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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, and thank you for being here today. Our chat today will be about achieving your career goals. However, to achieve your career goals, you must obviously have goals in the first place. And you might be asking why? Well, the evidence is clear. People with well-established career goals don't get carried away by momentary circumstances and don't waste time with things that will not generate the desired results. And by that, what I mean is they are focused, they basically have, you know, an intention and ambition to create something. And what we say is in reference to goals, and anything that you're going to create out there. And of course, it's all part of getting into action your imagination is the personal power you have to create that can never be taken away from you. If you don't have a well-defined career goal. Well, there's an opportunity for you to ask yourself a few questions, what do I desire for my professional life in the future. So that might include a promotion, that might include different roles, there might even include a completely new career, you got to be open to that. And of course, we know that over a lifetime, people, specifically, we'll change at least 16 different positions, if all or jobs, you know, from a statistical perspective. So what that means is, that you also might even change Korea and a lot of people do. So that's also a possibility, meaning, you know, with goals, you're not stuck in the mud, you know that you must do this for the rest of your life. If you're willing to investigate that aspect of your life, I think there are opportunities to potentially do something in the future that you might not be doing today that could also incorporate a new business, etc. And the last question would be What will I like to give or share with other people and make a real difference. So we know human beings love helping others. And specifically, they get a lot of joy and satisfaction from helping others and that could mean all sorts of different things to different people, everything from services, to products. So this is a big question from that perspective. And obviously, the, you know, the more finite, you get into the answer of that, the more potential you've got to actually live there with, you know, purposefully every day. Now, remember, also to take the time along the way to research and, you know, follow specialized career sites, if you're looking to pick up other new positions, and talk to other professionals in the field. And this is important as well find out what their experiences were. And remember, it was their experience, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be your experience. So speak to them or speak to others that have had career changes along the way, and potentially even started new careers from even a vocational perspective, or even starting new businesses. All of this is important, just going to give you some field research information, which I think is very helpful, at least in giving you options. And remember that career goals don't have to be fixed, they must be adaptable, this is essential, nothing should be fixed in concrete, the world is moving too quickly to even contemplate that. So what you want is some fluidity and also, in part on your goal, seeking an action plan around that. You want to have also the flow element in there, you know, because I can't tell you how many clients I've worked with, that were so fixed on goals and the moment that didn't work out exactly as per the fixed position, meaning they were inflexible. There were all sorts of issues that came up with that, you know, and what I mean by that is the flow element as well is it's a state that will support you to sort of move forward with the flow as opposed to having what I would call his a perfectionist attitude from the perspective that you know, this must be this way and that's how it's so and of course, what happens is when there's no adaptability and flexibility, things Tenley usually break down and from a human perspective, it creates all sorts of other issues, including emotional stress that we don't want. There's already enough of that out there. So overall, your career goals need to have, you know, some sort of foundation to them. And of course, flexibility. Because your life, according to your lived experiences, training and expectations, always is evolving, and so shall your career goals. And what I mean by that is, look, there's a lot of changes happening in society, everything from obviously, tech is having a big impact in all aspects, we've had all the other changes in the last few years with illnesses and disease and that sort of thing. And of course, there's going to be new challenges moving forward. But that's not designed to come from a space of fear. Change is always there, it's always constant. So what we've got to do is how do we become adaptable, and also put ourselves a timeline, where we can start achieving some of the things we want to achieve, because it goes so quickly without that you're plodding along. And you know, that's a dangerous approach, especially if you are hoping and trusting yourself that you will achieve some of the things that you are imagining, and this is the key here. So you need to have it written down, I definitely strongly recommend writing it down, as opposed to keeping it in your mind. Because if you keep it too much, in your mind, normally, nothing happens, because there's so much stuff in there already. Okay, and now it's time to talk about how we can achieve some of these goals. Now, you got to keep in mind that your career goals, don't mean they are, you know, close to being achieved if you don't obviously have a real action plan. So, however, setting goals from the simplest to the most complex, is definitely a way to ensure that your plan starts to become part of your reality. And what I mean by that is that, you know, it's highlighting that printer on your wall, putting it in any environment where you're going to see them constantly to remind you. And of course, in the workplace, you could even put that somewhere potentially on your computer, you could have as part of a screensaver, just to remind you of why you're doing what you do and what the intention is. And the first thing you should do is definitely get your objectives clear. This is exactly what I was talking about at the beginning of the episode. So question yourself, find out what you really want, and define them, then you should break down the goals in parts. Many companies encouraged employees to achieve sales targets to grow. And of course, to ensure a better positioning in the marketplace, you can do the same as a starting point, applying the classic smart method, which stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time based, I believe is a good initiative to start with. And of course, you might evolve to more sophisticated approaches. After that, you know, as per your personal choices, just remember that it's essential, though, to set deadlines, and estimate the time that each goal can take. And if you police yourself on that, and you know and really get intention on that, you'll discover that you're probably going to save a lot more time as well. And also, you'll identify things that you do that are possibly wasting your time. And the key with all of this, as I'm explaining, what are some of the things to do is you got to look at this because self-sabotage is such a big component of people's lives. In other words, they at times need to get out of the way. Because if they don't do that, potentially, you know, they can stop themselves from