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Welcome to Jon Michail's Personal Branding Masterclass. Jon is the founder and CEO of image group international, an award-winning image consulting and personal branding pioneer established in 1989. This podcast will bring you old-school wisdom, inspiring ideas, strategies and hacks for the new tech world. Here you will learn everything about personal branding: the system, the techniques and the right mindset to have a successful personal brand, image and reputation.

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Hello, everybody; thank you for listening to my podcast. Before we start the show, I kindly ask you to rate the show on the Apple podcast. Once you've done that, please email us the confirmation. And we will send you a book, the real-world guide to authentic personal branding. Now let's get started. Most people confuse working hard with success. And that is not always necessarily true. You could be running all your life and still get nowhere. But what matters, if you think about it, to be successful and live your dream life is to work smart; of course, hardness will come with that, and have the ambition to go for it. And what I mean by that, well, today's conversation, of course, is going to be about ambition and why it's important to have some of that as part of your way of being. But think about all the people you respect and look up to, you know, the ambitious mother, who wants more, the ambitious friend that inspires you and others, including yourself, again, for more, for better, for greater, etc. And, of course, the ambitious boss that risks Oh, to grow their business, and at the same time, safeguard, that team member's future employment and possibly create new, great products and services that our community wants. Second, you imagine above us, which is what ambition is all about. If you haven't got it, you're not going to be striving out there, you know, to achieve some success. And ambition is all about other than, of course, success and distinction involved, first and most and foremost, the desire to achieve and achieve it in a way where basically, you go for more than the standard. The willingness to stay committed, though, in the face of adversity. And failure is also part of your willingness to be ambitious. And that's where other traits come into, as well, to support your ambition, perseverance, and a never say, Never type of attitude, just to put you on a journey of never giving up. Ambition can lead you to triumph and victory, irrespective of how hard the journey might be. And we've all gone through different aspects of that journey. But without the ambition. It's like, why would you continue? So why do some people associate ambition with something negative? It might imply that you know, some ambitious people, at times, seem to lack values or ethics, or even toxic manipulators that only care about themselves. And yes, in these cases can lead to their destruction and, of course, everyone else surrounded by them. And this is important, but at the same time, what is very clear is that is not entirely true. And the same can also be said about unambitious people. They also can be toxic manipulators and ethical and definitely control freaks that are only interested in themselves. Yeah, this example really comes down to the individual. But we all have choices in the end of the day. And it's up to each of us to make the right choice. In that moment. It might seem that ambitious person at times, have greater control over the destinies and don't rely on others to fulfill their demands. However, that's mostly perception. Ambition is a major driver of personal growth and development. And without it, no great feat would have ever been accomplished. So it would help if you had some ambition. Now how you will sit on a spectrum of ambition, that's totally up to you as the individual; however, what we're saying is you need some ambition to get things done. Those with a strong internal drive and a sense of purpose aspire to be more, to know more, to want more, to accomplish more, to give more and have more and tend to have bigger goals and farther ambitions. And what I mean by that is somebody that's ambitious, as I mentioned earlier, it could also be somebody you know, that's not in business, it could be somebody in a non for profit, but definitely the ambition is essential to get you out of the morning and to strive beyond the normal and it's not only executives and leaders are ambitious, but also creators, innovators, authors, and of course, philanthropists, did you know that being ambitious can impact also your personal brand journey, you know, promoting your personal brand is essential, as we all know, to get known, get heard and get value. However, it's not something that everyone enjoys doing. And that's also personal branding. Of course, a lot of people don't enjoy doing it, and at the same thing, ambitious. So you need to have a level of ambition, what we're saying a desire to be valued, not just like, and a commitment to give it your best shot, as I've already known. So I say to you right now, what is your game? Now the game incorporates your, of course, business, Korea, and of course, your life game. But let's concentrate today on your Korea business, and why you get up in the morning. Okay. So what we're saying here is what is your name, basically, for you to achieve some level of joy in your life, happiness, okay? And fulfillment, it's about making your passion, whatever it is, okay, your work. But also, and this is a caveat, but also making an economic, by doesn't by adequately to meet my needs. And of course, if you're ambitious, your wants, and this is important, because, your passion, yes, will be your work, has been for me for most of my life, if not at least 35 years. And at the same time, also, is economic. And that's something that it's essential to look at, because