Is your vision broken, originally uploaded by h_flemings.

Except from The Brand YU Life: Re-Thinking who you are though personal brand management

Are you a visionary thinker? Having a vision has little to do with what you can actually see. Seeing what is tangible doesn’t necessarily mean you have vision it just means you have sight. In fact, sight is affected by the other four senses and can be a barrier to vision. Vision is about recognizing the intangible and making it real.

Every successful brand (Coke, Nike, Apple, Microsoft) originated with a visionary man or woman whose imagination, presence, courage, and passion were vital to the growth and success of the brand. Are such individuals unusual? Are they born with an innate ability? No. Vision can be developed.

A visionary sees a desired future and develops a strategy to bring it into sight. One way this is accomplished is through visualization. Visualization is defined as the formation of mental visual images. Visualization is a tool that athletes and highly successful people use. Your mind is a powerful instrument that is capable of helping you process information to produce greater results. When your mind creates an image on the inside, it cannot tell the difference between the real thing and the image. This is the reason that visualization is so powerful: The picture that you see on the inside becomes your reality and you then begin to act on it.

Examples:

o Tiger Woods visualizes putting the ball in the cup every time he steps on the green.
o Michael Jordan visualized taking last second shots to win games.

The power of visualization is an awesome tool. It is your internal video camera. It is time to develop positive audio and video content that is internally generated. Everyone is created with the ability to create images on the inside. As you begin to think about your personal brand and where you see yourself, a picture is being downloaded internally.

Visionaries visualize, visionaries “see things,” they even talk to themselves. Other people sometimes think they are a little off, until the vision becomes reality. The visionaries then become “eccentric,” “a great mind,” and “brilliant.” A visionary sees further, sees more, sees before others and is willing to do the work needed to cause the vision to materialize. Although we are not all born visionaries, we all have the tools and skills we need to develop visionary thinking in ourselves. As a personal brand it is your responsibility to package and position your skills, abilities, and talents. Live your dreams and develop your brand.