Just Give Yourself a Little Fresh PASSION

You Can Have Sweet Success

While I was in college, I articulated my methodology for creating a successful personal brand (though at that time I hadn't classified it into this brilliant acronym). I called it Fresh P.A.S.S.I.O.N., an acronym that stands for Preparing yourself, Aspiring to reach your goals, Staying laser-focused, Selling your value, Invigorating yourself, Omitting the negative, and Nailing the brand.

And of course, all the PASSION in the world won't enable you to achieve success if you employ an outdated, stale approach to your career, your business, or your college matriculation which is why I make sure to put "Fresh" first!

What exactly does each of these terms mean? "Fresh" means doing something every day to enhance your brand so that it stays fresh-keeping your skills sharpened, packaging yourself well, etc. "Preparing yourself" means continuing your education through classes, professional development, building and contributing to formal and informal networks, and simply maintaining an active intellectual interest and knowledge capital in your career and your life.

"Aspiring to reach your goals" means having particular ambitions and then setting out to achieve your goals - Aim at nothing and you're guaranteed to hit it! "Staying laser-focused" means intently focusing on each area of Fresh PASSION, otherwise you'll miss the mark and not deliver your brand. "Selling your value" means understanding your return on investment (ROI), having confidence in your fullest potential, and constantly searching for new opportunities that will help you meet, or even exceed, that potential.

"Invigorating yourself" means having the tenacity and discipline to go the distance and secure your personal and professional success - fan the flame within and catch on fire! "Omitting the negative" means learning from the inevitable negative experiences you will encounter without dwelling on them or letting them consume the valuable real estate in your head - you have so much more ahead of you! And last but surely not least, "Nailing the brand" means successfully packaging your substance (your core) up and putting a bow on it so that you become a fresh brand that can successfully compete and WIN internally and exte
ally (even in this unstable environment), which will enable you to achieve exponential personal and professional success.

Right now you're probably thinking, "Okay, it all sounds good, but do you have any proof...?" Fair question! It's one thing for me to tell you how much sweet success you can achieve following the eight steps of Fresh PASSION, but it's another thing entirely for me to show you how much you can accomplish when you add a little Fresh PASSION to your life! Let me give you a real example of the value Fresh PASSION can provide, gleaned from my own experience:

Early in my professional career, I started working in large Fortune 100 companies. I found myself bombarded with overly-prescriptive program initiatives, lofty sales goals, budget cuts, new competition, and more aggressive competitors. Rather than collapse under the weight of all these career pressures, I took the bull by the horns and started aggressively delivering the results that I thought the companies wanted. Though I was delivering the results, my career was stagnant and my wallet was filled with credit cards that were divided into two categories: Peter and Paul (as in robbing Peter to pay Paul and vice versa).

I was leading a life of personal and professional poverty with no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I became frustrated, bitter, and extremely angry. I blamed my university for not preparing me to land a more lucrative job, I blamed my mother for not having money to give me, I blamed my boss for not getting me promoted, and then I started blaming and doubting my own abilities.

I did not realize what I was doing wrong until I was sitting in a staff meeting one day and my boss announced that a colleague named Reynaldo had been promoted to a great new career position. He went on to say that Reynaldo had been chosen because of his ability to deliver results and lead people, professionalism, and because a number of people in the organization just knew him as a well-rounded individual.

The light bulb went on over my head. When I was in college, my dean, the faculty, hundreds of students, department chairs, and other members of the university community had a favorable impression of me, and there had been a clear, general understanding that I stood head and shoulders above my peers. So I thought about how I had earned their respect and come to be unanimously known by them as the stand-out student. It was the Fresh PASSION methodology that I had used in college.

So at that point, I started implementing the Fresh PASSION methodology and shortly afterward, I had established a personal brand as a leader who delivers results through and with people and is always offering and delivering something fresh. I initially started by just executing the programs that were given to me. However, simple execution was only delivering marginal results. I knew I could do better. I knew that something was missing; something was preventing me from moving the business further, faster.

That something was Fresh PASSION. If it didn't exist in my workplace environment, then it was incumbent upon me to create and deliver it. This led to the delivery of top-notch results, nine promotions, and exponential personal and professional success. What I personally put in place and continued to refine throughout my career is Michael D. Brown's Steps to Fresh PASSION!

And if you still have any doubts about the importance of following the principles of Fresh PASSION, consider this sobering statistic: GFC Economics, a respected London-based economic consulting firm, recently estimated that by spring 2009, the United States could be facing one million layoffs every successive month! If that prediction proves accurate, a substantial portion of currently employed Americans will become unemployed this year, and the hiring market will come to a virtual standstill. Only those professionals who have constructed the freshest, most appealing, competitive and most valuable personal brands will have any hope of obtaining or even maintaining a quality job. Hopefully the US employment situation will not become quite so dire, but we all know this year will be among the toughest in living memory for professionals, entrepreneurs, or students preparing to enter the professional world.

So there you have it. When your brand is fresh and highly-competitive, you will be viewed as a branded expert and an asset both internally and on the open market (especially to potential employers or customers). This will lead to more people, organizations, and/or companies subscribing to what you have to offer while providing you with a great, competitive, and substantial return (i.e. more money, more opportunities for personal and professional growth, more customers, etc.). Follow the precepts of Fresh PASSION and you will not fail; you will achieve exponential personal and professional success!