🏔 Three Magically Simple Steps to Discover What Makes You Uniquely Powerful
And generate 50+ killer content ideas...and maybe make you cry too
🥳 Hey, Kasey here! Welcome to this week’s 🏔High Growth Founders🏔 newsletter.
If you are a builder, creator, or project starter who embraces life’s challenges to extract the growth lessons within them, you are a High Growth Founder.
And this newsletter is for you.
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In this Week’s Issue:
Growth Insight: How 3 magical questions can lead to transformative personal breakthroughs — and generate 50+ ideas for killer content
Grow Your Impact: Get on the waitlist for Erica Schneider and my new community — all about building a brand with impact
Growth Insight:
Three Magically Simple Steps to Discover What Makes You Uniquely Powerful — and generate 50+ ideas for killer content
Warning: if your #1 goal is to make a bunch of money, this isn’t for you. This framework is designed for people who want to make an impact.
On November 14th, I was reminded of how the simplest ideas can be the most powerful.
That was the first day of Erica Schneider and my Social Writing Bootcamp. I was 45 minutes into my workshop on crafting your personal brand theme and introduced the class to my Skills, Passions, and Triumphs exercise.
Within minutes, nearly every member of our 51 person cohort was crying.
These were not tears of sadness, or even frustration. They were tears of meaning, purpose, and connection. After the session, many reached out to share their gratitude for the exercise we did together.
I often tell people that in my 2+ years of coaching, nearly every client has, at some point, cried during our work together. No, not because I’m mean!
The tears come because our work requires diving deep into their past, peeling back the layers of emotion, and uncovering some of the truest parts of who they are.
Whether you’re building a personal brand or launching a business, understanding your story — what brought you here to this point and what drives you forward in life — is how you will build something that stands the test of time and connects with the people you feel called to serve.
This work is not easy. But to stay committed in the long haul, you must cultivate a deeper well of resilience. And that takes getting real — with yourself and the world around you.
This three-step exercise is the simplest way to tap into the essence of you and the value you can provide to the world.
Bonus Value: You will quickly brainstorm a TON of topic ideas for content, business offerings, and differentiators that you can incorporate into what you do and how you do it.
And yes, it might just make you cry.
Before you start: Give yourself some time and space
While this exercise probably won’t take a ton of time, you want to be sure you have the time and space to be able to focus on the task at hand. Grab a pen and your journal, your laptop and notes app, or however you think and focus best.
Also, make sure you're someplace quiet and can be relatively undistracted for at least 30 minutes, though we did a mini version of this exercise in 5 minutes and people still experienced a transformative shift in how they define their personal brand.
Step 1: Write a list of your skills — all of them
Include anything you’re good at. Be exhaustive. Include skills and talents that have nothing to do with work.
Organizing closets
Making exceptional grilled cheese sandwiches
Facilitating meaningful introductions to people who should know each other
Telling dad jokes
Securing buy-in from a diverse team with competing interests
Solving complex problems that leave others stumped
Do not hold yourself back, self-edit, or doubt whether you’re good enough to include something on the list. If it comes to mind, write it down.
Try to be as specific as possible.
Not just “dad jokes” but “punny dad jokes that reference movies from the ‘80s.”
Specificity will spur other ideas as they transport you to examples of when you showcased this talent.
Just when you think you’ve run out of ideas, try to think of a few more. They will come and you will likely think of more later on — in the shower, walking the dog, cooking dinner.
Step 2: Write a list of your passions — even the silly ones
Your passions are what you love. Your obsessions, hobbies, curiosities. These are the activities, topics, and interests that keep you hooked.
Again, include them all and be as specific as possible.
Not just “reading,” but “reading revealing memoirs of inspiring athletes and celebrities who come from poverty or troubled backgrounds.”
When you create this list and include this level of detail, you will suddenly recognize patterns and themes that surprise you. You will learn unexpected lessons about who you are and what drives you.
