Whether you have a job or a business, you will want to go out there and succeed as much as possible. Most of us are unsatisfied with what we are earning and yearn to have a higher quality of life. There's a simple solution to all of this: building your personal brand in a thoughtful way.

The first thing anyone does when they look to achieve greater heights in life is to examine what other people are doing. Next, they start to imitate what that person does. It leads nowhere. Why? It's quite simple.

When we look at someone who is 5, 10, 15, or 20 years further into what they are doing, they are at a different phase in their business cycle.

While you are in the introduction phase, other leaders are at their maintenance stages. The strategies that they implement are designed to keep their audiences engaged.

But the same engagement strategies do not work when you want to build or grow an audience, or even land a better job or get more clients into your business. That's why so many efforts to get ahead fall flat. But there's a solution that can be followed in these three simple insights.