My goal in writing this book was to provide a fun, easy-to-read, yet highly informative instruction manual on how to build a personal brand that will allow you to achieve your maximum potential at work, at home, and in all other areas of life. This Fresh Green Book is a handy size that can be read on the go. Each chapter opens up with a fresh quote.
Throughout the book, you will find “Brownie Points,” real-life stories that I have personally experienced and lived to retell. They are meant to serve as parables, illustrative stories to help humanize the concepts and theories behind Fresh PASSION. It is one thing to tell you to Aspire to Reach Your Goals, it is another to show you how Aspiration actually works through examples from my personal history. To protect the innocent, I have changed the names of certain real-life people and institutions that I mention in my Brownie Points stories.
The Brownie Points are stories drawn primarily from my professional career that reflect the focus of Fresh PASSION. This book is meant to inspire and motivate you, whether you are an employee who aspires to more or already an executive or business owner, to build a competitive personal brand while equipping you with the proven and powerful tools you need to build and execute your brand.
The sooner you build that competitive personal brand, the sooner you will begin to reap the benefits and build branding equity, which will lead to greater success faster. We live in an interactive age, and I have attempted to make this book as interactive as possible. After all, I can show you how to build your brand, but I can’t actually create it for you! You’ve got to do that yourself, and worksheets located throughout the book will help you get on your way.
The Your Perfect Day Worksheet™ is the foundation document for the brand-building process that will follow. I will ask you: “In five years, what will your perfect day look like—personally and professionally?” Answering this question is of vital importance, because everything you do throughout the rest of the book is filtered through the goal of making this perfect day into a reality. This worksheet sets up the target you are aiming for, and you will need to revisit it at each new stage in your life.
The 6.5 Fresh Steps® are the tools you’ll need to implement each element of the Fresh PASSION approach. In each chapter, after introducing a new element, I give you six steps that will enable you to implement that element or achieve that mindset. This is solid, practical advice that is the meat of each chapter, where I give you the tools to make it happen. The final 6.5 Step is always your reminder to “Make it Real and Keep it Fresh”—keeping you aware that this is an ongoing process that must always be updated and kept current if you want to stay competitive.
Take Your Pulse is the self-assessment portion of each chapter. After a chapter introduces a new PASSION element, explains how it works, and gives the 6.5 steps to implement it, you are invited to stop and put your fingers on the pulse of your efforts regarding this element. You are asked a series of questions that will allow you to score yourself and see exactly how healthy and robust your achievement in developing mastery of this element is. The questions can always be repeated after you have tried to implement the lessons learned in the 6.5 steps, so you can see how you have improved.
It’s Showtime! is another practical tool I am giving you that will help you keep on track. It’s a series of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly steps that you can follow to help you implement the elements of my methodology. These changes can’t all be made at once, and here in the It’s Showtime! section, I provide you with a short-term and a longer-term plan for implementing the 6.5 steps for each element in a consistent way.
The Fresh Technologies tools accompany each element of the Fresh PASSION process as well. They are tools I have researched—technological advances, software, and hardware that will help you in your personal brand development efforts. Each chapter offers advice on a technology that will help make that element easier to incorporate into your life.
The Brownie Bites are ways to interact electronically with me, either with forms that accompany each step in the Fresh PASSION process (which are available for download at www.MyFreshBrand.com) or a chance to email me samples of your branding attempts, which I will personally critique.
A Doggie Bag is what you use to take home the part of your dinner you could not eat in one sitting. Here I am using the Doggie Bag as a final summary at the end of each chapter of the takeaways—or the absolutely indispensable items in each chapter that I want to be sure you take home, no matter what.
Finally, with the closing worksheet, I will have you sum up your personal branding efforts so that you are positioned to take the next step. I will ask you to write your 10-second text messages and 30-second Super Bowl commercials (originally found in chapter 6, “Selling Your Value”) and reiterate your perfect day—and then you will take your efforts to the next level. You will develop a personal logo based on your brand, a brand statement, and a business card based on your logo—keeping an eye on brand consistency all the while.
No two brands are alike, and Fresh PASSION can be applied to any type of brand. The brand of a successful salesperson and the brand of a successful research scientist will look quite different, but both are built on the same essential precepts that are key to success of any type in any field. So no matter what your goals are, get ready to meet and exceed them with confidence and yes, passion. On with the brand!
Oh, and a side note on why this book refers to the colors red and green. Red is the color of passion. It is the color associated with excitement, action, and adventure. Building your brand will involve plenty of all three—nobody ever went out and carved his or her own success by sitting at home quietly! And green is the color of freshness. It is the color associated with life, renewal, and natural health. You don’t just want to “go green” in how you conserve energy or follow a nutritious diet—you want to “go green” in how you maintain an innovative, energetic approach to your life and your career. So enjoy the freshness and feel the passion!