The You Project
This project is about gaining clarity around you. The more you understand you, the more you can make your business work for you. Remember: you build your business for you; you make your offer for your customers.
The business you build must give you what you need, while drawing on the best of you and making space to get help for the rest. Your business will be what you make it, so make it work for you.
If you are a raving introvert, don’t build a business that has you in front of people all day, every day. That doesn’t mean you won’t be sociable sometimes, but that you build your business so you don’t have to do it all the time.
Values
Society decrees our values should be honesty, valour and family. Of course those are important and in some ways go without saying. We are looking for something more personal. Your values come from who you are and from what you have lived. Much like your brand, they are revealed rather than imposed.
I have a powerful values exercise here. Once you do it, you will be able to look back and recognize why you made certain decisions in your life and what they really meant to you.
Virtues
The ancient Greek and Roman philosophers practiced stoicism and many people look to the Stoics for guidance now. Stoicism asserts that virtue (such as wisdom) is happiness and judgment should be based on behavior, rather than words; that we don’t control and cannot rely on external events, only ourselves and our responses.
Any time I find myself in a situation and I’m not sure how to handle it, I think of my favourite virtues: wisdom, truth, courage and beauty. I know that every solution, every action and every thought that comes from those virtues is the best I can do. I can’t ask for better than that.
Strengths
Do the Strengths Finder or dig deep and figure out what your strengths are. Your strengths come easy to you and you make amazing progress when you are working from your strengths.
Your strengths are innate whether nature or nurture, they are part of you.
Skills
Skills are developed. You become more skilled when you are coming from your strengths. You can learn any skill. Some will be easier than others and you will be able to master some better than others.
What are you good at? What do your friends ask you to help with?
Connections
Your connections are important because you will be stronger and better able to cope if you realize you are not alone and that help is only a call away.
Our circles are bigger than we think they are. Give yourself a good bit of time to list everyone you know and the organizations you’ve worked with in the past.
Scars
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. What’s made you stronger?
What do you think about that makes you cringe? Get the learnings and shed the shame.
Volunteer
Our volunteer work is often a window into what is really important to us.
What volunteer work have you done? What did you learn? What parts did you enjoy? What parts, maybe not so much? What would you like to weave into your business?
What do you want to learn?
What things would you like to learn? Don’t let not know how to do something stop you from trying something you want to try.
What do you want to do more of?
What do you have in your life now or have had in your life that you want more?
What do you want to do less of?
What do you have in your life now or have had in your life that you want less?
Write the results of every personality and type evaluation you have taken here
You know what I mean — Myers-Briggs, your colours, DISC, animals, Your money/communication/creativity archetype etc.
The more you understand about how you see the world and how the world sees you, the easier it is for you to design a business that works for you, using your strengths and bringing you abundance and joy.
In the Small Business Academy we take the time to dig deep here and to share with others as a way to explore and understand ourselves better.
Every week I post the next Project. You are welcome to work on it here, ask questions in the comments, answer questions in the comments and let us know how you are doing.
For more resources and deeper discussion, get “6 Stages to Building Your Great Business” here.
