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What if you hired an ad agency to put up a great big billboard to tell everyone about yourself? Imagine that today is the day of your first meeting with an ad agency’s creative staff. You are paying good money to have them do this job. What would you like them to know about you? What do you think the rest of the world needs to know? Imagine there are people out there waiting eagerly to unlock the mysteries of who you are. Maybe they are potential clients or customers? If the right words and images spark their curiosity and interest, you may be able to change their lives in an incredible way, or to show them how to do that. Maybe they are future friends who are destined to be in important part of your world, but you haven’t met them yet. They don’t even know you exist and you don’t know who or where they are. Maybe the love of your life is out there, sitting in a room, lamenting his or her lonely state. Maybe he or she is wishing to find someone just like you,and is looking out the window while watching some workers across the alleyway take down a billboard about beer that has been there for six months. He or she could well be wondering what new product is going to be dominating the view from the bedroom window pretty soon, not knowing it will be a huge, impressive image and copy all about YOU.
Most of us have been taught to be modest and we try to be, even when it is a little bit false. So let’s do some honest thinking about how you would show up on this billboard to tell others who you are.
What is most striking about the way you appear to others? What do you do that makes you stand out from the crowd in a good way? Is there something you do in business that doesn’t show up in your personal relationships? Is it the other way around?
What are your terrific hidden qualities. These could be the ones your mother praised when you were just a little tyke, but you never quite believed her. You figured she automatically felt that way about you because she was your mom!
Do you have a huge heart? Are you easily able to see the big picture while others around you seem to get mired in small and often insignificant details? Are you a visionary? Are you an exceptional planner? Are you a fabulous listener? What are your special skills? If you spotted someone like yourself across a room at a party, what would your first thoughts be about this person? Imagine your first conversation with the person. How would people begin to learn what your passions are, or how tenderhearted you are? The party is noisy. It’s hard to hold someone’s interest for long because there are many distractions. The champagne and canapes are being passed around the room. Think fast or you will be competing with the prosciutto pinwheels and the goat cheese and sundried tomato crostinis.
You are going to be investing a lot in your billboard ad. Do the twinkling lights that flash their colors brilliantly out on the street call attention to what you most want people to know you for, and to remember you by?
You decide. We are almost halfway through 2014. Before we know it, 2015 will soon be awakening, rubbing its young, unspoiled eyes, stretching and getting ready to launch. It will be yet another year filled with new possibilities for you. It’s time to get clear about who you are, what you want to do, and to cast an unjaundiced eye on the image you project to the world. What do you need to do to make your image reflect who you truly are?
