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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. Before we start our chat today, I kindly ask you 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. So let's get started. Today's episode will discuss the importance of personal identity. And the sub title of that would be not negotiating who you are, and why standing strong your beliefs and core values is essential. You know, Socrates said a long time ago, the unexamined life is not worth living. Many of us struggle with external pressures and opinions that can sway us away from our true identity. And this is what I'm going to be talking to you about today. So it's crucial to stay true to ourselves, and stand up for our sense of self worth. Now, experience tells us that staying true to ourselves is essential, definitely in a short and long term for a happiness, fulfillment, and of course, long term success. And it also helps us to maintain our integrity, someone will look in the mirror, we feel good about ourselves. Because if you don't have your integrity, eventually that catches up with you. So to be authentic, and make better decisions, you know, promote self respect and attract the right people in our lives. On the other hand, people who negotiate or compromise on their core values and beliefs can suffer from feelings of guilt, shame, and dissatisfaction, which can impact the well being, you know, it said that our mental health process is more than a mental crisis, but more a spiritual collapse. And for some, that could be religious. And for others, it could be a challenge to the whole value system that's left the void, because it's been challenged in so many different ways. And, you know, adapting to the new ways is difficult for most people to navigate, especially in a short period of time. So what happens is, they might experience you know, self doubts, anxiety, depression, and make decisions that did not align with their core values. So that, obviously, will lead to regret and missed opportunities, you know, and I would say a lot of that happens from that survival mode, as opposed to a Thrive mode. So it's about you know, doing things at the moment to survive, as opposed to long term thrive and create some sort of legacy. So not staying true to oneself can cause strained relationships, due to a lack of trust and authenticity. And of course, that results in a sense of emptiness and disconnection from one's true. So I think as human beings, we're designed to be living in a cave by ourselves, you know, unless you're a monk, on some sort of sabbatical. So as human beings we'd like to associate with other people, even lone wolves eventually like to come down from the cave and meet other people, I think it's important part of our spiritual growth, and, of course, our whole soul connection that's essential from us, you know, being human beings a couple of years ago, you know, I wrote a story about core values versus secondary levels. And again, a lot of interest. And I will include a link at the end of this episode. But at that same time, I noted that we all have core values that we have secondary values. 

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So there are aspects of our lives and beliefs that define us, you know, that make us who we are, are, these are our core, then there are your secondary values, the things that still make you the unique pushing you up, but change over time, your core values are the foundation stones in your identity. And as such, they're essential to defining your purpose and keeping you on track. If you try to ignore or go against your core values, you become conflicted. And you will struggle to build or achieve anything of lasting value. Now, one caveat there is some conflict can be a positive as long as you're going to use the conflict to go out and create innovate, and of course the good but in most cases, for most people, conflict is a negative and of course can lead to a more challenges from that conflict as opposed to possibilities, but I see conflict as a possibility because basically, from all challenges, good can come from it as long as you're willing to be who you are, and at the same time now Now that you know there's a way in system how to do that. So let's discuss some of the essential points that can help us not compromise who we are. Well, first and foremost, it's crucial to know our core values and beliefs, it's essential to have a clear understanding what is important to us, and what our core values are. This knowledge will help us to make better decisions and stand firm in our beliefs. So it's important because your core values are special for you. So if you're not clear of then what that means is most likely, you'll pick up values from others, and that, you know, might not serve you in the best way possible, specifically for you, you know, for that moment in time, but also maybe for your lifetime. So a quote attributed to numerous people in history, and one that I love and live by is this. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. For me, it illustrates the courage to be to be yourself by taking responsibility and accountability about everything that is you.

