Are You Surfing The Wave?

There's a wave of transformation happening in the world today – politically, economically and socially. Some people are on the surfing side of the wave and sadly, many are being swept out to sea – working harder but earning less.

Your job as a business leader is to tune out of the noise (aka "the news") and to make the absolute most of the times that we are in. If you allow yourself to get swept into the negativity of all the things happening around the world, it distracts you from the fact that we do live in a time of unlimited, global opportunities. There's a lot wrong with the world, but there's also a lot of great things that don't make the news.

To surf these waves, you have to position yourself as a Key Person of Influence within your industry. By far, your biggest asset right now is your brand and reputation. If you look at traditional assets (houses, shares, etc), they are facing volatility and confusion. In contrast, the most reliable asset successful people earn from, that pays the biggest dividend, is their personal brand; their global reputation. The way they communicate, their stories, the nuances they can articulate are all highly valuable and scalable online.

Back in 2009, we were an events company focused on physical events and defined by geography. In 2010, we decided to become an intellectual property company, which allowed us to scale globally. We opened up all over the world, first in the UK and then growing to Australia, USA and recently Singapore. That's the difference between a geographically defined businesses versus a global intellectual property business.

High-earners today get paid for consulting, speaking and their involvement in businesses because of their reputation. If your reputation earned you an extra £35K a year, it would produce more income than a £1M house in London!

I really encourage you to focus on developing intellectual property assets. You are already sitting on valuable intellectual property. Identify it, Value it, Scale it and get away from being limited by regional/geographical structures.

Scaling intellectual property through media and technology and building digital assets around you is key to growing your business. We're just getting started with these transformational times. This is going to be a fifteen-year trend of upheaval in traditional business, politics and societal structures.

Technology is really starting to become smart and automate a lot of jobs. Governments are dealing with less income from an aging population. There are going to be less jobs but more opportunities so you really need to immerse yourself in the entrepreneurial mindset.

We have to think globally, we have to think about digital assets versus physical assets and look for partnerships with others who "get it". We need to surf the wave of transformation rather than get dumped by it.