CEOs are fired or forced to resign. It happens, as in business, as well as in private life, some relationships are not bound to last forever. Even Steve Jobs, who will always be one of the archetypes for CEOs for a long time from now, severed his connections with Apple at a certain point.

Being fired or having rumors spread about having been forced to leave a company is a crisis for a professional’s personal brand. Other potential employers will be influenced by some other player’s decision to fire their CEO and not want to hire that very same person to lead their company. So how one handles their personal brand while and after being fired is not something that should be taken lightly.

I had a conversation on this topic with a CEO that left a tech company very suddenly, and the details of the event were never fully talked about. At least not in the open! The person in question was commenting on the Yahoo – Carol Bartz breakup and said that was the way to do it: let everyone know what’s going on instead of protecting the interests of a company that just got rid or you. I asked why they had taken a different approach and the answer was that immediately after the event, they were unable to separate their own interests from those of the former employer.  Continue reading

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It’s not slang, it’s not cute, it’s just bad grammar. Slang does not mean you are entitled to behave as if grammar never existed, there are some mistakes native speakers will never make, no matter how much slang they add to their songs. Please, pretty please, when you decide to write songs in foreign languages, get someone to proofread them for you. Those singing won’t look good. Frankly, the result is just the opposite, it makes them look bad.

Now, repeat after me “Listen….to”, ” Listen….to” not just “Listen”. It’s “I never listen to what they say”, please don’t take out the “to”. Oh, and it’s “has come” not “has came”. And if you’re singing about a boy, please call him “moreno”, not “morena”. Unless he’s a girl who used to be a boy. Or she’s a boy who used to be a girl!

I know English songs are trendy. I know adding a little bit of Spanish spice is also cool. But handle with care, it will make those singing your lyrics look better. Don’t help them damage their brand. They are perfectly able to do so themselves. I know, I’ve heard some interviews on the radio that have made me laugh so hard I could barely drive.

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Often times, we see what people put out there. Their personal choice of branding influences our perception. We see this serious anchorman, all dressed up, nice suit, all business look. Think Tom Green. Would you imagine him in a freestyle hip hop duo with Xzibit? And yet he did get into it! Check it out and make up your own mind abut what the man can do.

Personal brands can change; we can reposition ourselves, the same way it happens with products and services. We are never bound by the limits of the image we have projected out there. But a good personal brand that people recognize will always help us promote new projects. Millions of possibilities if we ever get bored, only one rule: actually be good at it

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