Time up for the lucky country? I write this week’s ‘Pinch’ from seat 20C, returning to Sydney after running my content creation program, ‘Blog or Die’ in Adelaide with my good mate and fellow Thought Leaders mentor, Rod Buchecker. It was a great day and our students left on a high – full of fresh insight, inspiration and know-how to help them stand out from the crowd by sharing great content that their market will love. Looking at this morning’s newspaper headlines, the timing for them is perfect. You see Australia has finally run out of luck. The hangover Most lottery winners end up penniless. They become overwhelmed by a seemingly inexhaustible supply of cash, splurge it on all the wrong things (assisted by new ‘friends’) and find out too late that the smart play is to preserve the lump sum. Australia has enjoyed an extraordinary resources boom over the last decade, but instead of seeing it for what it is – a boom that will sooner or later ‘bust’ – successive governments have instead acted like a student with their first credit card. Falling demand from China and an iron ore price that has crashed by 40+% are clear signals that the party is over. And it will affect all of us as governments cut services and business sentiment sours. Bootcamp hurts! Tougher times mean tougher competition. More then ever we need to invest in a strategy that will help us to stand out in. I see too many people playing it safe. Given the potential storm that’s coming (and we only need to look to Europe and the US to understand the ‘BOOTCAMP’ levels of pain involved in turning around out-of-shape economies), ‘safe’ is, in fact, a really bad place to be. Time to shine So what to do? My job is to help clever people be commercially smart - and the smartest thing we can do in the face of this challenge is to bring ‘all of us’ to our game. We need to shine.

As my model shows, there are 3 elements to who we are. Trouble is most of us have spent a lifetime trading on just two of them – our Expertise (what we know) and our Experience (where we’ve been). Think of your resume, your Linked In profile or the ‘About XXX’ bio’ piece on your website. Chances are it’s full of your academic/professional achievements and your employment track record. Great for establishing your credibility, of course, but no longer enough.

Could the real YOU please stand up! Think of who is really making their mark in your business or sector. I bet they are passionate. I bet they move you with the power of their belief. I bet you sense that they are utterly authentic. In other words, they’ve captured their Essence (who we ‘be’) in the way they turn up professionally. That’s the key to standing out. So time to stick your head up and get on the radar! It’s a smart response to tougher times. It’s also extraordinarily rewarding. You’ll probably lose a bit of paint on the journey, but trust me it’s worth it. If you need a hand with getting started, just drop me a line. It’ll be fun.

Work with Mark Mark runs team and individual programs to help you grow the influence of your people and business. To set up an exploratory conversation, contact mark@thoughtleadersglobal.com