Personal Branding.

I have always said that a person's life does not begin with their birth, but with the birth of their parents and even their grandparents, that context determines the place where you are born and grow up, even the way you are educated, issues over which you have no control or decision until a certain age. Not in all cases, of course, there are always exceptions.

My father, who celebrates 3 years of leaving this earthly plane last August, may not have known what a personal brand was, the strange thing is that he had it. You can ask anyone who knew my father and they will speak wonders about him, as a friend, as a person, as a businessman, as a brother, as a son, as a father, as a husband, and it is not because he is my father and he was my superhero, people still talk about him, they still remember him.

He taught me invaluable life lessons like customer service and treating people equally, it wasn't that he told me look this is how you should treat people, I learned by watching him, he did incredible things that I know no one in a store would do, one time he sent me to another store to buy a product that he didn't have even if it was more expensive as long as his customer didn't bother to go elsewhere. It was a simple gesture with many readings and interpretations.

I mention it again, "new" concepts emerge like this personal brand, the truth is that it already existed but no name or attention was given to it, except for technological issues, in the rest there will hardly be really new concepts, what happens is that they get a name, splits, variants are made, they become fashionable, we are more aware of them and we consciously try to develop them, hence the usefulness of talking about them and trying to influence others in a positive way.

Some weeks ago I read a post by José de Jesús Pérez Lara Fiscalito about how he started in the world of tax forums, then he published a second note giving more depth and details. Personal brand was a topic on my list to develop, what Pepe shared made me remember my own time and reasons why I started sharing on tax matters.

I started working at PwC México , when I arrived there were very good people like Fidencio Perez Acosta (and others who were older and more experienced, then others joined like my friend Gabriel E. Bravo , my great friend @Danny Mendoza, both witnesses at my civil wedding, then others like Raul Gerardo Trevi?o Flores , Adrian Cuellar , @Antonio Santiago, and the reunion with Mario Pitones after meeting him at PwC through the Puebla office, etc, later other generations arrived.

On Fridays in the summer, we went out early, we went to the Pool Billiards, someone had the idea of writing down on a piece of paper the interesting things that each person had seen during the week, on Friday they took the piece of paper and between games, nachos with chicken, La Pe?a was born, which survives 25 years later, girlfriends, wives, children were added, we began to see each other as singles, today we already see each other at the XV Party years and later maybe at our children's weddings.

I had to leave PwC, I entered the Hospital Santa Engracia (HSE), my HSM partner Horacio Sánchez Mu?iz warned me: you will stagnate. At HSE, in 2-3 months I had everything sorted out, then the work became very calm, towards my own VAT declaration, provisional payments, compensations, the annual, tax opinion, etc, but the pace was infinitely slower than at PwC, so I started looking for spaces that would keep me updated on tax matters, I found the Impuestum? tax forum, but its interface at that time was not very attractive.

Then I moved to Carrier México , at the same time fiscalia.com was born by Gustavo Leal Cueva (whom I later met as a teacher in the Master of Taxes and we also created the fut7 team, 3 times Fiscalia champion), who developed his own forum with an interface similar to that of Impuestum, but then the forum evolved, I actively participated, I made sure that all questions had an answer, I met a lot of people, I met José de Jesús Pérez Lara , pepe soto , @Lobozac, ANONIMO 2 and others, @Lobozac, @ANONIMO 2 and many others, the debates became intense, with time the forum gained such speed and growth that it was no longer necessary for me to get involved, as at the beginning my work began to become more demanding, I only entered the week from Christmas to New Year to attend to the posts that remained unanswered (which I still do) are much less in proportion to the volume of questions.

It got to the point that when people in the media knew me, the question was: are you Cheque from fiscalia.com ?

I went to Argentina as an expatriate, enrolled in the Argentine Association of Fiscal Studies, and when I returned to Mexico, thanks to Victor Barrera, I began attending ANEFAC . events. In Mc Allen, later with the support of Mario Enrique Morales Lopez and Francisco Javier Saucedo Rangel ,I fully immersed myself in the life of the ICPNL , I had already been a member of several commissions, now the invitation was to take over the presidency of the Tax Investigation Commission, then VP of Tax Activities, presidency of the International Tax Commission, VP Business Sector, founded the Tax Controvery Commission and the Sustainability Commission.

I have been honored to use the ICPNL space in El Financiero to write about tax issues (and one non-fiscal), also from the Editorial Committee that issues the communications, to participate as a speaker in @Facpya, Tecnológico de Monterrey , Jurado together with my friend Mario Pitones in a regional fiscal competition of Northeastern Universities in Facpya. President of the Financial-Fiscal Committee of Admin Redes Index NL , etc.

Let's say that the participation in fiscal matters and the contribution to the union was already going well, then a phenomenon appeared: Linkedin stopped being an OCC where you just uploaded your CV, people started interacting with each other, sharing what they were doing in the companies, with colleagues from taxes and other areas, sharing their knowledge, alerting them to new issues, information, etc., which also happens in WhatsApp groups, but at the level of closed groups.

I started writing some articles on my personal profile from time to time, some in English, then when Vladia Mucenic shared her achievements with us through her newsletter @Ars Legis, I realized that this could be another channel to share ideas, concepts, analysis, and @Tributa Et Humanitas was born some months ago.

I had been sharing similar ideas in my work teams for some time, trying to do it on a weekly basis. Linkedin not only allows you to have a greater reach in the search to positively influence others and share tax information, it is a gigantic sounding board where you can find real challenges in terms of comments or positions different from yours.

I never liked the word "leader", I felt it as a tremendous burden, I thought I was experiencing what the Pipila felt, but I realized that if I wanted to climb the organizational charts, have positions of greater responsibility, the combo entailed many things: working in a team, public speaking, etc. I never wanted or intended to be a role model for anyone, but I realized that I had to make an effort to be one.

And here we are, without knowing it or even pretending it, I have a personal brand, the people who know me, they know how I slice the onion, they know what to expect when they invite me to do something, they know that I'm not just another one with a passive role, that I'm going to thunder in, that I'm going to fight for them, that I'm going to help them with everything that's in my hands, so when they call me to be part of something, anything, I'm going to try to add value, I'm not just a person in the photo, I like to leave a mark, to show that I was there.

People who have worked close to me know that I am not a person at work or outside of work, but that it is the same person, in my opinion we must be consistent beings at all times and in all spheres.

Now that I am more aware of many things, I can better channel my efforts, focus my goals, try to be more effective.

Creating a personal brand is nothing out of this world, it is essentially about being who you are, showing it to the world, not keeping your value to yourself, sharing it, defining a strategy, executing it, the passage of time, networks, networking, people you work with, your colleagues, the passage of time will be the best judge of your value, your integrity, your contributions.

There will be tips on how to do it, how to systematize it, etc., I don't want to underestimate that, but I think the most important thing is the will to do it, we all have something to contribute.

So, I invite you to develop your personal brand, to share, to participate actively, it does not take much time.

Thank you for your comments on this topic, your suggestions, ideas, reflections that contribute to the development of the idea of a personal brand.

Greetings,

I wish you an excellent and personal week.