Cracking the Code - Becoming a Influencer

Many moons ago it dawned to me painfully at first that I just did not know it all. I could not hold my own against those who had studied the subject for years and then interned and done projects and spent their early years sharpening the axe, going through the grind and thus honing their skills - of knowing HR ground up! All other things being equal I would fall short when it came to being a master of Industrial Relations and Labour Laws, Compensation and Benefits and such Coz I had not studied it! Instead spent my first 10 working years as sales person. At the peak of my career, I had hit the dreaded glass ceiling!

But then I am a crab (July born) - Step sideways, often backwards to leap forward. And that is exactly what I did. And here I am - ranked No 3 HR Social Media Influencer - 2019!

Here's how it happened for me. I took to the emerging areas of HR like there's no tomorrow :-) and went on to learn and practice ferociously tenets of organisation culture, employee engagement and experiences, concept of employer advocacy, building personal brand and networks, mastering doctrine of coaching, excelling in future skills…You get the picture

In that journey of building a personal brand, acing networking and becoming a influencer, these 5 U’s have stood me in good stead:

1. Untapped - Search within yourself to understand your innate strengths. Reflect, introspect and do some serious soul searching to know what’s your potential in areas where perhaps so far you’ve never got inputs from your managers or even friends coz it was not on their radar (think KPI, OKR, Goals). Believe in the ancient saying “When a student is ready, the teacher appears and when the student is truly ready, the teacher disappears”. In my case, the teacher was first a life coach and then a business coach. 
2. Untainted - Fearlessly go into area’s which are relatively without precedents such that no comparisons that can be made, no undue expectations hang over your head like a dark cloud and there’s absolutely no fear of failure. World of social & servant leadership continues to be one of those…
3. Unexplored - Embark on the proverbial “hero’s” journey. Fail, fight your demons, find friends along the way, emerge victorious. If you take the road less traveled you’re like to find people who’ll be happy to see you and give you a hand instead of a superhighway where you’re more likely to get knocked down. Avoid the “red ocean” where all fiercely fight in limited marketplace for (growth, sales, promotion). Instead go find the “blue ocean” where there are no rules, no sharks…
4. Unattained - Things often look harder from distance than they really are. One like or retweet a day, one comment a week, one post a month. Take is slow, take it easy, pretty much like everything else in life. The only tip here is to find 15mts a day to do this, you must stop doing something else 15mts a day (less TV, take a cab instead of self drive and such). Get started for this is a not a spectator sport but a contact sport. 
5. Uncontested - Its a beautiful world. Very rarely if at all will you hear or feel words like compete, eliminate, leave behind. Instead everyone lends a hand, collaboration is a given, all have your “back”. Hearing a “no” for anything you want to experiment with is a rarity. Its a land of plentifulness. Come try it.

And as I sign off, want to leave you with this thought...

PS - for more, scroll down to the article I wrote on 28th April, 2018 titled - To the Winner, Go the Spoils! Becoming a Social Media Influencer, Double-Edged Sword