BRAND BULLSHIT -- WHY I'M LOOKING TO VOTE INDEPENDENT IN THIS ELECTION

WHY I'M LOOKING TO VOTE INDEPENDENT IN THIS ELECTION

It's really simple. I'm fed up to the back teeth with being talked at by people who are so lacking in ordinary human experience of the real world, people with so few meat'n'potatoes social skills, so little empathy with the breadth of people they hope or claim to represent, such a dearth of knowing or talent for effectively communicating, and such a lack of intellectual, emotional and psychological maturity that they feel the need to crawl into a political party, to play their clandestine games until they have “the numbers” to get on to the passenger list to parliament, get themselves a territory, and ride in on the coat-tails of a leader they think will get them a seat in the tribal cubbyhouse.

No wonder most of them are crap. Crap human beings. Crap leaders. And like all people who want something from someone else, they're a pushover for any vested interest that beckons.

I have some experience of what I'm talking about here. In my younger days I worked for a while in an electoral office, not because I wanted to be a politician, but because I knew, respected and supported the guy I worked for. Later on, as part of my PR business, I got the job of attempting to train politicians who had actually got themselves elected without having a clue how to relate to anybody outside of the party machine, or how to effectively represent them while spending 5 days of the week in the Clubhouse, out of their electorate.

On the other side of the coin, I've worked for a social services agency of what is now the Uniting Church and, years later, for Lifeline. I've been down and dirty with the large numbers of people who fall through the cracks of government “services” that open up due to neglect and a want of basic human respect, resulting from the appalling ignorance, contempt and ineptitude of the people that get elected to look after these things.

So much for my credentials for writing this.

My first advice to a party politician, or anyone thinking seriously of going into politics and doing some good for someone other than their party bosses, their lobbyist “friends” and themselves is this – “Forget about your Personal Image. Forget about who's-who in your party, and who pulls the strings. Keep going to Branch meetings by all means, but make your first priority to go out and build some character. Get a real job – preferably one in which you'll actually get your hands dirty, learn about yourself and what really makes you tick, learn your shortcomings and do some serious work on them. Earn your way up through productive results, learn how to relate to real people and how to get them working with you on a vision of something that's bigger than all of you and worth the while. Become personally responsible for the welfare of someone other than yourself and your family. Start creating projects that will be measured in real results, and not just to a performance review by some pasty-faced academic with a degree in HR.

For the first decade of my professional career, I kept my damn mouth shut. SHUT! And my ears open. So what the hell was I doing before I got so loud? I was learning. I was working. I was building a life, a vocation, a one-man business, I wasn't loafin' or dreamin', or looking for a handout. Drama school and auditions were daytime occupations, so I worked all-nighters and most weekends to support my family. I got wise to the ways of the world.

Politicians get hep to the ways of their party. No wonder there's a yawning gap between those who vote and those who get themselves voted. Nowadays I (obviously) spend more time with my mouth open, but not at the expense of hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling and tasting the feedback. Seriously, go and Google my name. Even as an actor, you won't find a damn thing that predates me going to NIDA and serving an apprenticeship with the Melbourne Theatre Company. And those who knew me before then also knew that, even as an amateur, I was studying seriously the theory and the craft, and going anywhere and everywhere, working mostly for nothing, in order to get experience, and experimenting to see for myself what worked and what didn't. I looked for failure. I still do. I don't like it, but I'm not afraid of it. If I fall flat on my face, I'm embarrassed for 5 minutes, and sometimes have to clean up any mess I may have caused. That's good for character, too. During that process though, I win because I've learned something. “Risk averse” politics, and those who currently practice it, give me the shits. Not a single breakthrough in human history, as far as I'm aware, was ever achieved by a Careful Person. No monuments have ever been erected to someone who said “Let's not do anything. Let's just sit tight, and maybe no-one will notice, and we'll get elected again next time because we can say 'See? I didn't stuff it up: it wasn't my fault that went wrong. It was...........(the legacy of the last mob)'”

Thank the lord for social media. When I first became politically aware, the guy who won the election then pretty much forgot about those who voted, and looked after those who donated instead. Until the next election when he pretended – again. Now it's different. Day after day they're reminded “We're watching you” which is why they lie and hide and duck and weave weasel-words. Every time a minister makes a statement, you'll find an Emergency Exit lying in it somewhere. And they're no longer bothering to bring some subtlety to bear. Ask a question nowadays and politicians openly ignore it and go back to their songsheets.