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Respect is another important factor. You know, we must respect ourselves first before we should expect external validation from anyone else. So it's crucial not to let other people's opinions sway us, from what we know is right. In our hearts. Social media, among other influences, has done an excellent job in confusing people with a lot of noise, of course, in the online world, and noise that has many people confused and out of sorts, remember, their agenda, in this case, tech companies in social media, per se, and I want to be very clear, not take this out of context, is to grow their businesses, not necessarily grow you, even if you're an influencer, you're very secondary, you know, to the interest as opposed to their own business, it's just the fact. So it's up to each individual to self reflect and take back their personal power, and reclaim their authentic self. And what that means is, it's again, just being courageous. If you can do this by yourself, sit down with a friend, somebody you know, a mental, you know, whoever coach, and basically get down to the bottom of who you are. And of course, and good Socratic dialogue there and good Socratic questions would reveal some deeper things about you that at times, you might never have touched, and I promise you, it's, it's certainly very revealing. Because, you know, it brings out, it brings out who you really are, as opposed to the image and the whole, you know, perception guide that you might be playing. And there's also a good reason why you might be doing that fairly simple to survive a gait. So, when I when I talk about this, what comes to mind is objectivism and this is an interesting concept because objectivism is a philosophy system developed by a Russian American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. And she described that as the concept of men and of course woman, as a heroic been with his her own happiness as her moral purpose of his her life. So what that meant was thou with also productive achievements, as his her noblest activity and reason as his her only absolute. And this is interesting, because it's not just happiness, but it's good, productive achievement. And we all know when we're productive in our work in our career, in whatever we do, we feel alive. So example is a equals Ay ay ay does not equal b. And that's an objective fact. Now remember this, when someone tries to pressure us into doing something that conflicts with our core values, it's important that we stand up for ourselves and say, No, if that's what we choose, without letting others fear, agenda or pressure dictate our decisions. No one can take away your personal power, unless you first choose to give it away, don't further we shouldn't allow others define us, or let their opinions or labels determine our self worth. Instead, we should recognize our core values, and what they represent and let our actions speak for themselves. Now, what that means is, of course, get to do that effectively, you got to be willing to sort of face the mirror, as I've noted many, many times previously, and at the same time, make your life easier by surrounding yourself with positive influence, you know, that's essential. And what that means is people in the environment, and I can't stress that enough, because if it's not a positive influence designed for your good, okay, it's up to you that created that environment to be for you. Good. Otherwise, get the hell out of there.

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So it's essential not to feel obliged to please others for the sake of being white and to speak up for ourselves. That's an objective choice that you have the power to win Like, okay, so part of that is, of course, when you go down this territory, potentially you can fail, especially the first, second and third time, because practice will make perfect over time. So you're breaking Ruby habits here, right? That's the beautiful thing, you're not to change anything, you're gonna break habits. Otherwise, you're doing things like you did in the past, that's going to give you similar results as they did in the past. And that will also dictate now in the present in the future. So you got to take on an attitude, what I call his day to fail. Having said that, in our philosophy, failure is actually not failure in that sense. But it is an opportunity to Learn, Transform, and of course, create magic moving forward. So data file, but it means to be courageous, and also be courageous to be different. Because if you're not going to be different, whatever that difference is, through your core values. And we're not talking about be different, but when, you know, a different type of a hack, I'm talking about specifically, and in total difference, of course, can't be also supported with an external difference as well. But definitely the two, you know, for me work together, so fully embrace who you are, and find role models and mentors who can provide guidance and support, trust, like respect people that you know, are in your corner, not political animals that play political games. But authentic leaders. And leaders remember self leadership, right? You don't have to manage or lead people to be a leader with the runs on the board, you know, and the scars on their back to prove it. Yes, real limped experience, not politically correct, self serving nonsense designed to keep things as they always are, or worse, under the guise of progress, find people and create an inner circle of trust and camaraderie, knowing you are all looking after each other's back with a likely target, get all members to check their egos at the door. And what I mean by that is trust will not be built if there is competing egos in the group. So what you want to do is, of course, that's always going to be the case in every group, there's going to be egos, but knowing what we're trying to achieve here is something beyond a meeting. This is a life plan, you know, that's designed to open up bigger opportunities than just to tick the box type of meetings that of course, a lot of people might face on a weekly basis. This is a lot more important than that, you know, the thing about all of this, what I'm sharing with you, is reflected by all the giants that walked the earth prior to us, obviously, many leaders, entrepreneurs, authors, artists, changemakers, etc, have had at some point at to make a decision, that decision was a choice to go against the grain and status quo, you know, and they caught a lot of suffering for that, including ridicul, but you have to suffer in your choice. And what I mean suffer is Bernard comas. However, as the saying goes, no pain, no gain. So what the suffering means here is you're gonna get through your struggles, right? If you're gonna go against the grain, and that's why a lot of people are afraid to do that, because they don't want to be shamed, ridiculed, you know, and of course, at times feel guilty from what they've done, because they ball, you know, the line, hook, line and sinker. So all good then has been created, has come from a place of from some sense of pain, and that could example Polina you grow in your career, there would have been painting board with that you would have had to do things at times that stretched you building your business, obviously, building a business painting business is not as easy as it looks on the outside. 

