The Best Year of Your Life

Let 2009 be the Best Year of Your Life

It’s that time of the year again – to reflect on how we have fared in the year which is about to draw to a close and to make New Year resolutions. – promises to ourselves that something in our lives will get better – our finances, our relationships, our career…. My husband used to tell everyone around this time of the year that he has kept all the resolutions he made the year before, and when everyone looks suitably impressed, he would add, “See, I kept them all in my wallet!”

Let us not allow another year to pass us by, with our hopes and dreams still far away in never neverland. Let us today, right now, make the decision that 2009 will indeed be the best year of our lives. Let the coming year be the time that we discover our true passions, the time when we set out to live those passions. No more excuses, no more justifications. Let’s make it a “life and death” priority for indeed, it is life and death. For who among you wants to be part of a community of what I call the “walking dead”? People who would wake up each day, go to work at a job they are indifferent to, go to lunch with people they are not excited to be with, go home for dinner with people they love but have lost the passion for, watch TV programs that fail to excite or thrill, and then it’s off to bed and another same old same old day. People who are just “occupying space”. Sad, but true for so many, if you care to admit it.

So before you heave a big sigh and wished you had not started to read this “depressing” article, let me assure you – there is hope yet! All of us can live our dream lives. It is within our grasp and within our control, and not meant to be left to “Fate” or the whims and fancies of some Higher Power out there!

All it takes is the courage to say to yourself, “Yes, I have one life to live and I want to live it the best way I possibly can. 2009 will be the best year of my life!” Shout it out loud, with real conviction, and I promise you, the moment you have put this desire in your heart, doors will open up that you have never seen before. People who can help you will magically come into your path. It will be as if the whole universe has heard your voice and is moving to help you achieve your dreams.

Not convinced? Well, ask yourself, what do you have to lose to believe and to act on your belief?

You can start by learning how to seize each magical moment in 2009. And to do that, you need to put on new “glasses” that are specially designed to help you recognize special moments in your life. It can be good things and blessings that you enjoy currently but have taken for granted. And of course as you start looking for the magic in each event in your life, you learn to create magic moments. And viola, you have the best year of your life.

As the integrative coach and best selling author Debbie Ford says, “When we are committed to claiming the moment, we look upon, create and invent our ordinary experiences as something extraordinary. We become a magnet for the unique and special. The lens through which we view life shifts, and we become seekers of the divine in every moment. To see with new eyes, to become aware of the blessings we hold, to create new intimate moments each day – these constitute a spiritual quest. This is the art of making the ordinary moments of your life extraordinary.”


Article by Jessica See, life coach and trainer with the Institute of Business Coaches. To find out more about being a coach or if you want to engage a coach, write in to ibc@masteryasia.com.

Learning from Brands of the World

I had the opportunity to spend the past two days with branding and marketing experts from around the world at the Global Brand Forum Malaysia.

Today I will share with you what I learnt from Joanne Ooi, also known as the “Turnaround Queen” for China’s first luxury brand, Shanghai Tang. This lawyer-turned-fashion maven took a luxury Chinese brand from clichéd to fabulous and raised the status of “Made in China” to a whole new level.globally.

So how did she achieve that in the plethora of choices available at just about every corner of a shopping centre in any major city of the world? In short, what makes a brand a Brand? Says Joanne, The high end consumer is definitely looking for an emotional connection to the shopping experiemce. Why do we yearn for that Louis Vuitton bag or that pair of Jimmy Choo shoes?

 Idiosyncracy, humanity, personality are to be cherished. The customer seeks a dream, rather than a collection of products pre-ordained by what sold best the last season.

 Customers are looking for identification and aspiration. That’s why it’s important to stick to a clear message when you are a brand.

 The customer regards the best brands as unfailing dispensers of a certain philosophy of beauty, luxury, experience when you shop within their walls. Says Joanne, do not disappoint that customer!

A brand is often seen as an “oracle of wisdom”, the club that one aspires to belong to.

How can we learn from these lessons as we move on the path of developing our own personal branding?

As I’ve always stressed, the three keys to branding yourself successfully is Clarity, Consistency and Authenticity.

Starting with authenticity first, the undeniably best way to remain authentic and true to yourself as a brand is to build it on the premise of your personal Passion, not from some beliefs that you borrow from someone else but something you feel truly passionate about. Passion sells. When you have a dream, much like Martin Luther King did, others will buy in to you and your dream.

Next, is of course clarity. You can’t be a personal brand if you are no6t even clear about who you are and what you stand for! And to top that of, you have to be consistent in your message as to what you stand for in every interaction you have with others. Do not disappoint those who believe in you.

In other words, you have to stick to your guns where your personal vision and mission is concerned. The moment you relax and say, never mind, let’s just compromise, then you will lost the trust of those who believed in you.

I learnt this lesson years ago when I was running a magazine for working women. We had a strong vision and unshakeable concept that I was truly passionate about. But I recall at one of our internal meetings, I wavered, and was immediately corrected by one of my staff, an advertising sales executive who had a strong belief in what the magazine stood for. I think that day, I fell many notches down his ladder of respect, something I truly regretted. He’s not with us today, and I just want to digress a moment to say, I loved you Pito, you were a wonderful person and I will never forget you.

Now back to personal branding. What I learnt from the Global Brand Forum is there is really not much difference between branding a product and a person. As long as you have a good product (that’s you) that delivers on what it promises, a great story to tell, a passion that can ignite other people like you, people will want to be associated with you and what you stand for… and that’s when Brand You is born!

Picture is taken from www.shanghaitang.com