It stuns me that people “go into politics” without having a clear understanding of what comes before that, of what the founding fathers intended a representative should bring to the table. It was intended that you would actually get to know something about your temperament, and the personality you've built on top of that, and how that comes across to others. It was intended that you first be successful in a useful career – not an elected official of a trade union, or a banker whose only success in life has been to help rich bludgers avoid paying their dues to society. You are supposed to rock-solid know out of bitter experience what you're values are and in what hierarchy you stack them, and under what circumstances you'll re-order that hierarchy. You have to learn how to read the duality and the importance rankings of others, too, and get utterly familiar with, and become an acknowledged authority on the subject matter of what you think you might stand for.

What’s getting my goat is this notion that is so prevalent right now, which is that you can just come out of nowhere, have your photo taken with the party leader, and build a concocted brand through various marketing tactics. To position yourself as an expert is not difficult; If the Kardashians can do it, so can anyone with enough money to buy a spot on “A Current Affair”. Experts are a dime a dozen on the nightly news and comment shows, but most of them have never left school! And those who engage with them aren’t asking the hard questions like “What's the answer?” and “How do you know?” Except Leigh Sales who bailed up La Turnbull one night with “You say all this is true, but where's your evidence?” He just stared at her with a stunned mullet look that would have done Tony Abbott proud.

You need to ask the same question of yourself. “Come on precious, you think you're so special, and paid suckholes around you are telling you you're so special. But special at what? What's your gift? What use is it? What's your proof? How do you “know” you're not just jerking off? What do you want to provide people with? What are you great at? How do you know that? Show me the evidence. Show me the fruit that tells me what kind of a tree you are. What do you love? What is your currency – Approval? Praise? Security? Wealth? What is your Legacy going to be (because legacy is always above currency)? What's your step-by-step plan for achieving that legacy, and what's the time frame for each step?

We have two political “leaders” right now who keep talking about their so-called “plans”, but there's no evidence of a plan, or of planning, no detail – just a slogan with no verbs in it, a few splashes of coloured bullet points, and a bit of a media strategy for selling something that doesn't exist. There's nothing joining up the dots. No map that I can read and see a) where we're actually going (really); and b) how we're going to get there if we follow that plan; and c) what are we going to have to risk in order to get it (if there;s no risk, it's not worth anything)? Nothing. Nothing except obfuscating bullshit. Which leads me to suspect that there is indeed a plan, but it's nothing like what we're being told. The Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are still out front and centre, covering for an agenda that will not be spoken, except later on Wikileaks, when it's already too late (eg. The Free Trade Agreements).

Some acquaintances of mine argue on with me about the political class . Some say “They don't need to know education and science and arts and agriculture etc. That's why we have a public service. Look at football coaches”, and what they mean by that is: coaches aren’t football players. They argue that you don’t have to be a great player to be a great coach. And to that I say: Seriously? Have you looked at every football coach? Ignoring the fact that there are skill sets to being a coach, teacher or mentor that are entirely different to being a star player (because that’s another whole conversation), there is no football coach that comes out of nowhere at age twenty-three and takes his team straight to the Grand Final. But Turnbull thinks he can do it – on a double dissolution! Coaches are often people who grew up the son or daughter of a coach, and played and coached for decades in the lower grades... Turnbull grew up the son of a battler, and judging by his first few months, he's running true to form.

Oh and, by the way, how come public service top brass are now outnumbered and over-powered by privately contracted “advisors”?? Expert advice is being drowned out by the “brand-makers”.

So this “Join-a-Party” political shortcut to Somebodyland, this quick hack of using a political party, social media and modern tech to build up a Self-Image that will get you elected by the same people who vote for contestants on “The X-Factor” – is not enough. Not nearly enough. Look at Julie Bishop last week, when questioned about one of her party's central bits of election flummery, looked stunned, miffed and snapped “Well this is one of your gotcha moments is it?” Did she say the same thing in school in an aural exam? Probably. She is, by her own manipulation, Deputy Leader of the party, and she doesn't know???? There is no substitute for assessing and founding proper groundwork. That means getting honest about your self and addressing deficiencies it means doing the research on the skills and the content that you need to master. It means seeking out and getting with people who can teach you by example. It means honest hard work, and developing a vision for exactly how you'll measure your success in making a difference to others. It also means becoming an authority on what you and the Party are actually doing, or “promising” to do, and have nothing to do with pretending to do one thing while you're actually doing something quite different. It means thinking things through and not doing a Sinodinis and bleating, “Look, just vote for us and I'll bring it up at a party meeting after the election.” How lazy and arrogant can one get???