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And of course, being in relationships, and what can I say about that one on one relationships, group relationships, and so on, it takes a lot of effort, you know, it takes emotional intelligence. And that's can be painful at times. But this is part of your growth. And without this stretch, that required, nothing gets created. Nothing, the greatest gift we have as human beings is to go out there and create. And trust me, or you might want to try that because it has a big impact on mental well being from a point of view of positivity. And my final thought for you is this, your personal business brand is a reflection of how intentional you are on all the above that I just noted. So the key here is to be congruent, stay true to yourself and don't compromise who you are. Let me tell you a story about how I worked with a client that specifically on all the things that we just spoke about, and how this helped his personal and business brand journey. So the story goes like this. I love this guy. But when I first met him, and as a coach have certainly be known and been told that I have a lot of empathy with people. And the thing about it was though instantly He was what I'd call or Outer Image lacked intellectual curiosity, and had little what I would call internal substance. Because the moment you breach subjects of importance to him, it just went over his head. And of course, you had the looking gaze in his eyes that indicated or a get this might be, I'm not even interested. However, in the eyes of his community, he was a big success. He had a great business that obviously, you know, had challenges because his core values were incongruent. And to the point that, you know, he was not willing to face the tough decisions facing him, although he had a great business at that time, part of a coach is not only to see what's going on at the moment, without sounding like Nostradamus. But his predict by seeing patterns with this could potentially lead, he definitely had client challenges, he had employee dissatisfaction, even though the head well paid jobs. And of course, he had family relationship issues, you know, that potentially was leading to a break up and possible divorce. 

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So if you can imagine those things that I've just noted, of course, there's a lot of spin offs in reference to secondary impact, with a lot of those challenges facing him. So over time, this is what we did. We turn things around simply by getting the focus on what really was the most important thing in his life, his core values, and questions like why he exists? Why does he get out of bed every morning, and what truly matters to him, in his heart, in his heart to him, not what matters to other people and how they perceive him. But what matters to him, of course, through some challenging questions, and I gotta tell you, at times, aspects that really, he might not want to look into over time, we crack through that. And after numerous times, where the tears definitely came down from a man that I thought didn't know how to show any of that, the lone short of the stories that is back on track in all aspects of his life, including, of course, the business. And most importantly, now, he sees his life as a grateful new opportunity to create new possibilities, okay, because he's seeing things that he didn't see before, remember, we all have blind spots, part of this word was to reveal some of his blind spots, because ultimately, they're going to create all sorts of problems for him a lot bigger than they were at that moment. And part of that is, of course, a lot of people, when they have a lot of superficial external access. A lot of people would not looking at the internal because they think whatever they doing is perfect. That's why they're getting the success. But this is a holistic approach. It's an in and out approach. So he had the at least the courage to say, You know what, although I'm putting out this image externally, that everything's perfect inside, something's not working the way my heart is telling me. So he did that by ultimately having the courage to leave behind his toxic ego, and reset, it was willing to let that go. And basically, you know, as a coach, of course, this is, this is fantastic for my spirit as well, because there's nothing more important that life affirming, it's enlivening to have clients that would have the courage to do that. And then you feel they made the best that you can opportunities for people that at times thought, you know, this was it. So you know, it's really powerful. And of course, for other coaches that are listening, I'm sure you would agree how powerful it is. And by the way, it could be also relevant to others out there therapists, of course, teachers, when you do something really good, and people take it on board and go, Aha, that was it. You feel alive from that? Certainly I do that because you know, we're in the people business. And when human beings respond that way, we certainly also feel that in our own way. So all folks, that concludes today's episode, I appreciate you taking the time to listen. And Trust you found that helpful. You know, please leave a rating on Apple podcasts and subscribe to receive more valuable information in the future. Also, send us an email confirmation. After subscribing. We'll happily send you a free copy of our ebook, The Real World God's Will authentic personal branding. I want to thank you again for tuning in. And I'm excited again to share more insights with you next week. And look forward to seeing you and have a great week. Cheerio.

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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.