Build your personal brand to succeed

I live in New Zealand and people here generally do not like to promote themselves. We like to be humble and there really is quite a tall poppy syndrome that goes on here.

Unfortunately, the world is changing so rapidly us Kiwi’s just need to start getting over it. That does not mean we cannot be humble as you choose your brand and how you want to be seen, but it does mean putting yourself out there whether you like it or not.

The BIG game changer has obviously been social media which is creating more superstars every day than any other medium on the planet.

So whether you just want to snag your first job, or grow your career or accelerate the growth of your business, you will need to start thinking about building your PERSONAL brand. Yes, you can build your business brand, but things will start accelerating when you realise it is your personal brand everyone is really interested in.

Yes, you can also choose to stay out of this game (and it is just that – a game, so have FUN). Many people will make it big without social media. However, thousands if not millions of people just like you will achieve their dreams much quicker by jumping in the deep end and going for it.

Where to start?

A great resource which will either inspire you or not is the book Crushing It by Gary Vaynerchuk. The time to grab this book is now as you can download an audio copy for FREE from Amazon. Once you have listened to this you may be like me and order the physical version and start using it to help you understand the nuances of the major platforms available to you today.

Secondly, signup to at least Facebook and Instagram and just start using them.

And finally, if you want support from a personal coach to guide you through getting started with either building your first resume or developing your career plan and/or build your dream business – contact me.

Nga mihi

Tony Cutting
Personal Coach, Personal Digital Marketing Consultant.

June 1, 2018 1

Get off your arse! and move!

We live in times that are causing more disease and chronic illness than 60 years ago. Funny enough our eating habits, exercise, sleep patterns and ability to sit still are also extremely different and not in a good way.

Now, normally I am the last to enter the world of chatting about health due to my many issues over my 54 years. However, in some ways, my experiences are being repeated by the people I love so I thought I would share my knowledge and what I am doing now to fight the ageing process and focus on having a happy healthy life. The changes I have been making are now helping me through possibly the most difficult time of my life – multiple losses of people I love.

So how am I coping…

The biggest problem in our modern lifestyles is STRESS often this is the cause or the reason we do not look after ourselves. My life has been a up and down see-saw of being pretty good until my mid 20s then being bad, being bad, being bad intervention (Liver problems) being good, being good, being good, being bad, being bad, being bad, (Broken Leg) being sad, being sad, being sad, buying my dream property, being good, being good, being good, being bad, being bad, feeling super stressed making a massive bad call with my business decisions, sudden drop of revenue, sale of my dream home I worked so hard for, doing jobs I hated to try and get back the income I lost, being bad, being bad (Brain Tumor), being sad (x100), being good, loss of loved ones being good, being good…

OK, the paragraph above paints a very grim picture and that is the point I am making. The thing is for most of this time I have been pretty happy because I have a beautiful family and that’s all that mattered (I thought), I had some great times and outwardly my life seemed pretty good. I built some very successful businesses and made a very good income and these skills I am proud of and still have today.

Reality check. The ‘being bad’ above refers to STRESS and looking after my health, it refers to bad diet, many sleepless nights caused by very bad habits, and most recently my lack of exercise.

So at 54, I am making a massive change, I making stress my mortal enemy (Funny enough it is for all of us). I am getting through the loss of my loved ones by eating better (not perfectly yet), daily meditation, daily exercise (for me right now the big one) and making sure I do the things needed to give myself the best chance of having a great nights sleep. Bed at 8:30 no technology (includes TV) after 7pm.

There is nothing wrong with making money, you just need to make sure you are looking after yourself. I see many marriage breakups that should not be happening today, obese people (like myself) are far too common, where we try every diet under the sun and hit plateaus and try the latest fad. The reality is 95% of this time it is because of STRESS! Breaking up is not the solution to your marriage issues, caring for each other and working on stress is, eating well but not losing weight? changing your diet and stressing about it will not help, working on decreasing the stress will.

There are many things we need to change to work on our health, some could be small adjustments but for most of us, our evening and night-time habits need a major overall.