Like Nick Xenophon, Tony Windsor, Sam Dastiari and, yes, even Jacquie Lambie you have to earn the privilege of having a “personal brand”, and the only way to do that is to actually formulate a plan, recruit willing participants, and execute it. If you're looking for short-term “fame” and recognition in politics – believe me, you're not even barking up the wrong tree; you're in the wrong bloody forest. As a nation we have well and truly had it up to the eyeballs with emotionally and psychologically deprived egotists who, on no real evidence, have decided what is “right” for everyone.

Ask yourself “Where will I be 10 years?” If the answer doesn't involve someone other than yourself and envisage firstly a determined regimen of self-improvement, please do yourself and everyone else a big favour, and find another line of work for which you really do have to grow up if you're going to survive at it.

Now, if you’ve met all those requirements above, if you’re really a business badass and your legacy is strong, here are some tips I have for getting your brand out there:

Be a Creator of Contexts, for yourself and for those you take with you on your journey.

Be a teller of stories. Paint pictures of what has been and what could be – if only..... Detailed pictures, please.

Give up being right about anything, and instead be a devout student of Further Possibilities.

Be like bamboo – firm and flexible.

Level with people. Take them into your confidence. They will reward you with their confidence. Whatever you want to reap you must first sow.

Cultivate real openness. Avoid pretences of it. Notice when Malcolm open his arms, one of them (usually the righthand one) is a karate chop. He's such a lousy pretender!

Trust. To do that, you have first to trust yourself; that involves knowing where you cannot be trusted – where you might sell out. And don't kid yourself that you don't have sellout points – you do. And it's the ones you don't acknowledge, at least to yourself, that will bring you undone sooner or later.

Have yourself regularly tested for levels of Empathy. Empathy is not the same as Sympathy – the latter is “feeling for”: Empathy is “feeling with”. If your Empathy levels are getting low, do something about it before you start doing serious social damage.

Take a course in Integrity. Very few people even know what it is. They confuse it with one of its ingredients – honesty. Integrity is much more than just “honesty”. Begin by looking it up in a really good dictionary. When you get to something like “a state of being in which nothing is missing, nothing is hidden”, you're getting warm. A person with Integrity is an open book – not a trait to be found in the present Treasurer, Finance Minister, Environment Minister or Immigration Minister.

Without Integrity (even if you don't know what it is) you are not to be trusted and, deep in the core of your soul, you know that.

Decide if you’re ready to put yourself out there. Do you know what this is?

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It's the International Symbol of Commitment – put your arse on the line. If you're not prepared to risk your arse for a better world for everyone, bugger off.

Be responsible. Make “The Buck stops here” a daily practice, not a slogan.

Never automate anything that should be human. Politics is personal. Always. If some area becomes impersonal, you've lost the plot. Whatever you do, or don't do, affects people – personally.

Lead from in front. Never send anyone to do a job you're not prepared to undertake yourself. And never squib on doing everything to completion. No loose ends. That requires doggedness, and commitment to something larger than yourself.

Keep your commitments. Make your word your wand. On your own authority.

Make no promises. Promises are made by people who secretly know they might not deliver. They may not be aware of why, but they promise in order to sweep niggling self-mistrust under the rug. Promise nothing; instead state your clear intention and your plans to fulfil your intention. When you know you're going to deliver what you intend, or something even better, a promise is no longer needed. Intentions have the validity of purpose and direction; promises are meaningless vacuums. The jokes about politicians' promises are no longer funny – not after Tony Abbott.

Keep scaling your content. Make sure your substance stays substantial. Constantly review – “How am I doing, and is there another, better way right now?” Do everything you do in the utmost humility. Acknowledge your successes, but keep them quiet. Learn from your failures and openly acknowledge “I can do this better”. “What am I leaving behind me as I move my world along the path?”

People will follow you anywhere as long as they know where they are, where you're taking them, and how far they've come so far. Do just this much and you'll have already a “brand” without wasting resources having to construct one.

Hustle. Yep, hustle. Widen your armoury of ways and means to wangle, so that you can always apply methods that are appropriate to the people you're dealing with at the time. Get used to horse-trading.

And once you become a brand, the work never stops. If you truly love your legacy, respect it and maintain gratitude for the opportunities to create one, your chosen path today will be the best decision you ever make.