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A New Way to Approach Your Life

We're going right into challenges on this one, because these ones are gonna take a little bit of thought. These are some fill in the blank questions. Do you feel like you're in school again with fill in the blanks? Alright, so. The first challenge. We need to go back to those unique qualities that we mentioned, so if you wrote down one, two, or three of those unique qualities, what we're gonna do now is fill in the blank with those qualities. So, flip back, take a look at what the qualities are that you wrote down, and we're gonna put those qualities into this blank here. So you're gonna say my unique trait. So, mine for example, if you remember, mine was being positive, okay. So you would say, my unique trait of whatever you wrote down, for your unique quality. And you can say how that can help you fulfill your life's purpose, okay. So, for example, mine would be: My unique trait being positive can help me fulfill my life's purpose by these applications. And the way that I did it, was...

I can use my trait of being positive to my advantage by lifting other people up, I can share positive views on negative situations, and then I can also create fun and friendly design work. So, those were three ways that I can use my unique quality of being positive to change my life, mkay? So, I think when thinking about this, just again, be kind to yourself, you don't have to have the most perfect examples right away, just think of three easy things that you can do, from now on that will help capture and utilize that amazing, unique quality that you have. It's helpful to think about relationships, how you can use this quality of yours in your personal life, how you can use this quality of yours online, perhaps, with your work life, with your work relationships, with your career, the type of work that you're doing, the type of side projects that you're doing, all of these things can be tailored to your unique personality. So, for those of you home, if you are doing this a little bit faster than the audience here, or maybe you're just kind of moving on your own pace, I would totally recommend that you do this three times, with those three different qualities that you mentioned. So, those unique qualities that we talked about earlier when I asked you to come up with three of those, repeat those exercise three times. You'll see it in the work book, but if you're doing this on your own, pen and paper, repeat it three different times with three different qualities, and then say how you're going to use those qualities to fulfill your life's purpose. I hope at this point, too, you're getting really excited about the things that you could do as soon as you're done taking this class, because I think this is, a lot of times, the first time that maybe we're thinking about the things that make us different, and how we can actually use those for better, to change people's lives. It's really empowering, I think, to take maybe, these qualities that you've been suppressing and pushing down your whole life, and actually think of them as wonderful things that you can change the world with. Alright, you look ready, Yeah. You speedster. Okay, why don't you go first? Tell us. So, my unique trait of being witty and sarcastic in stressful situations, can help me fulfill my life's purpose by breaking the tension, getting others into a creative mindset, and designing solutions that people feel good about. Okay, so my unique trait of being a perfectionist, which I will not apologize for now, (laughter) can help me fulfill my life's purpose by these applications of mindfully designing my home and time, giving people confidence when I work with them on projects that I've got them and it's gonna be perfect, (laughter) and just having confidence in myself that the project is going to like, end in a good place because there's always the rollercoaster of like, am I even good at this, oh no, and then you're like, oh, no, it's okay, so just kind of having the confidence in myself and my team that like, we're going to deliver a good product. So, my unique trait of laughing really loud (laughter) can help me fulfill my life's purpose by letting others know that it's okay to do that too, and then inspiring other people to laugh because it's infectious, and just inspiring play. My unique trait of stubbornness can help me deliver, fulfill my life's purpose by helps me be decisive, and stick up for what's right, and also stay on the path even when it's difficult. Okay, my unique trait of being super observant can help me fulfill my life's purpose by amplifying overlooked or interesting details, and also bringing to light strengths of others. My unique trait of being hyper addictive can help me fulfill (laughter) can help me fulfill my life's purpose by doing a terrifying amount of research on the things that I'm trying to make, and also getting hyper addictive about talking to people and learning what they are interested in. Oh, awesome. This is so exciting to me because thinking about the difference between when you first were talking about these qualities about yourself, you were like, yeah, this is my quality but it's really not very good because of these reasons, and now to have you think about that quality and spin it in a more positive way of like, this is how I can actually change people's lives with this quality is really cool. So, I definitely encourage everyone to repeat this again in the comfort