Simon Middleton - Brand New You: Reinventing Work, Life & Self Through the Power of Personal Branding

Simon is a genuine expert in personal branding and his ideas have the potential to change your life.
Bev James, The Millionaires Mentor and author of Do It! or Ditch It

Leaders transform others by first transforming themselves. No one brings this concept alive as well as Simon.
Nigel Cushion, Chairman, NelsonSpirit

Working with Simon is inspirational, refreshing and great fun.
Dawn Jackson MBE, former CEO of Future Projects

First published and distributed in the United Kingdom by:
Hay House UK Ltd, 292B Kensal Rd, London W10 5BE.
Tel.: (44) 20 8962 1230; Fax: (44) 20 8962 1239.
www.hayhouse.co.uk

Published and distributed in the United States of America by:
Hay House, Inc., PO Box 5100, Carlsbad, CA 92018-5100.
Tel.: (1) 760 431 7695 or (800) 654 5126; Fax: (1) 760 431 6948 or (800) 650 5115.
www.hayhouse.com

Published and distributed in Australia by:
Hay House Australia Ltd, 18/36 Ralph St, Alexandria NSW 2015.
Tel.: (61) 2 9669 4299; Fax: (61) 2 9669 4144.
www.hayhouse.com.au

Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by:
Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd, PO Box 990, Witkoppen 2068.
Tel./Fax: (27) 11 467 8904.
www.hayhouse.co.za

Published and distributed in India by:
Hay House Publishers India, Muskaan Complex, Plot No.3, B-2,
Vasant Kunj, New Delhi 110 070. Tel.: (91) 11 4176 1620; Fax: (91) 11 4176 1630.
www.hayhouse.co.in

Distributed in Canada by:
Raincoast, 9050 Shaughnessy St, Vancouver, BC V6P 6E5.
Tel.: (1) 604 323 7100; Fax: (1) 604 323 2600

Text Simon Middleton, 2012

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise be copied for public or private use, other than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews, without prior written permission of the publisher.

The information given in this book should not be treated as a substitute for professional medical advice; always consult a medical practitioner. Any use of information in this book is at the readers discretion and risk. Neither the authors nor the publisher can be held responsible for any loss, claim or damage arising out of the use, or misuse, or the suggestions made or the failure to take medical advice.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-84850-496-7 in print
ISBN 978-1-84850-876-7 in Mobipocket format
ISBN 978-1-84850-877-4 in ePub format

This book is for the dreamers
who may not feel brave or bold,
but who nevertheless know
the power of acting as if.

This book is for the dreamers: the people who imagine a more exciting job, a more fulfilling relationship, a different way to spend their waking hours, doing something entirely new, fresh and thrilling with their lives.

Three vivid childhood memories prompted me to write this book and have contributed to my personal journey for the last three decades.

The first goes back to when I was eight or nine and a keen (actually, obsessive) reader of Hugh Loftings Dr Dolittle books. Strangely, perhaps, it wasnt the push-me-pull-you or the other exotic creatures (not to mention the doctors ability to talk to the animals) that fascinated me most about the books. Instead it was Dr Dolittles entrepreneurial and action-oriented character. He seemed to be one of those people who just made things happen. He turned dreams into action. Even stranger is the fact that it was one of his more modest achievements that excited me the most.

In one adventure Dr Dolittle opened and ran a post office. It wasnt a great enterprise but it captured my imagination utterly. On long car journeys I would doze and daydream in the back seat of our Morris Minor, thinking through the process of opening and running a post office. This was an early stirring of desire for an enterprising life, although it took me a long time to get beyond daydreaming.

A few years later, when I was perhaps 14, there was a careers fair at school. Local companies talked to pupils about careers in engineering, accountancy, the armed forces and banking. By this time, I had given up my dream of opening a post office staffed by talking animals and was nurturing the notion of being a writer. Needless to say, the careers fair didnt have any literature about how to realize my dream. Instead, I found myself drawn into a long and miserable conversation with a man from Barclays, who thought I would be very well suited to train as a bank manager. I dont remember what I said to him but I do remember feeling that this was the moment at which my dreams would begin to die.

The third event happened about a year later. I got involved with a few kids in school who had formed a pretty ghastly pre-punk prog rock band that specialized in lyrical ballads about battles and witches. I was nominally the lyricist and the guitarist, and a very bad guitarist (and lyricist) I was, too. So bad in fact that, despite my powerful deep-rooted desire to perform, I did one performance and didnt touch a guitar or sing in public again for nearly 20 years. I decided, simply, that my dream of being a performer was about as achievable as that of running a business or being a writer.

So, at some point in my early teens I was ready to settle for what life dealt me. Not that it was intrinsically bad. I enjoyed a safe, comfortable, relatively affluent childhood. I was loved and cared for. But I was also aware that I was going to get stuck and that my dreams would remain dreams.

I have never believed that you can make things happen simply by dreaming: simply by being positive or by acting as if. I do believe, however, that dreaming, being positive and acting are crucial elements in the endeavour of becoming the person that you want to be. And I absolutely dont believe that we have to settle for the outcome that life appears to have dealt us, or into which we have gently fallen.

It took me nearly 20 years to realize my dream of becoming a performer (Im now a keynote speaker and a singer in a band). It took me 30 years to begin to fulfil my ambition of running a business (not a post office with talking animals, but a consultancy and my business Left Hand Bear). And it took me the best part of 40 years to become a professional writer.

Looking back, I think 20, 30, 40 years is too long to wait to fulfil your ambitions, so this book is all about fast-tracking those dreams. If Id understood as a 14-year-old what I understand now, I wouldnt have had to wait so long. Im determined that you wont have to do the same.

I know too many people for whom life in its many aspects, from work to relationships, seems to be something like a lobster pot. Its easy to travel in one direction but much harder, practically speaking, impossible, to travel in the other. In other words, for some people there is a sense of helplessness in the face of lifes circumstances, which they manage by adopting a kind of stoic acceptance.

In one important philosophical and physical sense, this is true. Time moves in one direction. You cant undo the things you have done, nor un-experience your experiences, any more than you can un-stir the sugar from your coffee. To take this truth to mean that change is impossible, however, is to accept defeat when in fact we are not facing defeat but challenge.

This book then is about challenge: and specifically the challenge of changing your life from the one you have reluctantly accepted to the one that you dream about from time to time.

Perhaps you want to change your working life utterly, or simply improve your prospects at work. Perhaps you want to get a job, any job. Perhaps you face a conflict of some kind at work: a difficult boss or an impossible challenge. Perhaps you are facing redundancy. Maybe you have always wanted to start a business, or are struggling to launch one.