Personal Brands: Change Your Channel

You probably believe you’ve dialed in reality by now. You know how you roll and how the world turns. You think it’s a rat race or a breeze, chaotic, or linear.

You may even think you know who you are in the hearts and mind of people who meet you and interact with you.

How would your life change if you changed the channel?

That’s really all you have to do to keep becoming the person you want to be or could be. You have to keep changing – or at least re-considering: what you think, what you do, where you go, who you hang with, how you look, what you wear, what you carry, and what you really want in this life.

No, I don’t mean leaving your job today to become an astronaut in training, if you haven’t yet been accepted to that program. I do mean putting astronaut on your life list so your mind can do the work to get you into space. It will, if you will.

If you can say it, you can do it.

I own that phrase but you may borrow it.

Fill yourself with the feeling that you are missing something great. Talk to yourself about how much you don’t want to miss out.

My niece Lexy came from New Jersey into LA last week. For the first time, she saw a totally different self: same girl, just radically different aspirations. She breathed in the sun, without the humidity. She long-boarded on the strand, she wore high heels for the first time, she talked late into the night about coming back, to go to UCLA.

She was an “only child,” for the first time – not sharing airtime with an older brother and sister.  She began to understand that her world could be “Lexy-centric.” She realized the soundtrack to her life wasn’t fixed with the voices of people whose job it was to tell her what to do. That’s their job now, but it won’t be forever.

So much unfolded in such a short time, simply because Lexy boarded an airplane that took her into a different direction and a never before seen dimension. The complexion of her life is changed forever, simply by putting herself on unfamiliar ground. And, she looks good with a tan.

Where do you need to go in order to re-consider who you are now or might be in the future?

Picture of Nance Rosen

Nance Rosen

Nance Rosen is the author of Speak Up! & Succeed. She speaks to business audiences around the world and is a resource for press, including print, broadcast and online journalists and bloggers covering social media and careers.

TRENDING AROUND THE WEB

In May 2005 one male and one female Anolis sagrei lizard were moved from Iron Cay to each of seven hurricane-cleared Bahamian islands; within four years every population had evolved shorter hindlimbs

In May 2005 one male and one female Anolis sagrei lizard were moved from Iron Cay to each of seven hurricane-cleared Bahamian islands; within four years every population had evolved shorter hindlimbs

The Vessel

Chaos will not wait for you to be ready, and that is precisely what it came to teach

Chaos will not wait for you to be ready, and that is precisely what it came to teach

The Vessel

Describing a life as busy and in demand isn’t only a complaint — consumer researchers studying status signaling found that busyness can function as a badge, because people often read a packed schedule as evidence that someone is competent, scarce, and wanted by others.

Describing a life as busy and in demand isn’t only a complaint — consumer researchers studying status signaling found that busyness can function as a badge, because people often read a packed schedule as evidence that someone is competent, scarce, and wanted by others.

Global English Editing

The signs of a hard childhood rarely look dramatic by adulthood, therapists who work with trauma survivors say; more often it is a habit of apologizing before speaking, flinching at a raised voice that was never aimed at them, or checking that everyone else is okay before letting themselves relax.

The signs of a hard childhood rarely look dramatic by adulthood, therapists who work with trauma survivors say; more often it is a habit of apologizing before speaking, flinching at a raised voice that was never aimed at them, or checking that everyone else is okay before letting themselves relax.

Global English Editing

A national survey found that the share of men reporting they have no close friends at all climbed from 3 percent in 1990 to 15 percent by 2021, with the steepest rise showing up right around the age most men leave the workforce

A national survey found that the share of men reporting they have no close friends at all climbed from 3 percent in 1990 to 15 percent by 2021, with the steepest rise showing up right around the age most men leave the workforce

Global English Editing

People who apologize before anyone’s said what’s wrong may be doing more than displaying extra manners — research on parentification has found that children who grow up feeling responsible for a parent’s emotional state can carry that habit of anticipating, managing, and taking responsibility for other people’s feelings into their adult relationships, long after the household that taught it is gone.

People who apologize before anyone’s said what’s wrong may be doing more than displaying extra manners — research on parentification has found that children who grow up feeling responsible for a parent’s emotional state can carry that habit of anticipating, managing, and taking responsibility for other people’s feelings into their adult relationships, long after the household that taught it is gone.

Global English Editing