What has been a MASSIVE help to me was a small investment in the Calm app. Not only does it help me meditate 10 minutes a day but the masterclass section has a great tutorial from Dr Rangan Chatterjee on the four pillars of health. The Dr explains things very well and can give you the simple tips to help improve your lifestyle and health. If you are like me then, yes maybe some big changes are in the wind.

So the message right now for myself is to get off my arse and move. That means taking many breaks from my PC and moving around the house, doing some housework, ensuring I maximise the walking opportunities by doing simple things like parking in the farthest carpark when picking up groceries and walking up my stairs 3-4 times in one go, several times a day, going for a walk for about 30 minutes a day. The 10,000 steps rule is a good guide, so use it. As well as this I meditate, go to bed early, watch very little TV or Netflix, avoid technology, try to eat well most of the time (added bonus here of saving money), get outside when the sun is out to charge your batteries and a number of other things you will find mentioned on the app.

Please take care of yourself

Arohanui
Tony C

BTW I am not paid to promote the Calm app. I am just so happy I found it.

May 30, 2018 0

Yes, I want to be a digital marketing expert.

Kia ora, People, my name is Tony Cutting and I am looking to create New Zealand’s greatest team of Digital Marketing specialists. If you are already into digital marketing this maybe you chance to find a collaborator, if you are just thinking about digital marketing this will be a great opportunity for you to build your own business while also working with a team of like-minded people.

So, I am already a successful digital marketer and personal coach who loves to help people chase their dreams. If you want to check I am the real deal the best thing is to visit my local group www.kapitinow.co.nz

Kapiti Now is a project in my local area I started about four years ago. I now generate a small income from this project which is great. The main benefit of this project was it has helped me grow my brand locally and learn how to make things work.

On the personal front, I am 54 years young and have four beautiful children who are the centre of my world and at times my greatest teachers. I started my commitment to this journey after surviving a brain operation at 50 which woke me up to the fact I wanted to really enjoy the rest of my life, doing mahi (work) that meant something and spending time with people who want to succeed and do something with their lives. So during the three years (yes three years) of recovery I have spent my time building my local project, reading as much as I could, listening to audio books, learning how to great photos and video on my iPhone and designing my future.

My Iwi, Ngati Toa Rangatira. I was raised at Hongoeka Marae in the beautiful seaside town of Plimmerton about half an hours drive from Wellington. I am now based on the Kapiti Coast which is only another 30 minutes up the road from my spiritual home of Hongoeka.

I have several projects that generate an income the biggest being www.jobcafe.co.nz which is used to help organisations ensure their jobs are marketed to the people they are targeting. JobCafe also markets people who are growing a personal business or looking for a job. This pays me most days and is now allowing me to put my energy into this project “Creating New Zealand’s greatest team of Digital Marketing specialists”.

If you are new to Digital marketing and want to learn and possibly create your own business or if you already have a business and want to grow it then this blog will help provide insights into me and into what digital marketing is all about and how to become an expert.

Over the next three months, I will be publishing my day to day actions, providing some coaching, insights, observations and showing people what I do, and how I allocate my time to maximise what I want to achieve.

During this time if you like what I am doing and want to become a digital marketer you can contact me via the Facebook page I have set up for this project and I will go over how we can work together and help each other build great digital businesses. The partners I am looking for, live in an area they love and want to promote it while also generating an income. They will also want to build a brand that enables them to generate income from many streams around the world.

So whether you are 18 or 63 this is an opportunity to work with a coach who can help you become great at Digital Marketing

So step one is – like & follow my Facebook page set up for this project
https://www.facebook.com/tonycuttingdigital/

and if your serious about building your business share this page with your friends and family and be bold enough to tell them this is what you are doing.

Have a great day – Nga mihi

Tony C

May 29, 2018 0

The importance of continuous learning

So, you finished College, University or your trade course, started work or founded a cool business, it must be time to forget about learning and focus on making the most of the time you have, right?

Although it is fair to say you may reduce your hours of learning, learning is essential for the rest of our lives. Developing a habit of upskilling your knowledge and skills is a very important factor in living a full and successful life.

