How to Ruin Your Personal Brand

Posted at June 17, 2009

Personal Branding Series

Personal branding is not easy for the vast majority of people. However, over the years I have noticed that some people end up ruining perfect personal brands. If you really, really need to ruin your personal brand, you will be pleased with today’s blog post.

1 – Be Selfish

Assume the world revolves around you and everybody is here to serve you. Make everything all about you. Don’t care about other people. Don’t be attuned to their feelings.

Develop a reputation as a selfish person. Give less than you receive. Don’t listen to what others have to say. Just wait for your turn to speak and tell them how you feel. Dazzle them with your intelligence and insight. You are a great man or woman after all. You know so much and they know so little.

2 – Be Inconsistent

Be completely random. Don’t let mere mortals know what you stand for. Be polite to people in one moment and completely rude the next morning. Say hello to someone and behave like you have never seen them, a few hours later.

Dress immaculately in business suits in the morning and like a thug in the afternoon. Forget what you stood for yesterday. Give people mixed signals. Train people to expect the unexpected with you. Laugh with delight as you see people wonder who you really are. Keep them on their toes. Keep them guessing.

3 – Have a don’t care attitude

Stop paying attention to little details and little people. Do not care about what made you successful in the first place. You have arrived. You have it all. Nothing else matters.

Do not think about the future. Live for the moment. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Behave as if today is the end of life. Don’t save any money, blow the little you have on luxuries you can hardly afford.

Be guilt free. Do not be tied by a little thing called conscience. Be rough with people. Do what your heart desires without regard for consequences on you and on others. Do not be empathetic at all.

4 – Try and please everybody

Be a double dealer. Keep everyone happy regardless of what that does to your reputation. As long as everyone is happy, be happy. Don’t worry about being true, honest or authentic. Focus on keeping everyone happy and everything will be alright.

Don’t have any set boundaries. Shift your boundaries when your values and rules come in the way of pleasing others. Borrow from Tom to pay Ken. Shuffle people around like a deck of cards. They are happy after all.

5 – Be a mini-somebody else

Identify someone you admire. Learn everything you can about them. Learn a whole lot about that one person. Forget who you were and become a mini version of that person. Let that person be surprised and flattered when they see how good a disciple you are.

Follow their every move and attempt to be like them. Let others acknowledge that you are really a mini version of that other guy. Make sure people can’t even tell the difference between you and the person you aspire to be like. (The only difference being that you are the “mini” version)

6 – Be ordinary

Be the opposite of remarkable. Blend in with the crowd. Be invisible. Do not draw any attention to yourself. Let people be shocked when you tell them you went to the same party with them last Saturday. Make sure no one can remember you. Do not be funny. Do not be interesting. Do not standout at all.

Do just enough at your job to avoid being fired. Do half baked jobs. Have a neutral reputation. Do not have an angle, or a defining characteristic that would make you exciting or interesting.

7 – Disappoint people

Have fun with this one. Build people’s expectations, then boom, drop the bombshell. They have been duped. Do not deliver what you said you will. Manage expectations in a weird way. Let people expect so much from you, then give them so little. Make people trust you, and then betray them.

Be a cold liar. Be a snake oil salesman. Lower your own standards every time you deal with people. Be the scum of the earth. Let people see a new form of low every time they deal with you.

8 – Easily Give up

Just relax and stop trying so damn hard! Find something easy to do, avoid anything challenging. Do not follow up on matters. If it takes too long, get bored. It is your right to get bored. Develop a reputation as a person who wants it now. Have zero patience, perseverance and persistence.

9 – Be Ignorant

Forget even the little you knew. Be stagnant. Stop learning new stuff. You already know enough. Why gained specialized knowledge? What for?

Make sure when people want to hide something from you, all they have to do is write it down in a book. Don’t read any book, or ask any questions that may make you learn something new. Your brain is too precious to be exercised and filled with new junk.

10 – Have a couple of bad habits

I saved the best one for last. Get an addiction! Think of all the bad things you can be addicted to. Maybe cigarettes, or alcohol… but everyone does those ones. Why not try something harder like heroine or cocaine? Or if you are not into drugs, why not try watching porn everyday, or too much television?

There are many bad habits you can pick. Maybe simple ones like picking your nose in public or talking with food in your mouth. Or if you really want to ruin your personal brand, why not commit a felony? Be a criminal. Break into someone’s house or kill your enemy.

Summary

You should now have at least two or three neat ways of ruining your personal brand after reading this blog post. You are now aware of what the above actions do to your personal brand. All the best in your mission; whatever it may be.

Series Navigation«10 Steps to Personal Branding Success7 Habits of Highly Effective Personal Brands»

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