of your own home, or when you have more time, with three different qualities because it's really gonna kind of make yourself love your unique self even more. Okay, so similar exercise next, for this challenge. But, instead of talking about our unique differences, we're gonna talk about our strengths. So, we talked about this before. You wrote down three examples of things that you're really strong at, you're very skilled at. What are your strengths? So, we all kind of went down and said one thing, so what I want you to do is, outline that strength here. So, say my strength, whatever that is, can help me fulfill my life's purpose by these applications, okay. So, for mine, if you remember, I'm really good at creating communities in safe spaces. So for me, fulfilling my life's purpose of making the world a happier place, I'm able to fulfill that by creating a shared workspace in my hometown. Just last year I created a shared workspace. I'm from Minneapolis, and I created an actual workspace there, it's called Fool Proof, it's a bunch of, maybe about 15 people, and we all work together in the same space, and it's absolutely fantastic 'cause I wanted to create a community of like-minded people that can lift each other up and challenge each other every day, and that's something that's really important to me, and I'm really good at creating communities, so I was able to do that, and actually apply that application to my life, which feels really good and fulfilling to actual fulfill my purpose in that way. Another fill in the blank for me would be creating environments online for others to love themselves. That's something that's really important to me, with my creating communities strength, is to create spaces for people to feel more confident about themselves, and is exactly why I've created this class, it's exactly why I post most of the things I post online. I wanna have spaces for people where they can share the things about themselves that they love, where they can get really excited about who they are, and what makes them special. And lastly, my last blank here, is using my social media to create a happier life for those who follow me. So, anything that I post on social media has to fulfill my life's purpose, so anything I post online has to make the world a happier place, or otherwise I'm not gonna post it. So, I like to do that a lot online by posting those dumb videos of me dancing, videos of me failing at things, in a light hearted way. I also like to post challenging questions and challenges to people online too, very much like this challenge, or I'll ask people to give each other compliments on my Instagram account. A few days ago I declared it compliment day, where I have everyone go in and compliment the people that they love on my Instagram account, and it was a really nice way to get like, many hundreds of people just sharing positive energy and complimenting each other in a place, and I think that that was a really great way for me to fulfill my life's purpose. Alright. Looks like we're still working. Yes, we're still working, it's okay. (laughter) Take your time. And if I'm talking to you all here, just tune me out so that you can focus on what really matters, which is you, not me. (laughter) So my unique strength of switching between the analytical and the creative mindset can help fulfill my life's purpose by helping others who might not feel creative be a little more creative, solving problems with logic and creativity, and then helping people that are more creative focus a little bit and converge their ideas. Okay, so, my unique strength of encouraging people's ideas can help me fulfill my life's purpose by these applications. So I do branding for work, and I feel like that's almost like, too obvious, but just like, bringing people's ideas to life and encouraging those in that way, and then we also have kind of a community arm called the Honest Boss, and there were encouraging people to really real to about what it's like to be a business owner, 'cause it's not all lovely (laughter) but like, kind of turn it into a joke and make it lighthearted 'cause we're all kind of going through the same stuff, so just encouraging people there to kind of keep going 'cause we, like, need what everyone else is doing, and then just in friendships, encouraging people, and whatever their ideas are, even if it's not a business, it's okay. So, my unique strength of listening and for compassion is can help me fulfill my life's purpose by encouraging other people to share their stories, highlighting how we're all similar, I mean, you know, (laughter) we're all unique, but there's like, the shared humanity, and creating work or spaces for healing. My unique strength of being quick to figure things out, helps me to learn new skills, to be resourceful, and also to help and teach others and share my skills with others. So, my unique strength of craftsmanship and then being detail oriented can help me fulfill my life's purpose by creating work with hints and details that inspire imagination, or curiosity in the people that are viewing it. My unique strength of being yes, Andy, or improvisational, can help me fulfill my life's purpose by generating new ideas, coming up with small details that are unexpected, and talking to people to try and tease out what makes them feel playful or thoughtful. This is great. I'm already noticing that you're all blending your careers into this a little bit, which I think is important, and that's exactly the