perspective  implies they can source a candidate rather quickly. Contingency staffing firms typically hire for both contract and full time positions. When you deal with a contingency staffing recruiter you can expect to be speaking with them regularly as they line your skills up with a constant stream of positions that must be filled according to skill set.

Executive Search

Firms or recruiters that specialize in executive search are paid a retainer in addition to a fee when the position is filled.  This is because they are tasked with finding a candidate with a very particular set of requirements. The need to pay a retainer implies that it will not be easy to find suitable candidates for the position that must be filled. It can take months and even more than a year to fill some of these positions. Typically these are higher level roles and hence the term executive search. In the case of this type of recruiter, you can expect that you will not talk with at all unless they have a specific position for which you are a candidate.

Why the discussion on recruiters? Regardless of type, it should become clear that all recruiters rely on having an up to date database of candidates. In the case of contingency staffing, these candidates are filed by skill set and when they get a request for a payroll administrator, they simply query their database for anyone with the payroll administrator skill set. For executive search, they will scan their own database(s) for resumes that have a decent match to the requirements of the hiring company before engaging in an active (and more costly) search outside of their database(s). Obviously, if you can make the process easier and less costly for the recruiters, you have a better chance of being recruited!

Must Have #1: Resume

Yes, I know, there are all kinds of great stories about how resumes are old school, and doing something different gets you noticed. I'm not saying you shouldn't do these things, however, if you want to get any help from a recruiter you need a traditional resume. Why? Because the systems they use to populate their databases are based on traditional resumes being used for input. These systems rely on the typical resume format to scan for keywords and build a profile of skills which they will later search for when a new position must be filled. Personally I hate it when a store doesn't take credit cards, but if you want to buy something from such a merchant you need to have cash. When you deal with recruiters you need to have a traditional resume.

Must Have #2: LinkedIn Profile

Every recruiter or hiring manager out there is going to search for you on the internet before hiring you. The first place they are going to look is LinkedIn, and then they'll Google you and your LinkedIn profile will probably come up there as well. Furthermore, in the case of executive search when they don't have someone in their database that comes close to a match for a retained search, where do you think they are going to start looking first? LinkedIn. You can almost think of LinkedIn as a de facto database for executive search. I'm willing to bet that almost all executive search recruiters have a paid membership to LinkedIn for exactly this reason. So make it easy for them: set up a profile and complete it by filling in all the blanks like employment history, education, and a detailed summary of accomplishments and skills.

If you feel there are other must have's for job seekers, please let me know in the comments - I'd love to expand the list!

Note: My first reaction was not to use a swear word in the title, or quote the actual title of Julien's post because of the F bomb, but Julien makes a great point about that too: don't hide your true voice, the eye you feel watching you can do only that - watch. So fuck it, here's to Julien!

photo credit: Verano y mil tormentas.

1. Try to avoid the crap. This is when you try not to come in contact with the thing causing you distress: for example, staying clear of that difficult boss, trying to stay in everyone's good books lest they speak ill of you or scheme behind your back, or simply shutting out feelings of sadness, loss or anger. Sometimes this method manifests itself in excuses.
2. Be a victim. This is when you allow yourself to be hit. Your boss may be arrogant and unfair, your colleagues may be saying false things about you, you may be utterly depressed that your partner left you but at least you are right. Everyone can see that you are the victim and not the aggressor. At least you will have well earned pity and sympathy. Others might go out of their way to feel sorry for you and maybe help you stand up again.
3. Make space for the crap. This is when you accept the difficult person or difficult situation. It's a fact and you work around it. The only way to make space for bad things is to accept that it is there and to act to get out of crap's way, whether it be physically, emotionally or psychologically.

The first two methods are the usual responses we have when faced by bad things. They are also the two options where the crap persists or impacts us directly. The last option requires that we take responsibility for the difficult thing and deal with it. It's also the only option for having any power over it.

