Picasso on Personal Branding

George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:00:29 +0000

Bigg Success is life on your own terms. There’s an old negotiating rule:

You get the set the price or the terms, but you don’t get to do both. So if you choose the terms of your life, bigg success will set the price.

We were talking about Picasso recently. We don’t talk about a painting by Picasso; we talk about “a Picasso”. His name is branded with his work. d do it.

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No overnight sensation

But Picasso paid a price for his bigg success. It didn’t happen overnight. It took years for Picasso to become … Picasso.

He started at the age of seven. His father was an art professor, so he had a mentor from a very early age.

In his adult years, he was so poor, at times, that he burned his own paintings to heat his living space. Now that’s expensive energy!

No matter what obstacles he faced, he kept painting. Painting was his obsession.

A drop out

He was admitted to a top school of art, but dropped out. Formal education wasn’t his thing. He was determined to live his life on his own terms. In fact, he often argued with his father over his paintings.

Picasso the brand

He didn’t always listen to his mother either. He said:

"When I was a child, my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk you'll end up as the pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso."

There have been lots of generals over the years. We’re on our 265th Pope. But there’s only ever been, and ever will be, one Picasso.

And there’s only, and ever will be only, one you!

Picasso had a different dream for himself than his mother had for him. He had a bigger vision. He was unique and he sought to prove it.

What would have happened if Picasso didn’t dream so bigg?

Would he have been a general who doodles? Fortunately, we’ll never know.

But we do know that we would have never known Picasso. The world would have missed out on his great talents.

That’s why it’s so important to define your own terms. There are times when you should listen to others. There are times when you should only listen to that still small voice inside yourself. Distinguishing which one to listen to, and when, is one of the keys to bigg success.

What is your voice telling you?

Please share that, if you want, by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG (2444) or e-mailing us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com.

Thanks so much for reading our post today.

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Would you like more tips and tools to live your life on your own terms? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly – it’s FREE!

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Financial advisors tell you to pay yourself first. Please join us next time when we say, “Play yourself first!” Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Our source for much of the information about Picasso, along with the image we used in today's post was Wikipedia.

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Idols are Not Idle

George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:00:12 +0000

Last night was the Grand Finale of this season’s American Idol. Once the votes were counted, Kris Allen was crowned the new Idol.

He’s a great singer and seems like an all-around nice guy. He really came into his own over the course of this season. There were so many really good singers in the group, including Adam Lambert who seemed to be the odds-on favorite.

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The ten-year rule

One of the challenges we have in reaching bigg success is thinking that it happens overnight. American Idol certainly gives that impression. After all, how many people had heard of Kris Allen five months ago?

Not many. However, he did a lot of work out of the spotlight to get to this point. He’s had formal training and been singing for about sixteen years.

So although it may seem that he’s an overnight sensation, a lot of blood, sweat and tears led to his crowning achievement.

That’s usually the case in any field. In fact, psychologists talk about the ten-year rule: it takes roughly ten years to develop the skills needed to reach bigg success in any endeavor.

The cost of thinking it’s a gift

While the debate rages on – is it natural talent or developed skills – there’s more and more evidence that hard work, with focus, over a span of time, is what usually produces the extraordinary successes we see.

In our culture, we see people like Kris who become media darlings overnight. So there’s a tendency to think he just has that certain something.

The problem with buying into that thought-process is that you lose your resiliency in the face of adversity. If you think that bigg success just happens, you’ll be more likely to give up when things don’t come easy. And you know it don’t come easy!

There’s more than one 3 o’clock in a day

We recently attended SOBCon, the business school for bloggers, and met Jon Haydon. Jon had a great blog post about seeing his social media idol, Chris Brogan, speak at the conference. Chris is an idol to a lot of people including us.

For those of you who don’t know who Chris is, first of all – he’s a super person. Second, he has reached the heights of influence in social media circles everywhere you look – from Ad Age to Technorati and beyond.

Jon’s post was fantastic. He got a number of great comments. We found one particularly revealing. It was by Lewis Howes, who we also met at SOBCon. Lewis commented about a conversation with Chris, who said that “he stayed up until 3:00 every morning for four years to get to where he is!”

At SOBCon, we heard Chris asked about how he got started. He said it goes back ten years to the early days of chat rooms.

Lewis added in his comment, “He didn’t just pop up out of no where and ascend to the heavens … No! He worked his butt off every day and didn’t let others hold onto his string.”

Well said! Bigg success takes time and hard work. It doesn’t just happen overnight. It won’t be easy. Just keep the faith and keep on plugging … you will be a bigg success!

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