The Branding Coach, a consultation business that helps individuals and companies define their brand, has launched a children’s handwriting practicing book aimed at improving the writing skills of preschoolers while building their self-esteem through positive affirmations.

Michael Montaque Jr, the 24-year-old Chief Executive Officer of The Branding Coach told Observer Online that the book, Let’s Write: Positive Affirmation Handwriting Practice, “… is designed with dotted lines so that kids can trace and practice their handwriting, which in one sense serves to help with the motor skills and letter formation.”

But beyond that, Montaque Jr added that “… each page has some affirmations, like ‘I am smart, I am brave. I can do hard things’ and that now serves to help them internalise some positive messages while they are learning the handwriting.”

Montaque Jr sees branding as an essential part of personal development, something that even children can benefit from.

“The idea is to help children build their confidence from a young age which eventually helps with developing their brand. Sometimes we look in the mirror and we tell ourselves, even as adults, that ‘I can do this’ and then we talk to ourselves until we believe it and whatever goal we’re hoping to achieve, we work towards it,” Montaque Jr explained.

“So, the book is to serve as a confidence booster, a guidance to children to kind of build their level of ‘I am loved. I am brave, I am smart’ throughout their growing up,” he continued.

Let’s Write was launched in July and is now available on Amazon as well as locally in Fontana at the Waterloo branch. The business also hopes to bring the book to the shelves of Sangster’s Book Store in short order.

In the meantime, the CEO disclosed that plans are already in the works for the making of a second edition of the book.

“We are working on a second edition of Let’s Write which will be a little bit more difficult. There are 51 pages to this current edition and it gets harder and harder towards the back of the book. So, in the second edition, it will be a little more challenging for children to learn and practice at the higher level,” Montaque Jr said.

The business is also working on an eBook to reach a wider audience.

“We understand that we’re living in the digital age and people live on their iPads, live on their tablets so we’re working on an eBook to facilitate that target market as well as we’re looking to have it translated in different languages,” he continued.

With a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Operations Management and his current pursuit of a Master’s degree in International Business Management, Montaque Jr emphasised the importance of branding.

“Without a brand you don’t have any idea of where you’re going, whether personal branding or business branding,” he said, “If you don’t have a definitive target or understanding of who you are or what you’re about, what will happen is that you’ll fall for everything…So branding comes in where it gives that guiding line.”

Montaque Jr’s business, The Branding Coach, focuses on helping companies and individuals define, develop, and own their brands.

“A lot of businesses know what they want, but they don’t know how to get there,” he said. “That’s where The Branding Coach comes in. I help them to sit and plan out, identify exactly where they want to go and then we serve as a guiding force on how to get there or how to develop a strategy to build a brand that aligns with their vision.”