Enough preaching! How about an example: I remember a moment years ago when I was confronted by two friends, and they were upset about something I said or did. They confronted me at a party and I felt literally trapped - I'd have to explain myself (an excuse - i.e. avoid the issue), or sit there and take their rage (be a victim - maybe others would see this and think not so nice of my friends). In a moment of clarity, I realized there was another option, I could make space for their anger, in fact I could make a lot of space for their anger by simply turning around and leaving! I didn't try to make them less angry, I didn't allow myself to become the victim, I simply accepted that they were upset and made space for it in my life by turning around and walking away from the confrontation. I wasn't avoiding their anger, I made a decision not to care about it, but accepting that they would continue to be upset.

Please Tell Me There Is A Video

Yes, there is a helpful video segment to today's post! Dealing with bad things is a lot like dealing with being physically hit: you can try to avoid the punch, sit there and take it, or as many martial arts such as Akido would teach, make space for the hit - work with the hit, not against it. In this segment from the Tonight Show in 1973, Werner Erhard demonstrates for guest host John Denver how you can deal with being hit (it comes after the first commercial break, so watch the video to the end):

My original title for this post was How To Become A Self Promoting Slut. I thought it would be bold and a lot more attention grabbing than “Marketing Your Brand” which is what this post is about. Just so you know, I even went to the trouble of seeing what other people on the web thought of the s-word and opinions seem to be divided so I figured: I'm going with it! The original title was also extremely accurate: once you have developed your personal brand, your full time job will be to market that brand non-stop. Anyway, for this part of our 4 Easy Steps To Creating The Brand Called You, I thought I’d do something a little different. This post on marketing your brand is going to be a case study in personal branding. Even though I dis’d his home studio in a prior post, Aaron Marino, the man behind Alpha M Image Consulting and ever the gentleman, graciously gave of his time and described for me how he built and marketed his personal brand. Which also explains why I had to change the title: I was looking at the finished product with the picture of Aaron right under the title and I knew someone was going to get the totally wrong idea. My shock marketing tactics will have to wait for another day, but at least I feel better about the whole thing! In any event, on with the case study:

The Brand

The guy’s guide: image, style and fashion expertise for the average, everyday guy from a regular, heterosexual guy who happens to have a distinguished talent for fashion and image awareness.

What It Means

Aaron’s brand stands for redefining the alpha male.

Aaron’s Story

Aaron is a YouTube sensation, providing advice to men on how to manage their image. Aaron covers everything from fashion, style, hygiene and character development for the average, everyday guy. His short video segments are immediately appealing, accessible, and helpful, and as a result they garner thousands of views. He’s a regular guy with a developed fashion awareness: a guy who happens to know about cuts, fit, fabrics and threads. He teaches basic fashion and image lessons that work for real guys. As a result, Aaron has established himself as an authority on men’s style and image on the internet. Through his YouTube channel, his reach is global and he is now sought after for fashion advice and image consulting from men all over the world.

How It Started

Aaron started with a web site, blog and ebook called Male Style Guide. His early target market was middle aged, recently divorced men trying to get back out into the dating scene. As Aaron got busier, the blog became harder to maintain and he started making videos that he published on YouTube. The videos were a huge hit and opened a whole new set of opportunities. Aaron, now 35, noticed that his videos appealed not just to middle aged guys, but also a younger audience: young men looking for basic skills in fashion and image. When Aaron started posting videos, there were tons of videos and channels on YouTube dedicated to women’s fashion and style (try searching for "makeup" or “outfit of the day” and you’ll see what I mean), but there was scarcely anything on the topics of fashion and style for the regular guy. Aaron took a first mover advantage on YouTube for the everyday male fashion and style market segment. The brand has evolved beyond male fashion and style to include character development. Aaron now advocates a rebirth of chivalry to go along with the confident and self assured character that comes with looking good.

Marketing Channels

In the early days when he was promoting his web site, Aaron used Google Adwords and described it as the “best bang” for his buck at the time. While Adwords were good, the development of the YouTube channel was a game changer: his reach became global and has resulted in his business taking off. Just like the YouTube videos, Aaron recommends going after free press over advertising. He suggests emailing the editors of magazines and newspapers relevant to your target market and pitching actual story ideas. You’re helping them and helping yourself at the same time, and it doesn’t cost anything.

