Just Finished Reading: Make a name for yourself

Scott Ginsberg, better known as “That guy with the name tag”, is a 27-year old entrepreneur from St. Louis, Missouri who has built his business by wearing a name tag every day for already 7 years. I must admit: my first thought when I found my way to Scott’s web site was that this guy must be crazy! But I had to find out what’s with the name tag. I spent hours reading his posts just to understand why a person would choose to wear a name tag all the time… And then I found out that he even had tattooed the name tag on his chest! But at the same time I really enjoyed his writing. The more I read the more I began to like this guy. And his words made perfect sense: the name tag makes him more approachable and that in turn makes people around him friendlier!

Scott has written four books and five free e-books. He’s also maintaining a very active blog that is updated nearly every day. The book I just finished was his latest effort, “Make a name for yourself” which was just released on the 1st of May. The book can be bought from Scott’s website or Amazon – but it can also be downloaded as a free e-book. I must confess that because getting the e-book was so easy, I just went on and downloaded it. But now I’m having this enormous urge to go and order the book from Amazon – I’m sure that will happen any time during this or next week… So be warned, if you decide to read the free version, you’ll end up buying the book anyway. It’s just so much easier to grab a physical book from the bookshelf and read a few chapters while making notes.

The book is divided into 55 short chapters that each give you one more tip on personal branding, namely, making a name for yourself. The key point in the book is that your personal brand is created by being honest: letting yourself be who you are and making others see your true self. What’s nice about this approach is that you can easily read just one chapter whenever you have a few minutes of free time at hand: in a bus, at a restaurant, waiting in a queue, and so on. But although you can read the text fast, this book definitely is not fast-food in the sense that you could forget about it quickly. At least for me each chapter is still raising new thoughts and questions forcing me to think about my life and ways to – well – make a name for myself. That’s also why I’m planning to buy the book after all: I’m sure it’ll give me new ideas still after the second or third read-through.

The book is full of great quotes and I’ve already posted some of them occasionally to my tumble log, but here are two of my favorites:

“It’s simple, folks. Write everything down. Everything.”

“How many cover bands have ever been inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?”

Finally, it’s up to you to decide whether this is the right book for you or not. But luckily in this case finding that out couldn’t be any easier. Just get get the free version, read a few chapters and decide for yourself. Then go out and make a name for yourself, before someone else does it for you!