“Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know myself, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.”

– Kahlil Gibran

Personal DiscoveryThe First step To Becoming indispensible

Personal DiscoveryThe First step To Becoming indispensible

intro

When you are starting a business, it can be overwhelming to think about every single thing that needs to be done. The truth is that you can only do one thing at a time. So where do you start? Start with you, the business owner.

Before you do anything else in your business, you have to have as clear of a picture as possible on who it is that you really are.

This is so important because this is one of the reasons that businesses fail and it is something that you have control over. Businesses fail when owners lack personal clarity because it leads new business owners to start businesses for the wrong reasons, such as to make more money.

To make a new business work you have to have passion behind your idea because business has hard times, seriously hard times. If you don’t have a passion for what you’re doing, your business will not make it.

The biggest challenge for most of us is how togain more personal clarity into our lives.

We are going to walk you through some tools and tips that we have used personally and our clients have used to gain a better understanding of what you are supposed to be doing to create value and how to best structure that offering so that it plays to your strengths.

“The privilege of a lifetimeis being who you are.”

– Joseph Campbell

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The challenge for you

One of the greatest challenges in self discovery is in separating what we are competent in with what we truly excel at. I have certainly struggled with that in my own life. You can train yourself to be above average in something with time and effort, but it can still qualify as something that you shouldn’t be doing in the long term scheme of things.

Another challenge for us is the story that we create for ourselves about work. The story goes something like this:

Work is hard. Work is not fun. If you don’t feel like you’re working, you’re not. If you are having fun, you aren’t trying hard enough. Don’t send a boy to do a man’s job. If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself, etc., etc.

These stories can be created from past experiences. For my grandparents, who lived through the Great Depression, they have a completely different viewpoint on what work is and what work should be. They then passed that story on to me and since they are my grandparents whom I love and respect, I accepted what they told me as law.

Unfortunately their story is just that, a story. There is no real basis for truth in that story as it pertains to me. This is a struggle that many of us have when it comes to self discovery. We have to let go of the stories that we have created that hold us back.

Take some time right now and ask yourself if you have any stories that you have created in your mind that need to be challenged:

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Two things that drive how you accomplish things

Personal clarity is an overlooked component of business success. We are going to break this down into two components.

For the first component, we will spend time on you, your purpose, your abilities, and how you can create value in the marketplace.

The second component focuses on how you actually approach the action of work. We want to answer the question, “How do you get things done?”

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your Purpose

Books

Books are a great place to start. They are inexpensive and can provide some great information to you. The one drawback to books is that you have to be really intentional with taking notes and creating your own action plans if you want to get anything out of it. The following books are great resources and tools to assist you with your self discovery process:

UniqUe aBiliTy

This is a book brought to us by the good folks at Strategic Coach. The concept of the book is probably pretty self explanatory. So what exactly is Unique Ability?

“Unique Ability is the essence of what you love to do, and do best. There are four characteristics of Unique Ability: It’s a superior ability that other people notice and value; you are passionate about using it and want to use it as much as possible; it’s energizing both for you and others around you; and there’s a sense of never-ending improvement – you keep getting better and better and never run out of possibilities for growth.”

The one question that we hear most often with regards to Unique Ability is, “Do I have a Unique Ability?”

The answer is “yes, you do;” this question trips us up in our discovery process. We often discount whether we have ability or not when it becomes difficult to discover what your unique ability is.

The UniqUe aBiliTy Process

The Unique Ability Discovery process is comprised of the following steps:

1. The Unique Ability Question

2. The 10 Best Habits

3. The Unique Ability Statement

4. The Activity Inventory

5. The Activity Snapshot

6. The Unique Ability Action Plan

The process does not take a long time for you to complete but does provide some powerful insight into who you are. The first activity is the Unique Ability where you design an e-mail that you send to 8-10 relationships in your life that you feel can really know who you are. These relationships can be at work, family, and friends.

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If you did nothing else with this book, this first exercise would provide the most power. The other exercises are great as well as they allow you the opportunity to really examine what you do on a daily basis and identify what activities provide you the most energy when you are engaged in them.

The book concludes with an action plan for you to utilize in your life going forward.

sTrengThs FinDer 2.0

“You can’t be anything that you want to be – but you can be a lot more ofwho you already are” — quote from the book

The above quote from the book Strengths Finder 2.0 illustrates the power that we have as individuals when we focus on our strengths rather than try to fix what we aren’t very good at.

Now there are some things that are learned skills and some things that deal more with your ability. For instance, if you have a hard time keeping deadlines or in being organized, you can still probably make improvements to your life in these areas and these improvements are probably necessary to your long term success.

