YOUR VERY BEST IS YOURSELF

Time spent with your family is time best spent. When my daughter and I do not have much to talk about, we read a story from one her favorite story books. Yesterday, we read a story about donkey that got me thinking…..”Once upon a time the king of the jungle organized a party for all his friends. He insisted that the invited guests look their very best for the occasion. Donkey had a difficult time deciding what to do in order to look her best. Her friend zebra told her that she already looked great and that all she needed to do was clean herself and wear a hat for the occasion.

Donkey would hear none of that.

On the day of the party, donkey came up with what she thought was the best plan ever. ‘I know what I will do to make myself unique.’ She told her friend. ‘You will help me paint my body so that I look a little bit like you, lion, hyena, gazelle and elephant.’ Zebra tried to convince donkey otherwise but to no avail. And so it was that donkey was painted as she had requested.

When she got to the party, no one could recognize her. The other animals were scared and ran away from her. King lion thinking that donkey was an enemy chased her away. 

What do you wish that we see when we look at you? It is a good thing to what to be like someone else more successful than you, but, it is total self obliteration to want to be someone else.  Each one of us is a unique blend of character more like finger prints. A lot of people ask me, ‘how can I discover myself?’ I tell them, the only way to discover yourself is to allow the original man/woman show him/her self up. Once you meet your real self face to face, know the following: First, you already are perfect as you are and you do not need to add anything else. However like donkey was told, you need to clean yourself up. To ‘clean up’ means shake off some bad habits like laziness, procrastination and poor time management. It also means shake off some bad attitude. Second, you need to put on some hat. Our life wardrobe may have only very few clothes (in fact only one) but, it sure has a huge supply of hats each suited for different occasions. For example you can wear the hat of integrity when meeting and dealing with employees, but wear one of empathy when dealing with a hurting friend.

Do not use the term 'personal branding' as an opportunity to eradicate yourself and relegate yourself as foot notes in your life story while filling main pages with falsehood, imitations and mimicry. There is only one you, and if you do not struggle to at least write your own story, no one will. I am reminded of the words that I wrote in my first book; “life is like a story book in which you are the author and everyone only reads what you choose to write about yourself. The surest way to get kicked out of life party is to show up as a different person and get discovered.