track that we're on. We're trying to think about how we can change our careers a little bit better, and tailor them more to our strengths, and to what makes us special, so excellent job. Okay, so the last part of this challenge, whoo! Okay, it's a paragraph, don't get scared by the fact that it says write a paragraph, it can be a very short paragraph. Paragraphs are flexible. It's spectrum with a paragraph. Alright, so write a paragraph describing yourself. Okay, so we're gonna kind of take everything that we just did, and put it all together. So, whenever you're writing a paragraph describing yourself, you wanna include the things, like, your differences that you first wrote out, your strengths, the second thing we did together, and then how you can implement those things into your life in order to fulfill your life's purpose. So, you don't have to like, include everything if you don't want, 'cause that might be a really long paragraph, but if you wanna summarize, pick some of your favorite things about what you wrote down, and put them into a neat, little package. So, while you're all writing, tune me out, 'cause I'm just gonna talk for people who can't figure it out, about my paragraph. So, for me, my little neat package of a paragraph, and I spent more time on this than I'm giving you, so if you, at home are upset, like, oh my gosh, I have no time to do this, Meg's paragraph is so perfect, don't worry about it. I spent a lot of time on this paragraph. Okay, so mine is: I am a positive, change loving, never professional designer. Those are my unique qualities. I create communities, that's my strength, for others to rapidly open up and learn to love themselves. This allows me to fulfill my life's purpose of making the world a happier place. So, this paragraph is really important because, this is maybe the paragraph that you tell people when they say, tell me about yourself. And you have no idea what to say. This is a great paragraph, once you polish it, to put on your website, to put on your resume. It's a great paragraph to tell people when they ask you who you are, it's a great one to just have in your back pocket at all times, so that you feel like you have a really good idea of who you are, because sometimes when people ask us to describe ourselves, we kind of downplay ourselves a lot, we'll be like I don't know, I just like, live here and I don't really do much, I don't have any hobbies, and you kind of think, you downplay yourself so much, to where you feel bad about it after you're done interacting with that person. You're like, oh, I didn't even tell them about all the cool things I actually do. (laughter) So this is a great way to actually sit down and think about how you can put all these wonderful things together into a nice way to describe yourself. I feel like, any time anyone asks me to describe myself, I give them the worst answers, so, it'll be good to have this memorized someday. (laughter) One time, someone asked me what scene I was in, like, so what scene are you in? I've never been so thrown off. I'm really good at like, interview questions, and answering on the fly questions, but that is the hardest question that I've ever been asked, what scene am I in. I don't even know what that means, besides like, the music scene, or the arts scene. (laughter) Which I'm not in, I've never been in a scene. (laughter) Alright, you seem ready. Why don't you read really slowly, so you can give these others, slow why don't you. I don't know if I can be that slow. I am an analytical and creative designer, who makes sarcastic comments to break the tension. I help others solve problems in a relaxed and creative way. That's beautiful. So, if we were meeting for the first time, and I be like, hmm tell me about yourself, that would be such a great description. Be like, wow you really know yourself so well. (laughter) [Male In White Patterned Sweater] Yeah, I'll have to try that at a cocktail party. Yeah just try it out, see how it people respond. You should read it from a piece of paper, too. Pull it out of your back pocket, well, I am. (laughter) Are you ready? Yeah, I guess. (laughter) I am a major perfectionist, who is addicted to brainstorming ideas, and making people's ideas come to life through design, and I guess I should add, that this helps me make people's lives better. (laughter) Yeah, absolutely. So I am deeply interested in human connection through laughter and play, and I make art with my hands because it's got a little piece of me in it, but it also inspires like, nostalgia for other people, because they remember being like, a little kid in art class, and like playing with Play-Doh. Alright, mine is short but I am a thoughtful and resourceful artist that is focused on making the world a more beautiful place. So, I am super observant, detail oriented illustrator. I create work that sparks imagination, and which speaks to my life's purpose of bringing joy and inspiring curiosity in others. I'm a playful, obsessive, and improvisational designer and writer, with one foot in the past who creates opportunities for people to be playful and thoughtful. These are all so eloquent, very proud of you. (laughter) Good job. I think, too, whenever you're making a website for yourself, this description is the hardest part, so I think this is a great exercise to go through, just if you ever need to write a bio for yourself online or on social media, or if somebody asks you for a quick description of yourself, this is the perfect exercise.