WHY?

In terms of living a healthy life, those who love to learn and do so until the day they leave this earth, are more likely to avoid degenerative deseases like dementia. They are also more likely to live a life of great social relationships where they are happy meeting new people and developing new contacts (outside of close friends and family) which is a proven factor in living a long life.

We can all improve our knowledge and as we grow older we can become ‘experts’ in the the things that most interest us. It is also very healthy to keep our brain working on positive new learning adventures which bring us new rewards and pleasures throughout our lifes journey.

Ways to learn?

Continual learning does not mean we have study for our master’s qualification at University (albeit there is nothing wrong with that), it can be learning things we are most interested in or gaining new skills and knowledge for our chosen field of work, this could be through courses, mentor sessions, online study etc.

Learning can also be simply picking up a (reputable) book that provides insights into a new skill or way of doing something.

There are video’s, audio files and night classes after work at your disposal. Most communities have centres where you can learn new skills, meet new friends.

Learning is more fun when you are learning a skill you would love to have.

A great way to learn more is to become an expert and teach others, this will drive you to become more knowledgeable and possibly join (or start) a mastermind group who help each other advance their knowledge. Most great teachers and personal coaches will tell you that learning for them is a fulltime activity.

It is also more fulfilling when you learn with a group of people who share the same interests expanding your social relationships, networks and providing your brain with the nourishment it graves for.

Learning new things is a great way to meet new people, develop your skills and have more to talk about at dinner parties. It is a great way to help you live a healthy and fulfilled life, and that is what it is all about – right?

Did you find this helpful? Please share it with people you care about.

April 13, 2018 0

There are Winners and Learners, nothing else.

If there is one blog I hope my children (and eventually my grandchildren) read I hope it is this one.

Growing up, developing skills comes from experience and learning. The more we do of both, the quicker we become more proficient at whatever we wish to do. At times, we learn that something is not necessarily for us, however, if we are put off by other people, or do not give things a go because we are not perfect or proficient the first few times we try then we have not learned this valuable lesson.

Without TRY, there is nothing. Without persistence, there will never be greatness.

By embracing learning there can be nothing else but success, it is as simple as that.

As parents, grandparents or coaches one of our most important jobs is to install this thinking into those under our guardianship. With this knowledge, firmly wired into our brains we can create unbeatable people who will go on and do great things. It simply comes down to “do they LOVE it enough” this is the key ingredient, that will help you persevere through the hours of learning, becoming more proficient, more confident all along learning to be humble along the way. we also simply become better people, more tolerant, more supportive.

It is true, some people learn faster than others, and the better the coach, the quicker you will get to where you want to be. Good coaches make learning FUN, while also embracing the fact there is work to do. Making it fun encourages persistence.

I was lucky enough to play in some pretty successful rugby (and football) teams when I was growing up as a kid. I have been in many representative teams and won some impressive competitions. But one team I have very fond memories for was a team where we embraced both ‘Winning and Learning’. We had a team song we would sing immediately after every game, it was simple and effective.

“We won, because, we won, because, we won, because we won. We won, because we won, because we won, we won because we won …” this would go on for quite some time or alternatively and we purposely would sing this even louder and carried it on longer “We lost, because, we lost, because ….” all to the amusement of our supporters and the other team. It also earned us respect and allowed us to move on emotionally and mentally very quickly.

This mental approach enabled the team to get past ‘the learning’ very quickly and we became a stronger team, stronger as individuals and had a blast that year together, sometimes beating teams ranked above us and sometimes learning. We did not win any championships that year but it was possibly one of the years that made me strong enough mentally to continue on and achieve what I managed to achieve.

This approach is not only great for sports teams and sports people, one of my favourite quotes is from Andy Warhol.

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” Andy Warhol

There is true greatness in this attitude, it takes winning out of the picture and instils learning as the most important skill. If you can teach your children, grandchildren and most importantly yourself this, you will accomplish what you truly LOVE in life, You will remove the pain of learning, instil patience and persistence and just get on with what you want to do, and is that not what life is all about?

March 31, 2017 0