• Start with the ‘Man in the Mirror’ - Now you know which MJ song was my favorite. The role of philanthropy is no longer only in the hands of the super rich and influential. We have to recognize ourselves as agents of change. It starts with you! When individual effort combines with that of large organizations it will no longer take a millennium to create basic levels of development on this planet.
• Moonwalk the line - Before you put your startup on the web, register as a non-profit, or whatever your goals are. You need to identify the meeting point where all you are meets with all your cause means to you. Found it? Could you moonwalk on it? Capture it, familiarize yourself with it and make sure that’s what you’re giving people in your messages.
• Consistency is King – Finally, if we didn’t learn anything else from the King of Pop, simply be yourself. People and forms of media would like to split you and classify you, missing who you are as a whole. Be yourself in all your messages, not only who the mediums push you to be. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t adapt for your audience, BUT it does mean that you shouldn’t adapt for EVERY audience.

These tips should be helpful on your path to properly brand yourself and your cause. Next week, as a bonus, I’ll be featuring an interview with Tom Positit who’s behind the project The Global Expedition for the World’s Greatest King. He’ll share some tips from his project and discuss how he’s putting his accomplishments to work helping others. Thanks for reading.

“Dream big, work smart, start local.”

~Dwight

Last February, I put together an art show to help Bangkok’s urban refugees. When I refer back to this period of my life, I think of fighting a war on three fronts. When I took on this project I was full time teaching, trying to pull off full time charity work, and attempting to be social enough to have people at the art show. I lost this war on all three fronts. While teaching for me went generally well, grading and writing piled up at a rate I could never recover from. The bigger the plans for the art show became, the more nights I spent in meetings or at the venue planning. And my social life was the biggest disaster. I alienated friends and new people trying to push an event on them without spending any quality time with them. Big mistake. I suffered personally and so did my cause. This is why I’m so passionate about asking you to pause and think about all you’re doing and how you’re committing yourself to your project.

Being splintered because of overcommitment had two detrimental consequences: 1)Overcommitment makes it difficult for people to help you and 2)Overcommitment is exhausting and leads to burn out. These consequences make the goals you’ve set harder to reach.

The show went well and we raised a significant amount of money for the cause. However, I did not reach the fund raising goal I originally set and I nearly killed myself trying to be superman. Afterward, I needed some serious time away from my projects. In hindsight, this was quite an unhealthy way to lead a project.

In the upcoming posts I will give some guidelines to prevent splintering in your endeavors running projects and using the web to spread your message. Thanks for reading and I hope you’re committing yourself to doing work you love in a realistic, sustainable way.

~Dwight

So I wanted to take time out to introduce myself to readers and ask all of you to consider the way you unconsciously divide yourself trying to reach your goals. This is detrimental to your brand, especially if you’re trying to help people. In the next few posts, I plan to show you why and tell you how to avoid making the big mistakes I made.

FIRST let me introduce myself.

You may want to do this on your site too. We’re complex and it’s impossible to summarize someone (especially yourself) in a few sentences, but it’s crucial to select a few things everyone should know about you. Here’s the bare minimum of what you should know about me and this sanuk lifestyle I lead:

• My name is Dwight – I’m from Atlanta and I now live on the other side of the earth. I love living abroad and my eyes have been opened to how many people I can touch without having donations from corporate sponsors or Daddy Warbucks. (You have to stick around to hear how I went from teaching on the palace grounds to using social media to do philanthropy work.)
• I live my life in search of sanuk – Sanuk is not a person! I can feel your shock. Sanuk is a thai word that means fun. It means taking a lighthearted approach to what life throws at you and enjoying yourself. Sanuk for me is showing you how easy and enjoyable it is to help people.
• I’m building a community and you should join – My goal is to empower people to change their environments. This happens on and off the web —around the world and in Bangkok. I’m writing, connecting people to great causes, and learning from all of you. Let’s connect and collaborate to become the change we hope for.
  

I’m glad you’re here. Remember to ask yourself: Am I reflected in the brand I’m creating?