Strengths Finder is all about playing to your strengths. Their formula goes something like this:

TalenT (a natural way of thinking, feeling, and behaving)

x invesTMenT (time spent practicing, developing skills, & building knowledge base)

sTrengTh (the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance)

At the end of the introduction of the concepts from the book, you have an access code to visit their website to take their assessment. There are 34 themes ranging from Achiever to Woo. The assessment spotlights your top five strengths.

These strengths are highlighted for you in a .pdf report. They break down each of your strengths and tell you what each of them means. The best part of the report is that they have real people giving you examples from their own careers on what each skill looks like in the marketplace. It’s a great way to see how your strength is actually used to give you a more in-depth picture.

online assessMenTs

We took a look at some good old fashioned books. We will jump into the 21st century and give you some online assessments that you can take that will help with your discovery process.

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Myers Briggs TyPe inDicaTor

The purpose of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator™ (MBTI) personality inventory is to make the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung understandable and useful in people’s lives. The essence of the theory is that much seemingly random variation in behavior is actually quite orderly and consistent, being due to basic differences in the ways individuals prefer to use their perception and judgment.

“Perception involves all the ways of becoming aware of things, people, happenings, or ideas. Judgment involves all the ways of coming to conclusions about what has been perceived. If people differ systematically in what they perceive and in how they reach conclusions, then it is only reasonable for them to differ correspondingly in their interests, reactions, values, motivations, and skills.”

– http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/

This test breaks are personalities down into 16 different areas. Here’s what the different areas look like on the Myers Briggs type table.

i s T J i s F J i n F J i n T J

i s T P i s F P i n F P i n T P

e s T P e s F P e n F P e n T P

e s T J e s F J e n F J e n T J

To give you an idea of why you would want to use this assessment in your self-discovery process. Here’s a description of the I S T J personality type:

“Quiet, serious, earns success by thoroughness and dependability. Practical, matter-of-fact, realistic, and responsible. Decides logically what should be done and works toward it steadily, regardless of distractions. Takes pleasure in making everything orderly and organized – their work, their home, their life. Values traditions and loyalty.”

As you can see, these types of assessments can really be helpful in providing you some insight into how you approach things. This type of knowledge is great in helping you assess business ideas and career choices.

Please also note that there is not one personality type that is superior to another. Just like with your kids, Carl Jung likes all of his personality types the same.

You can take the assessment at https://www.mbticomplete.com/en/index.aspx.

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kolBe inDex

If you are wondering about how you can approach your work to maximize your productivity, the Kolbe A Index is the assessment for you. The index measures your instinctive method of operation that allows you to be the most productive.

The above shot is of a sample Kolbe Index. As you can see, the Index is broken up into four categories: Fact Finder, Follow Thru, Quick Start, and Implementor. Where you fall on the scale is not good or bad, it just explains how you go about assessing and implementing when you work.

DeFiniTion oF The FoUr acTion MoDes

• Fact Finder – Gathers and shares information

• Follow Through – Arranges and designs

• quick start – Deals with risk and uncertainty

• implementor – Handles space and tangibles

Where you sit within each action mode tells you specifically how you go about each action mode.

A word that you learn in doing the Kolbe Index is the word “conative”. Conative is action derived from instinct. It’s a conscious effort to carry out self determined acts. In a word, conative is doing.

During the assessment you will get breakdowns of each action mode and how they compare to other modes of operation. You will also get some career advice on what you can do to get the best out of yourself. They even make some career recommendations for you as well.

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core MaP

For individuals, the CORE map looks to help you uncover information about yourself in the following areas:

• Discover Your Ideal (authentic) Self

• Let Your Nature Propel You to Success

• Increase Satisfaction and Joy

• Free Up Your Energy and Potential

• Gain a New Sense of Purpose and Direction

• Find Your Ideal Career

• Transform Your Life and Relationships

• Become Your Finest Self

• Build Successful Relationships

• Navigate Past Negative Conditioning

• Personal Coaching

From the CORE site: http://www.coremap.com/

We are still looking into this process and at the time of this writing are looking into certification with CORE for this exercise. We have heard some great things about it from clients and wanted to share it with you.

seMinars

There are a lot of self-help seminars out there that can help you work on you. I am not going to waste your time recommending any of them. It’s not that they are all bad but most people pay thousands of dollars to attend personal development seminars and then don’t implement any of the material that they learned.

If you absolutely must go to a seminar, I would recommend going to a seminar that deals with productivity.

Some of the seminars that we have experience with are from the following companies:

Franklin covey: They have a ton of different courses that you can take on time management that first focus on you as an individual and how you can best work your day around your strengths. For more info visit: http://www.franklincovey.com/tc/publicworkshops/time-management-workshops.

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getting Things Done: David Allen is one of the foremost productivity gurus. You can check out a host of information on productivity here: http://www.davidco.com/.

