Who do you think you are?
The exercises in this lesson are an exploration of:
What you offer or intend to offer
Why you do it, and
Who you do it for
This is going to create a lot of useful information for your vision and mission statement in the next lesson. If you are already super clear about what you offer and why, these exercises may not feel super profound for you, but you never know what might come up, so you are still invited to participate.
Exercise 1: Self-Audit
1: List what you're good at.
2: List the things you have rocked throughout your work life.
3: Make a list for your zones of incompetence, competence, excellence and genius
4: List your *sparks*
5: Circle your highlights and underscore what you might want support or more training in.
Exercise 2: Who do, for, how, so that.
Before we dive in. I want to you pick a song that really taps you into your excitement about what you do, and have it ready to play - not while you write, but when you pause.
Anytime you get stuck on one of these or you're not able to get just the right point across... Pause, get up if it's needed or stay sitting at your computer, play the song, move your body, keep the stuck point in mind and see if it comes to you in through connecting with the guiding song.
Mine is: The Sea, by Sierra Ferrell
This writing exercise is not only great content for a post-it note on your desk, it is an upleveled elevator pitch for when someone asks you what you do.
For example, someone asks me: "What do you do?"
"Umm....I'm a designer, for web things and also physical spaces, homes and community gathering places." (and I totally DO do this sometimes, to be totally honest)
I usually don't know exactly what to say when I start off like this, and people usually lose interest real fast, because it sounds like I don't really know what I do. Lol.
But when I had my chocolate business... which was super purpose- and passion-driven, I could easily spout off the following:
"I make raw chocolate, sweetened with coconut sugar and infused with aphrodisiac herbs, that holds the intention to reawaken creativity and a lust for life. It comes with a 8-step tasting ritual, meant to guide you on an immersive experience in sense pleasure and raw chocolate."
It's easy to tell how one format over the other, is more likely to peak interest, leading to more conversation and questions.
The passion/purpose driven statement says what you do, but with style and intrigue.
It is clear that I was solid in what I do, who I was and was not, and yet didn't have to line item my exact offering or services. That part of the conversation (and this goes the same for a website) is better once you've hooked your listener.
On another note, those who were put off by what I said or didn't resonate with my passion/purpose elevator pitch, knew they weren't my people right away.
That's great! 👍
We really don't want to waste our time trying to convince someone about what we do and why we do it is awesome. Self-filtering audiences are such a time saver for you, which again swings us back to the importance of a clear foundation and brand guide.
Oh, and the 'who do, for, how, so that' statements can be great to have on your home page or about page, if you feel like you've really nailed it.
I'm going to send you over to Canva for this exercise, which will give you some great, low-pressure practice and allow you to easily write and re-write each component of the statement until it feels just right.
Once you've finished your statement, I want you to play with your text alignment, change the fonts and colors of the template, and change out the visual flourishes.
Here's a demo:
Note: I recorded this demo in a low-resolution, my apologies. Future screen-record demos won't be blurry like this.
