You don't need to rely on the luck of the Irish

“I believe luck is preparation meeting opportunity. If you hadn’t been prepared when the opportunity came along, you wouldn’t have been lucky.” – Oprah Winfrey

While today is St. Patrick’s Day - Happy St. Paddy’s Day - you don’t need the luck of the Irish (though it can’t hurt)!

Instead, you need a well-mannered personal brand! Having a well-mannered personal brand helps you create your own luck. Being well-mannered makes every human interaction you have better – how marvelous is that?

When you have a well-mannered personal brand –it helps you get a better job, better contacts and industry recognition in the workplace. You will attract more and better opportunities!

A well-mannered personal brand helps you build and nurture personal relationships – it improves all your relationships (friends & family), including the one you have with yourself. It is only once you respect yourself that you can truly respect others.

We all know the expression – “make your own luck” - a well-mannered personal brand does that for you.

How?

It’s simple. People like to do business with people they like and who make them feel good. And when you’re confident in yourself because you know what you stand for, and you know what to do and how to do it properly, you like and respect yourself more. You’re at ease and actually enjoy yourself. You’re more positive and pleasant. And that great attitude attracts other people to you. And then, they’re at ease and the enjoy being around you. Your well-mannered personal brand is a force multiplier of positivity and opportunity – making your own luck.

According to studies done by Harvard and Stanford and others, 85% of one’s professional success is connected to one’s social skills! So your work success is DIRECTLY linked to how you present yourself to the world and how you interact with others. One rarely succeeds alone in business. We need other people. It’s important in business to always put one’s best, polished, polite and professional foot forward. A well-mannered personal brand helps you do just that.

Social skills, manners, rules of etiquette all work together and are essential to building personal and professional relationships. They are the foundation of good people skills.

It takes 5 seconds for someone to start to form a first impression of you. So today, is the perfect time to start creating your own luck by starting to intentionally develop and polish your well-mannered personal brand and learning to look and act your best.

May the wind always be at your back!