A couple years ago, rapper/CEO Baby (or Birdman) of Cash Money made an historic appearance on The Breakfast Club radio/video show. Baby was there to deliver a simple message to the three hosts of the show: Stop talking negatively about me and my company— if and when you speak about me, put some respek on my name. Baby didn't stick around to elaborate on his message or to answer questions, but he communicated a message that you, as a brand yourself, will benefit from adopting — and you don’t have to be a rapper to use it.

Read on and you'll understand.

Don't Allow People Who Have Done Less Than You, To Talk Shit About You

While the hosts of The Breakfast Club are popular and impressively accomplished in their own right,

Birdman is a hip hop legend for his creation of Cash Money Records, the unprecedented $100 Million distribution deal they negotiated with Universal in the 1990s, and the myriad of hit record the label has released. Birdman’s achievements rival that of Master P, Puff Daddy and Jay-Z.

So imagine how Birdman felt when looking at these radio peasants making jokes and talking sideways about him. He had justifiable reasons to be indignant.

There are surely other ways to handle such petty annoyances other than what Birdman did. You can ignore them, respond via the high road, or even defend your background and resume if you feel such a need.

Whatever you do, handle it in your mind so it’s no longer an issue for you.

Your Brand And Business IS YOU. Protect And Defend It At All Costs

Birdman and his brother/partner Slim founded Cash Money Records when Birdman was 22 years old. He’s put almost thirty years of his life into building that brand and business. If you had put that much of yourself into something, wouldn’t you take umbrage to your name being publicly tarnished for any reason?

It’s what I do, but it’s not who I am.

This is nonsense. We spend half our waking lives at work. Some people know you only because of what you do for work. Even if it’s not connected to your job or business, you’re identified by your actions. Always at the gym. She’s at the mall every other day. Attached to his phone.

Whether you want it to be this way or not, what you do is who you are. And that’s how it should be.

If you’ve built a brand or business, your work is your life — you likely spend more than half of your waking hours working. You have to be obsessed, fully dedicated, to build what you’ve built. You’ve literally put your life into in. If there comes a time when you need to protect of defend that brand or business, you do so without a second thought.

Make An Example Of One, The Rest Will Fall In Line

I heard Dame Dash explain the mentality he learned while hustling in the streets as a youth.

Every dealer had to be heavy-handed with people who violated rules, didn’t pay on time and such, because, “... if you allow one guy to own you money, everyone’s gonna believe that it’s OK to not pay you — then everyone owes you money. Your every action is branding, it’s marketing.”

While The Breakfast Club situation was the first time the public heard or saw Birdman confronting a detractor, the principle is simple enough: What you allow or accept becomes the norm for how everyone deals with you. Sometimes you have to make an example of one to get a message across to the rest.

Egotistical? Absolutely. You don’t build a brand that’s worth anything without your ego. Birdman has an ego, and he was willing to speak up for it.

Put some respek on my name.

#WorkOnYourGame

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