Mission control: This system really focuses on you and helps you identify your core values. You also get an understanding of not only what you should be doing but, just as important, what you shouldn’t be doing: http://www.missioncontrol.com/.

The above seminars are great because they address who you are so that you can be most productive

soUl PUrPose WorkshoP

The Business Blueprint works with a financial and business literacy firm called the Freedom FastTrack. One of the offerings for their clients revolves around their clients discovering who they are or in their words, discovering their Soul Purpose.

Soul Purpose defined: Soul Purpose is your unique series of talents, strengths, passions, gifts, interests, hobbies, attitudes, and values that form the essence of the most magnificent version of you.

Freedom FastTrack breaks their workshop into three objectives: Brainstorming, Filtering, and Clarifying.

During the course of the workshop you brainstorm what activities you engage in that bring you the most joy, fulfillment and engagement. You then filter all of the activities down to five. Once you have narrowed down your list, you write clarifying statements for each one which explains these activities in greater detail.

The reason why I am sharing this with you is that you can use this same system for any of the tools that we have shared in this white paper. If you took a Kolbe, you could utilize the info in that report to brainstorm and then filter and then clarify each statement in more detail. Once you have done that for multiple tests, you will start to identify all of the patterns that exist within your set of talents and ability. You can then put together a framework for what your talent is and how it can be best expressed in the marketplace.

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values

Finally, once you have started building an outline for what your gifts and abilities are, it’s important to make sure that you have articulated a set of personal values as well.

So what are values?

values are principles, standards, or qualities considered worthwhile or desirable.

Examples of values are love, family, friendship, commitment, trust, dependability, etc.

Your set of values is also unique. When you are putting these together, start by brainstorming all of the possible values for yourself.

Start listing those here:

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Now narrow the values you wrote down to the five most important to you. We choose five because any more than that seems to be too much. It’s important to pick the most important that you can ensure that you never violate.

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Why are these values important?

Having articulated values can assist you in decision-making, both personally and professionally.

Let’s say that you are offered a new contract with your business that is right in line with your Soul Purpose in terms of the work that you would be doing. Sounds great right? But what if I told you that you had travel three weeks out of every month? That might still be OK right? But what if family is one of your top five personal core values and money isn’t? This proposition presents a problem for you because it violates your values. This is the reason why articulated values are so important. Having them allows you to make better decisions for your life.

Why WoUlD i ever neeD To knoW This?

All business owners have personality traits that, if not properly managed, can end up being self-destructive to our personal and business well being. Sometimes we are aware of our shortcomings and sometimes, like the guy at the bar who hits on every woman there and thinks he is witty and charming but in reality is just plain creepy, we just don’t see what’s right in front of us.

Self-management for a business owner is critical to your success. Without this ability, your business has no chance and for that matter the business owner doesn’t either. By understanding yourself, you can put together strategies that allow you to offset your personal liabilities. This can be done through your staff, systems, and technology.

Knowing yourself allows you and your business to make values-based decisions. Let’s be honest, you want to make decisions based on how they will affect the bottom line. Knowing yourself allows you to better understand what’s best for you and your business in the following areas:

1. Personnel: When you know yourself, you also know better about what types of people you should surround yourself with.

2. Type of Business you should get involved in: Are you an extrovert or an introvert? Don’t try to be a speaker if you aren’t thrilled about being around people in a large group setting. I know that example is extreme but you get the point. When we know more about ourselves, we know what types of businesses we should engage in.

3. Productivity: There’s a reason Franklin Covey, Getting Things Done, etc. want you to get in touch with yourself at a deeper level in their productivity trainings. It’s because you can’t max productivity without this essential knowledge.

4. values Based Decisions: Values-based decision making allows you to operate your business in a manner that is more congruent to the other areas of your life outside of your business. Is spirituality most important in your life? Don’t work on Sunday. Do you like to spend time with your family more than anything else? Stop travelling for three weeks every month. When you truly understand who you are and what you value, you can make better decisions for your life in general.

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What do i do now?

The first thing that I want you to do is to go through some of the exercises that we have talked about in this paper and start putting together your personal clarity blueprint.

For additional help with this and other business topics go to http://www.mybusinessworld.com.

This is a resource for people like you who want to understand how they can best create value in the world and make a living doing it.

We have 2 levels of membership. Level 1 is free and includes white papers and podcasts as well as 20 days of video tips when you sign up. We do a live monthly training call as well with this membership level.

Level 2 is our premium membership at $49 which adds archive access to our monthly trainings as well as forum access for addressing your questions to the group of business owners that we currently have in the membership as well as dedicated professionals who participate there. You will also have access to new training and informational products, one-on-one coaching sessions included, discounts on live workshops and much more that is continuously being added.

You may also check us out on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BusinessBlueprintas well as Twitter: http://twitter.com/bizblueprint.

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