without that, you're going to struggle. Now, I'm not talking about if you're coming from, you know, a trust fund and the economics are handled outside of you, that's fine, too, that, you know, that's choices. But I'm not talking about that I'm talking about you creating the economic wealth yourself. Another reason why ambition is important is that it makes you more confident. And I suppose that's where I'd go back to making it yourself. Because he gives us that independence, that you can actually do it. And you're confident enough that you can do it, no matter what you might have heard about the value of having ambition before; of course, we know, like I mentioned earlier, if you can imagine anyone you admire out there, famous, wealthy, infamous, specifically respected, you'll see that there's ambition there, even if it doesn't look like it's ambition has to be otherwise, why would they be striving to create all the things that they create, without having that underlying motivation with that word called ambition. So the fact is, though, as we become preoccupied in our daily, personal, professional lives and we attempt to strike a balance between the two, sometimes we can lose sight of who we truly are. And at times, you know, one trait might become more relevant than others; I can be the only thing that's driving you. And that's not something that we would say is positive unless it's integrated. And of course, it's balanced. But it might be a good time also to stop and introspect to ensure your ambition hasn't died down because it can over time, depending on what's happened along the way. So specifically, it's a good reminder on a daily basis because ambition is something that keeps you going; if you want to write that book, eventually, you're going to have to have some ambition. If you want to specifically go for that position, you're going to need to have some ambition, if you're going to start a business or start-up wanting to go into an aggressive mode of growing your business, you're going to need to have some ambition. So the thing here is ambition is part of us people that, of course, achieve the success they others can dream of, definitely were ambitious. It doesn't happen. It's a myth that will happen without that, but it's not a negative, right? Remember, we said choices earlier, you can make a choice to make the negative or positive. We all have choices, and it's up to us. So let me share a story with you a personal story about a vision. When I was younger, obviously, I became a designer, and I worked with some great companies, including bush in the old brand. That inspired me to be ambitious to sort of down the track and run my own show. And that's what I did. We started a manufacturing company. We became a wholesaler of very gruesome important brands from Europe. And of course, we also lead into starting a chain of retail stores and generates our stores were in the luxury space of men's and women's. And that basically was, you know, something a driver. That's of course part of an ambition to go out there and make people beautiful. That was my ambition. I love dressing up.
People make them look very attractive, okay, even at times when they felt that they weren't, and, of course, specifically love makeovers and so on, because the ambition there was for everybody to look in the mirror and feel good about themselves. And at the same time, they walk away feeling very proud and upstanding from the perspective of hate that they also can look the part. And definitely, that was an ambition that was achieved. And, of course, I became very well known for that. So ambition could be something as simple as that, of course. You could argue though that ambition of, you know, wanting to support people to look beautiful, look attractive, at the same time, that created the business model for us from the actual rates out that, of course, went into consulting, coaching and advisory and, you know, created a wealth, returning assets that, of course, supported me, my family, and my team members. So with that, that ambition without that drive, you know, that simple drive to get really, really personally enthralled when I saw beautiful people, even at times that as I mentioned, that didn't see themselves that way, gave me a real bite. So that's a good example of ambition for me. And I can give you many more stories, but you know, think about you as well, you know, and ambition, in this case, might also turn blend in with part of my personal drive and, of course, my passion as well. So, you know, this is something for you to think about as well because the key was the ambition element here. Just to sort of note before we're in for today, is without it, you're just plodding along. And you don't want to be doing that because the world is changing dramatically, and plodding along will not cut it so if you lack ambition, no problem. There are opportunities to reignite that ambition that wouldn't be inside you. Suddenly, it's probably dolmens. So with having said that, we have come to the end of our chat, and I trust that this episode was helpful for you. Don't forget to connect with me on social media. Twitter is Jon_Michail, my LinkedIn is Jon Michail. You can also find me as Image Group International on Facebook. Thank you all, and if you think I can help you find your ambition in your professional journey or even life journey, please get in touch. I look forward to next time. Have a great week. Cheers.

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Jon Michail's Personal Branding Masterclass" Podcast is sponsored by Image Group International, a global team of practical, digitally savvy personal brand and image strategists based in Australia, committed to maximizing your impact, influence and authority in the business world. To learn more and apply for your personal coaching, seminars and group workshops, please visit imagegroup.com.au or call 1800 631 311.