winning, because their mindset, for instance, is getting in the way, the self-talk and all the other stuff that comes with that. So it's important, just you know, to get really clear about them. And I've discussed different ways we can do that in the past. But in reference to today, it's about Yeah, specifically, a deadline and estimate of the time that each goal will take is important. The next step is to identify priorities, what's important for you, what is it that you are looking for right now to achieve? from a career perspective? You know, and I mentioned earlier, it could have been a promotion could have been a new position could be even a new vocation or also you might want to start your own business, I don't know, whatever it is, it must be for you. For others. It could also be you know, you might want to get on podcasts, you might want to write a book, you know, you might want to obviously set up your LinkedIn, your LinkedIn persona and of course, a market that so you can also then be identified for new possibilities from that from recruiters, future employers and so on. So all these are important, then you must monitor your progress so this is where the planning comes in. So you've done your particular exercise to achieve whatever you're going to achieve. And then you need obviously to, to monitor that. And if you don't have a monitoring system in place, I certainly recommend that you do that to make your life easier, and also get a sense you know where you're at. Because if you don't do that, you will forget. And again, you don't want to keep this in your mind, because as we've already said, there's enough stress and pressures with that already. So you want to jot it down somewhere. And my last tip for today, it makes revisions. And just as you can ensure make slight adjustments we're measuring and tracking your progress. keeping an open mind to revisions, in reference to your career plan is essential. You know, it's constantly we evolve, as I mentioned earlier, so such as your career, and it's not a straight line, you know, it's you want to look at this from a linear perspective, it can go different ways to get where you want to go, it's never a straight line. And if you think it's a straight line, that's going to create a lot of stress, and anxiety, because that's also an indication that you can't get into the flow. And again, I have a lot of different clients and my perfectionist clients, are the ones that make sure you know, everything is perfect. In my experience, also, what I've seen is a lot of stress and anxiety that comes from that. And that, of course, a lot of them are looking for ways to eradicate that. And there are different techniques you can take on that will help you certainly do that. Now let me share how I help the clients set and the achievers' career plan. The client basically came to me successful man that had been around, obviously, the corporate world for a long time and say, you know, 25 years plus very successful, worked all over the world, made a lot of money, had a great reputation, and basically was living the dream. And then here, what we would call his business collapse. So what happened was something happened, his reputation got damaged. And of course, he lost millions of dollars. Now, when he came to see me, believe it or not, he was still positive about life, and the world and the future. And, and of course, you know, the conversation was okay, so this is where I'm at right now, what do I create? So what we discuss was what's going to be the legacy. And we had this conversation that started very small, because part of obviously, the work was to inspire him to constantly keep him in check. And to make sure you know, that he really gets that doesn't matter what's happened in the past that doesn't define your future. What will define your future is your mindset, your spirit and your go attitude. It's like, what are you going to do moving forward? Okay, shit happens, the past is the past, what are we going to do now moving into the future. And what we did was we created a story, we imagined what it could look like, it certainly had some ideas on on a particular project that he was thinking of doing. But the project was so small in his mind, that because obviously past experiences and what I would call his trauma, it was at times holding him back. So we had this open conversation, it was very, very transparent from the perspective of what's possible, and started off from a very small project that potentially was gonna, you know, require,
let's say $5 million in the raise, in reference to get this project up and running. We started off small, he was very happy with that, very excited that we can even consider this possibility. And that's what imagination does. And from that particular story, over evolving months, that particular project ended up becoming, believe it or not, and $100 million projects. Now, this project is still ongoing, and specifically is attracting a lot of interest. But the point of the story here is a guy specifically that that was very ambitious but very intentional, all his life, had some ups and downs along the way. And before you know, he got hit, and his reputation got affected. And of course, what happens with a lot of that also is self-esteem and his, you know, self-worth also went down. So what we did was reposition, in his mind that it did not belong at that particular level. It was about bringing him back up, especially psychologically and believe it or not, these are important guys out there, the ego, you know, the ego doesn't want you to succeed, right? Because the ego in most cases looks after the ego. Part of this whole conversation was, look, whatever happened. Let's be courageous about this actually a time brave about this and really make clear that this story is just a story. It doesn't have
and defines your future. And let's recreate this possibility by, of course, you know, creating a new plan and your gold plan in this case that was designed to not only inspire him and get into serious action but also to leave a legacy. So this story is evolving. But we've already gone to a stage that was never expected prior. And the reason for that is very simple when somebody is inspired, inspired about their lives, and has the imagination to see what is so even Of course, from a possible perspective, this is the most beautiful thing, because that's how the magic happens. And of course, if that's not accessible to a client, you know, we will always support how we can actually bring that to the surface because that's the bottom line. It's about imagination. It's about creating. And finally, it's about action. So that's the story there. Hopefully, you've enjoyed that. But success is available, as long as Finally, you're willing to go into action, and you're constantly imagining and willing to create. What's right, I think that's enough. Certainly, as always, it's been very useful in having this conversation with you. Although it's a podcast. I also gain a lot by sharing this with you believe it or not, and I hope it was helpful to you. And I also currently asked you to rate the show on Apple Podcasts. Once you do, please send us an email confirmation and we will send you our ebook, The Real World Guide to authentic personal branding. And remember, if you need any help that your career goals, please email and if we're a good fit, we might even work together. You can find me on social media. My Twitter is John underlined Michael, my LinkedIn is John Michael and on Facebook, you can find me as image Group International. As always, thank you for being here, and I look forward to seeing you next time. 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.