Give yourself more time than you think you need. With enough time and space, you will uncover delightful and intriguing facts about what makes your wheels turn.
Step 3: Write a list of your triumphs — the big and small
Your triumphs are the challenges you have overcome. The difficult trials you have survived. The struggles you have persevered.
In my experience, people are far more resilient than they realize. And the most resilient humans are the most likely to brush off their experience, rushing off to the next phase of life.
But this section is where you will learn the most about yourself, what a badass you are, and the many lessons you have to teach others.
Your triumphs are your true differentiator. There are likely many people with your skills and passions — at least the bulk of them. But mix in your triumphs, and the conversation shifts dramatically.
As always, make an exhaustive list and be specific. What are all the hard things you’ve survived in this life? And how did you do it? What did you learn?
Now, reflect on your answers
As you read through these three categories of responses, you will quickly notice some obvious themes. Some will be related to the work you do, but you may also see ways that certain situations energize you, excite you, or frustrate the hell out of you.
What are the ways one skill feeds into a passion and into a triumph? How are they tied together?
Some times you will see a connection between your three categories in a way that informs the very foundation of who you are.
For example: This exercise helped me realize that the common current tying it all together for me was growth. Personal, professional, spiritual. I am damn good at helping companies, teams, and individual people grow. I am absurdly passionate about learning how to grow. And I’ve been through a whole heck of a lot of shit, and the way I overcame it was by turning the most brutal of situations into post traumatic growth experiences.
Growth is my fundamental principle. My north star. The essence of my being.
Other times you will suddenly realize how one triumph, spurred a passion, which led to a skill. Or the same moving in the other direction.
For example: one of my skills is marketing and demand generation, one of my passions is all the ways companies can innovate to grow revenue, and my triumphs is learning how to hack my own health to cope with my auto-immune disease.
Turns out that hacking my health helped me become a better marketer. It’s what taught me growth hacking at a foundational level and I apply those same principles to the work I do with clients.
By exploring these connections, you’ll not only marvel at what a delightfully weird, sparkly human you are, but also identify how you can teach and inspire others.
There is not a single person on this planet who shares your unique blend of skills, passions, and triumphs. No one.
Yes, there are others who have some of each, but none have them all. It’s this blend of experiences that makes you YOU.
But wait, I told you there was crying!
When we conducted a mini version of this exercise in class, we invited anyone who wanted to share to come off mute and give us a quick summary of what they discovered. As students revealed their triumphs, there was a common theme.
“I’ve never thought about everything I’ve been through. Or how it relates to what I’m trying to build.”
Quickly, the class began sharing how their triumphs shape their WHY, the audience they feel called to serve, and how they can add the most value in the world.
One student sat with his daughter on his lap, crying as he shared how he triumphed over a cold and unloving childhood and now is dedicated to doing it differently for his daughter.
Not a dry eye in our virtual room.
Take it to the next level
Go back through your lists and you will quickly realize that you’ve just created 50+ ideas for content. As you think about the themes that bring it all together, you’ll realize there are even more ideas that light you up and will excite the people you’re trying to reach.
Whenever you are feeling lost about where to go with your brand, review this list and remember the many things that make you different. There is pure gold in that list. Gold and fire.
Grow Your Impact
Erica Schneider and I are working on GrowSoc — the social-focused community designed to help you build a kickass, authentic, and impactful personal brand. If you’re interested, get on the waitlist. You’ll be invited to the private beta — including exclusive events, not-yet-released content, and discounted membership when we launch.
Thank you, my lovelies
I’ve missed you all and I’m sorry for being radio silent here. In the last 5 weeks, I spent 15 out of the first 20 days on the road, delivered our first Social Writing Bootcamp (which was intense), and then did a lot of eating, sleeping, and working out for Thanksgiving.
But I’m back. And I’ve got a lot of new things in the works for you all.
More templates, less fluff, and potentially (still can’t decide) a rebrand.
If there is ANYthing I can do to support you, reach out. Seriously.
In love and growth,
Kasey