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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, everyone, and thank you for listening to my podcast. Before we start, the show economy asks you to write the show on Apple podcast. Once you've done that, please email us a confirmation and we will send you our ebook the real world guide to authentic personal branding. Now let's get started. In today's episode, we will talk about the meaning of real wealth. Have you ever reflected on that? Well, let me share with you my own thoughts about this, what that has meant for me and of course, in my own experiences. And what I'd like you to think about is obviously, you know, from day one, we get virtually conditioned to believe it's all about money, money, money, we definitely support that wealth creation is a very important concept of having a full life. Because obviously money gives you opportunities to leverage through it. And of course, give you an opportunity for more freedom and independence, because at least you can sort of buy what you need to give you that sort of independence and freedom that you might be looking for. But I'm talking about something deeper today, okay. And deeper element today is specifically health. And because that's really when you look at wealth, that's the real wealth, health and of course, the World Wealth, pre its creation and transformation into the meaning of derived from the word health because we all was have known throughout history, that health is actually your number one wealth. And of course, do I need to remind everybody of COVID in the last couple of years, and what effect that's had in reference to health. So what's important is that we get into action and really get a real sense of what this means. Most people believe that material riches have a highest form of wealth. That's because as I noted earlier, society is set up that way. Nothing wrong with that. It's just basically, at times very, very disappointing as an expectation for a lot of people, especially when they get there to all that wealth. And I should know basically, either my own life and of course, my clients, associates, etc, I have a lot of evidence to back up what I've just shared, they exert every effort to increase it along the way and give up time and freedom along the way that really, at times is really the most valuable currency they have. And I discover that they let them the time to spend on activities that are truly crucial for their joy and pleasure. And this is important because the greatest currency you have, as I noted a second ago was your health. Of course associated with time, whatever you miss out and specifically lose in time, you cannot get back. But in reference to money in any other form of wealth other than health, of course, you can get it back and you can get it back fairly quickly, especially if you know what you're doing. At the same time. Health is also curable or from a healing aspect, you can also get that back as well. But the danger of that, of course, is you're trying to fix things after they've happened as opposed to be preventable from the start. So what we're saying is, again, time is your most valuable currency. Well, wealthy and powerful clients hire us to do the hard lifting, so they have more freedom, a time to do what they love. So in other words, they are trading, replacing money with time, because as we've already indicated, once gone, it's gone forever. The fact is that the wealthier you become, the more you become of who you already are. For instance, if you're already miserly, having more money will just make you more musli. If you're generous, you'll grow to be more generous, it will give you more opportunities, because that wealth of course is an opportunity to share and make a difference out there. Good example of that is a lot of philanthropists that do good. If you already spend a lot you will continue to do so you will become a bigger addict in whatever you're already addicted to get the picture. I think you do. And I think all of us might have gone through this at some stage in life, okay, but the bigger picture here is specifically leading a more integrated lifestyle that incorporates As of course you create your business and yourself, but has integrations opposed to stress from a perspective of angst and constant, like getting up every morning just so you can earn $1 as opposed to loving your life. Many people believe that their issues will always be solved and their happiness, joy will come from having a lot of money. I'll tell you something, in my experience, and that's not true. And of course, history shows that a lot of very wealthy and powerful people are very, very miserable. Being wealthy and famous isn't everything that it's built up to be. Again, I want to make it clear, I want to put the caveat here we support wealth creation at the highest form. Having said that, it all has to be integrated as another the second ago, being wealthy and famous isn't everything that it's built up to me, as evidenced by the numerous superstars who have endless issues with drugs, foul relationships, abuse, and early deaths are shown now many have been our clients, I six executives damaging their reputations, NFL football is going to miss businesses going bankrupt. So the key here is this. Yes, there is judgment here. Guess what we all judge, anyone that claims that don't judge is a hypocrite, we all judge at times, we do it openly. And of course, most times we do it covertly. So from the perspective of me giving you feedback here, it comes from a care factor that says, you know, whatever is going on, learn from your challenges. And then if you have to include and reputation wise, is reinvent, because bottom line, every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. That means to make that really clear, whatever has happened has happened, you've got to move on. And of course, depending how drastic that has been including shame, guilt, all that sort of stuff that holds people down and destroys the spirit, you got to let that go. Because the key here is, is to reclaim your identity, okay, and of course, share with the world who you truly are, as opposed to the story that you're carrying around mostly in your head. So to be clear, let's semi encourage wealth creation, and actually help our clients do that through Of course, many, many of our networks, historically, money has been a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value, though this is also changing quickly, for instance, think digital currencies, the ability to exchange your time for money is actually