Highlights

Aaron told me that he receives emails almost every day now by men telling him how much his short videos have helped them turn their lives around. Knowing that he impacts the lives of others in a meaningful and significant way means the most to Aaron. I could feel a bit of the emotion in Aaron’s voice when he told me about this, and it’s a reminder that what we do as a contribution to others that is the real payoff - not the business or the money. One could only describe Aaron's videos as a genuine service to the fashion challenged male.

Words of Wisdom

Once you’ve defined your brand and your passion, think outside of the box: besides your niche, what is your “gimmick”, what is that thing that you do differently that makes you memorable. Go with it, and become a self promoting slut. Identify all the avenues and streams to get the word out!

Bonus Material!

Besides sharing the story of his brand and how he markets it, Aaron also provided some tips for the average guy on how to “package yourself”, because as we know, how you look is an important component of packaging your brand:

• Grooming: Spend an additional 3 to 5 minutes per day on grooming. Develop a schedule so that your appearance is always maintained in an efficient manner. For example, trim nose hair on tuesdays and thursdays, trim your nails on wednesdays, eyebrows on fridays, etc.
• The gym: Engage in some kind of physical activity for 30 minutes 6 days a week. If you can only get out 5 days a week, bump that up to 40 minutes. It doesn’t have to be the gym: it could be playing racketball, hockey, etc...
• Dressing on a budget: Good clothes don’t have to cost a lot. Some discount stores will sell designer suits for $120 and good shoes for $59. Be patient and spend the time looking around for these deals. If you are on a distressed budget, even thrift stores can be the source of good clothes.

Finally Aaron's must have wardrobe. Every guy must have at least the following in his closet:

• One pair of great jeans (not necessarily expensive, just great fitting).
• One pair of black loafers that you could wear with jeans or even a suit.
• One good belt to match the shoes.
• One great fitting white dress shirt.
• One suit, preferably charcoal grey (a color that could be worn on virtually any occassion).

For more information on Aaron Marino, check out Alpha M Image Consulting and definitely go to his YouTube channel. Besides being helpful, the videos are extremely entertaining. My wife and I have had a good laugh watching some of them, usually because I’m guilty of various fashion sins described by Aaron. If you’ve suffered a fashion crisis your entire life like I have, you might want to consider getting in touch with Aaron. He’s the real deal when it comes to male image and a really great guy. Thanks Aaron!

I always thought it was David Lee Roth of Van Halen fame who said:

It's not what you do, but how you look.

I tried looking it up (I Googled it), but alas I can't verify the quote. Maybe someone can verify that for me. In any event, it doesn't really matter who said it. Even though we may hate to admit it, there is some (i.e. much) truth to it. As we've all been told: first impressions mean a lot, if not everything, and first impressions are based on the package you come in - on how you look.

Since your brand is you, the question is how to package yourself. Let's look at the most important aspects of the package that you come in:

Your Name

Avoid the temptation to create a cool sounding company name for your brand. Since the brand is you, the brand name is your name. Let's say Sue Smith is an accountant and her brand (her promise of value) is "great bookkeeping for real estate agents". She shouldn't package this brand as "Great Books", or "Real Accounting", or whatever else sounds neat. Sue is the brand and so the name of her brand should be "Sue Smith". Maybe people like to use another name for their brands to make them sound bigger than themselves. I don't know, but this is an absolute show stopper for a personal brand and completely defeats the purpose. Now the brand is something else (xyz inc.) instead of you! Think of some great brands:

• Cartier
• Mercedes Benz
• Ford
• Armani
• Prada

These are all people's names! Consider most professional practices, law firms and accounting firms: same thing, all named after people.

Business Cards

You need a business card. I know this is the 21st century and everything is online. But there will be lots of opportunities to market yourself and you won't be online or near a computer. You'll need to pass people your calling card. Unless you are a graphic designer (by the way, just because you know how to use PhotoShop does not make you a graphic designer), don't design your business card yourself. That great thing about having the design work done professionally is that you can reuse the design on other collateral materials you may need, like letterheads, resumes and thank you cards. For God's sake don't print your cards on a printer at home. It only costs a few dollars these days to have cards professionally printed.

