My big change in 2011 was in my reflexes, which went from slow to lightning fast. You know how you see a glass falling and you know you can’t catch it? You know it’s going to hit the ground, and you pray it won’t shatter. Well, I can catch it (or whatever I drop) now. Every time. And I do it without thinking.

It’s not just about dropping stuff either. My decision-making process has been permanently altered. Where I used to deliberate on virtually any decision, I now make most decisions in seconds flat.

This was not a conscious choice, nor anything I practiced. It was a direct result of surviving pain. I had no idea the transformation was occurring, and I didn’t fully recognize it until perhaps a year later. I started by noticing I could catch that falling glass. Then by seeing that I made choices faster; that snap decisions truly were a snap. Awesome!

Every time we undergo a significant life event, a change occurs in our approach going forward. There is value in taking a moment to reflect on the changes, so you can see how far-reaching they are and how they influence the rest of your life.

You may not even be aware that your personal brand has been strengthened along the way. Once you recognize change, you can use the result to improve your confidence and enhance your message.

Hot and cold water
It’s 95 degrees out. Hot food and drink are the last thing on my list of desirable sustenance. I’m pouring ice cold chocolate hemp milk into my coffee solely to bring the temperature down so that it does not heat up my body. And yet, every time I turn on the water at the sink, I turn on the hot water. It’s a bad habit. I keep correcting myself, but not before I feel hotness on hands. It costs money to heat water. Granted, it’s not much, but when you wash your hands as often as do I (yeah, I’m sort of a germ freak), it adds up. I’m teaching myself to turn on the cold water first, but years of badness are hard to undo.

This one isn’t bad, but it illustrates the point well
I eat a lot of soy yogurt. Heaps. I usually buy the 4-serving tubs, but sometimes they are sold out, so I get the 1-serving minis. The tubs come with a re-closeable lid, the minis with a foil peel-away lid. Every single time I get the minis, upon finishing the yogurt, I search the kitchen in vain for the plastic lid so I can recycle it. But there isn’t one, I realize eventually. My mind believes there is a lid because so often there is indeed a lid. I know that I must recycle that lid. Each time the product availability changes, I must change. If I do not change, I waste my effort.

Bad marketing is habit forming
Every week, it seems, I talk with agents and sales professionals who are trying to find easier ways to connect; ways to put less effort into their marketing, and ways to procrastinate from implementing tried and true marketing methods that work.

Procrastinating is habit forming. Bad marketing is habit forming. The more you invest in bad marketing habits, the more your business will flounder, and the more you will ask yourself when will it all turn around? Blaming slow business on the economy is a form of procrastination. Stop blaming and start marketing. When will it turn around?

It will turn around when you turn around.

Turn it around now!
Here’s a simple yet extremely effective exercise. Take a look at your marketing methods. List them out on a sheet of paper (or in Excel if you just can’t bring yourself to use paper and a pen). List out everything you do during your day that could possibly be categorized as marketing, and add it to your list. Now, write the time you are spending on each item on a weekly basis. Next, write the positive outcome in a third column, and finally, write the negative outcomes in a fourth column. It will be very easy to see what is an effective use of your marketing time. This exercise will take you all of about one hour.

I’m going to be totally honest with you here. This exercise might make you feel bad about yourself. It might make you wonder why you’ve been wasting so much time on facebook or twitter. It might show you that your blog posts are ineffective. Or, it may show that all of these are wildly effective. (I hate to say it, but in most cases, they’re not.)

There are some side benefits of this exercise. In addition to giving you a bird’s eye view of your bad marketing habits, you will get a good sense of how much consistent effort you have actually put into each method, and ultimately, how much you are willing to invest in your success. It will tell you if you can effectively manage your own marketing, or if you really need a marketing manager to keep you focused and on task. Finally, it will help you discover your strengths and weaknesses, which can be applied to your personal brand development.

Things can change, but first and foremost you must stab those bad habits in the heart with the sharp end of a highly motivated goal. You can do it. You just have to do a little hard work. Meanwhile, I’ll be hunting around for a nonexistent yogurt top.

What did surprise me, however, is that fully half of the students felt that they are not manipulated at all. Instead they felt while businesses can effectively market themselves in very visible ways, each person has choices about what to buy and which mediums to view. My point exactly!

The students liked the idea of defining their personal brands. The teacher liked it so much in fact that she suggested making it into a class project.

It was a nice way to spend an hour and great to connect with some smart, passionate young adults.

Over the next four years, I signed up for nearly every class that she taught, and she became one of my best friends, and without question one of my most valued life mentors. She provided a solid foundation for me to develop self-confidence, as well as the guidance to show me an intuitive career path. I learned the importance of compassion, kindness and gratitude. I learned how to learn. She taught me how to have an open mind. Possibly the most important thing she did for me was recognize that I learned visually much better than any other way. She even awarded me with an art scholarship upon graduation.

I went immediately into art school the next fall, and graduated early. I then followed a steady progression from in-house designer, to ad agency art director, to marketing director, before venturing out to start my own ad agency.

Over the years, I have formed some strong opinions about how design, advertising, and marketing best work, but I have always kept that open mind, and it has served me well. Today, twenty-one years after my last class with her, I learned something new from her lessons. I saw a connection between the foundation that she helped give me, in the form of my identity, my values, ultimately my personal brand, and the foundation that every person or company needs to be able to connect with their customers at the core level that instills the trust, belief, and credibility needed to quickly gain brand loyalty.

Over the years, Polly and I have always stayed in touch, usually over email. We tell each other about our families, our work, life in general. I have seen her two or three times during the past twenty years. In every correspondence, she provides me with the same positive reinforcement, good vibes, friendship and wisdom that she did when I was just a punk kid with no direction, afraid of making the wrong brush stroke. And I’m not the only one. She has students from forty years ago who still stay in touch today.

When she retired, er, graduated, from teaching high school, she began teaching community college students how to paint. I have to imagine that she inspired a whole new throng of budding artists and lives. She was also doing freelance design for companies all over the country.

Polly’s lessons, both in life and and work, have always inspired me, and I am sure they will continue doing so for years to come. I can’t help wanting to say thank you Polly Hobbs.