a drug, okay? And will always be depend on how much you have. And of course, how much you're actually making and how much more you plan to make. So you can see a lot of angst that having said that, you know, so use stress from the perspective of stress. So you can, that's the positive stress that you would need to be motivated, inspired to get into action is actually a good thing. So you need that as well. But it's the integrations, the balance that are talking about here. Because once you have it, you'll eventually need to exchange it for something else you desire that will bring you a greater fulfillment. And it's mostly this greater fulfillment. In most cases, unless it's experiences, it's mostly more toys, you know, more, bigger house, bigger car, bigger overseas holidays, look, maybe the holidays are okay, experiences work well, but you know, it's about getting that integrated, as well, because again, I can't tell you how many clients I've had over the years. Specifically, the next toy is what's going to give them happiness, and it does for about 24 hours, okay, and then they back on track. So it's important to face the mirror. Now this is the hardest journey any human being can go on to. And of course, we've discovered this on many episodes throughout the year, and so on, but the face in the mirror is the most important. And remember, like American author, Napoleon Hill said, remember that your real wealth can be measured not by what you have, but what you are. And I couldn't agree more. So what we're saying is real wealth equals real health and the abundance of time and freedom to be who you are, and want to be whenever you choose. This is the key. So of course, go out there create as much wealth as you can. But the integration here is to be, you know, bringing it back how balanced that is. And of course, that your health is number one. And when I talk about health, of course, I'm talking about mind, body and spirit. So the real independence that you will have, then will open up opportunities to influence first of all your own life, but also someone else's life and create also the possibility to do something that's important to you, that you might not even be thinking of right now and your family to make a difference to your favorite cause and your community. This is the opportunity to live a life of commitment. From the point of view of intention, and of course, you know, making that particular difference to your cause from the perspective of what you love doing. So it could be anything, you know, whatever it is for you. But of course, that's where being integrated, first is essential. And then once you've got that, then you can go and create as much as you want, including a lot of Wealth. So look, in the end, if you have plenty of money, but that enjoy some of the above examples of non monetary wealth, then your money is pretty meaningless to you, okay, it's just, it's just another form of energy that really doesn't do anything other than just produce more of that energy that's not being utilized. So have you ever met a rich miser? Yes, I have a true deplorable. And what I mean by that is, specifically, it's funny how misery attracts misery, because, and the difference with that, of course, is abundance, attracting abundance. And when people use this language, they're always thinking, Oh, how I can quickly make a lot more money. Now, of course, you know, if you've come from real working class, really poor, really tough background, etc, you think that that's going to be the Savior, that's only one component of the total puzzle here. So let me share a story with you. And this story is specifically somebody I know somebody I've worked with great guy, but this is the actual story. This particular man was brought up poor, okay, he, you know, he didn't have a lot of, he didn't have a lot of comforts in life, of course, the family worked really hard to try to sort of keep everything together. So as he obviously matured, he worked like a dog specifically, so he can get all these sorts of safety valves into his life and, you know, meaning making a lot of money, okay? Because, specifically, he saw that, that that's how he's going to be respected, his status will go up, et cetera. And of course, part of that definitely will happen, okay. But it didn't have a real authentic appreciation of, you know, his family and friends, although, of course, it told the world he did. And it was mostly for show, so it was a lot of sort of pretending right, it was a lot of pretending from the point of view, everything's is perfect. And I'm sure you can relate that with other people you might know very common out there. Of course, you know, image conscious society can never traveled and save and save forever, other than the image you created around, you know, his home and how fantastic everything was. So he amassed a fortune in you know, from the perspective, this fortune was worth at least $200 million. And guess what, he has a heart attack, he has a heart attack, he has good triple bypass, also in the process suffers paralysis. And then guess what happens? The story gets better. His wife has an affair. And overtime now his children are now estranged. Now, I'm not saying this is a typical story. This story is only designed as a metaphor for you, because I'm sure you know, or have experienced people that are similar. And it's not like they are bad people or doing something wrong or whatever. It's not about that. What I'm saying is they're not integrated. They've really lost course, or what this is all about. So instead of looking at what truly matters, they've gone into the superficiality and what they actually think surely matters. So what I said are all of that wildlife, fuck that. Get clear on what truly matters to you, and then plan how you're going to achieve it. Wouldn't that have been a great lesson to learn at school, never to be a slave to money, and for that matter, anything? That's it for today, folks? A little bit, I suppose. Passionate from the perspective of my own lived experiences. And if you think if you think and you liked this particular story, and you think also that can help your personal branding journey, don't hesitate to send me an email. You can find the email address on the description of this episode. And don't forget to connect with me on social media. My Twitter is Jon_Michail, my LinkedIn is Jon Michail, and you can find me as Image Group International on Facebook.  I thank you all and I look forward to chatting again next week. Have a great week. And of course 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.