What's on the card? Your name of course (see above). Get your own business telephone number and put that on the card too. You can get your own number for free on Google Voice, or use a service like Ring Central. You'll also need an email on there, so read what's next:

Domain Name

Reserve your domain name now. If you name is "Sue Smith", register suesmith.com. It will only cost you about $10 or so, but now you've got a personal domain name that you can use for a couple important things:

• Email: You want this for your business card and for communicating with others. Nothing says amateur like a Hotmail or Yahoo mail address. Once you have your domain name, you can use several services such as Google Apps for your Domain to set up email on your new domain. Google Apps for your Domain is free for a standard account.
• Website: You need a web site. The first thing people are going to do is Google you. Your own site on your own domain allows you to control some of what see about you when they go out on the net. You might consider hosting a blog there where you write about your passion - the promise of value that is your brand. Maybe that's too much of a commitment, so perhaps you can simply put up your bio or even just your contact information (remember the stuff on your business card? use it here too!) and links to any online profiles you maintain on sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

Physical Appearance

If your brand is Great Tax Preparation for Wealthy Seniors, you cannot have uncombed hair and wear a hoodie and sneakers! Our physical appearance can be a very personal thing. I suppose it's not fair that how you look is dictated by what others expect. But hey, who said the world was fair? The thing is, perception trumps reality. It really is not what you do, but how you look. Actually it is what you do, but no one will get to that if they can't get by their first impressions. So how you look is as, or even more, important than what you do. For some people (women), style, hygiene and fashion seem to come naturally, for others (men) not so much. For the style challenged males out there, I'm really digging Aaron Marino these days. He's the man behind Alpha M Image Consulting (how I wish he had just used his name for his brand), and has an amazing YouTube channel with tons of great videos. Maybe as he gets his brand going he'll get a better studio for his videos!

Workspace

Your workspace says a lot about your brand. If your workspace is where you will entertain clients (or your boss, manager or employer) then having a workspace that is consistent with your brand is critical. If you are working for a big company and your brand is IT Projects Done Right - On Time, On Budget then have a disorganized cubicle with reams of paper all over the place is not going to work. It doesn't communicate a sense of the fantastic organization that seems to go with that brand.

Coming next in the series: Marketing Your Brand. Stay tuned. Better yet, subscribe to the Life Sutra and you'll always be up to date!

News is to the mind what sugar is to the body...News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don’t really concern our lives and don’t require thinking...We are beginning to recognize how toxic news can be and we are learning to take the first steps toward an information diet.

In the paper that led to his talk at TED, Rolf describes in detail all the dangers of news, including the costs of following it. He personally went without news for over a year, and describes the freedoms he gained:

• less disruption
• more time
• less anxiety
• deeper thinking
• more insights

It's a pretty compelling paper. Rolf isn't the first one to advocate avoiding the news, and I used to do this fairly successfully. At one time I made a point of not watching the news on television or reading it on-line. I had an extended stay at the hospital last year, and with my computer, newspapers and a lot of idle time, I admit that I fell into the news trap and even up to today, Google News is a diversion several times a day. Well, that stops now. Here's how I plan to break the habit:

1. Block news websites. After reading Rolf's paper I toyed with the idea of creating a browser extension to block news sites, but of course there is already an app for that! If you use Chrome, consider trying the StayFocused or SiteBlock extensions. I've tried them both out. The former is more feature rich and more geared towards setting time limits on viewing certain sites (which can be set up to include whatever news sites are slowly killing your mind), while the latter is a very simple url blocker. However they can both be set up to block something completely or set time limits.
2. Stop watching the news on television. This can easily be achieved by simply canceling cable. Cancel any newspaper or news magazine subscriptions.
3. Get out and do something else. When you have to read, read books.

On that last point I have a good story: I've always enjoyed watching professional hockey live and on television. A friend once asked me why I just didn't play hockey instead of watching others play it if I liked it so much. Good Advice.

photo credit: Tom T