Where are the dead branches in your life that get in the way of new growth for Your Personal Brand? Pruning dead branches in is the third and final type of pruning mentioned by Henry Cloud, PhD in Necessary Endings.
Use Your Vision of the Future to Prune
Cloud compares necessary endings in life to pruning a plant; we must first have a vision of what the future looks like and then prune away things that don’t fit. “When you prune a plant, it’s a process of proactive endings. It turns out that a plant cannot reach its full potential without a very systemic process of pruning.”
He contends that there are three types of pruning one must do in order to reach the vision you have in your mind; pruning away the good to make room for the great, pruning away sick or diseased branches that aren’t going to make it and pruning away branches and buds that are dead. He points out that these dead branches and buds take up space needed for healthy branches to reach their full height and length. They should be growing straight for the goal, but they have to twist and turn to grow around the dead branches that are in their way.
Some examples of dead branches in our lives that take up space needed for healthy branches are:
- Old limiting beliefs that are no longer true – when your picture of yourself reflects outdated or untrue information that was fed into you, it interferes with healthy branches reaching their full height and length. Living fully into Your Personal Brand, standing tall and saying with confidence, “This is how I add value for your company”, is difficult when limiting beliefs are still present in one’s mind. In order to fully develop Your Personal Brand, those beliefs must be replaced by the truth of honoring, valuing and living in your strengths.
- Activities that were good at one time, but no longer support Your Personal Brand. If you moved from one profession or industry to another, the old organizations that were important in that industry may not serve your needs anymore. Even pruning yourself off of their email list could be a very simple necessary ending that clears space for Your Personal Brand today.
Prune to Develop Your Personal Brand
Steve Jobs, who recently passed away after a long battle with cancer, said, “Death is the best invention of life. It clears out the old to make way for the new.” This quote addresses the benefit of proactive pruning of dead branches. If we recognize the things that are dead, we can more easily deal with Necessary Endings and develop our Personal Brand for who we are today.
Here’s another opportunity to get intentional about Your Personal Brand, pruning where necessary so you can develop Your Personal Brand.
Join us for an interactive workshop series where we explore Your Personal Brand and the important benefits of identifying and developing it in today’s marketplace.
Key Deliverables:
- Personal Brand Identification.
- Clarity in decision making, leveraging transferable skills to develop the best target market for your unique value proposition.
- Consistent brand message to use across all communication platforms: social media, resume, business card, brochures.
Dates: Saturdays, October 22 and 29, 2011
Time: 9:00 am to Noon each day
Location: Quest Conference Center, 8405 Pulsar Place, Columbus, Ohio 43240
Cost: Only $200, includes 6 hours of class time, workbook and a free 45 minute coaching session with Rhonda Peterson, workshop facilitator and career transitions coach.
Registration is limited to 15 people; sign up soon to reserve your space!
