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Hey, Jordan Harbinger here.
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Welcome to Mini-Sowed Monday.
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Happy to be here with you, kicking off the week with something quick and actionable that you can implement right away that ll make you more magnetic and effective.
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Today I ve got my friend Jeff Goins.
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He s been on the show before, but today, Jeff s gonna teach us what to do with our life or how to figure out what that might be.
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Jeff, thanks for coming on, man.
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Yeah, thanks for having me, Jordan.
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Tell us what to do with our lives.
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So what do we do with our lives?
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I find this is not a helpful question, because typically you re going to get a number of responses that are anything from like incredibly impractical, however inspiring they might sound, to
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really boring, however practical they may be.
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And after writing this book, The Art of Work, we talked about this on a previous episode, I realized that a lot of the advice that is given in this world in terms of finding your passion, figuring out what you want to do with your life, or even finding your dream job,
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A lot of it is unhelpful, and I think sort of the stock answer is just go do what you love.
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I mean, that s sort of a standard answer.
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And that just doesn t always work, right?
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Like I love making guacamole, but the likelihood of me making a living doing that, and money isn t everything, but if I chase my passion and it makes me broke, then I ve gotta go find a job.
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So finding a way to pay for your passion, whatever it might be, is part of the work.
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So doing what you love I think is not enough in spite of that wonderful,
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Steve jobs commencement speech we need more than passion in order for us to figure out what we want to do with our lives at the same time there are camps of people that say find something and go be great at it and i think this is a wonderful way to get paid it is a great way to actually contribute something of value in the world but i think there are things that you re good at that frankly
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you probably can t do all the time or even for extended periods of time cuz you just don t like those things there are things that i m good at that i just don t like i m pretty good at managing people when i have to force myself to do it because my personality is just wired that way but it it bores me i don t like doing it i d rather go create things
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So what i want to propose is a little bit more of a sophisticated approach to gain clarity on figuring out what we re good at how we can use it to be useful in the world without it draining us but actually filling us up and so there are three important questions that you need to ask yourself.
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And if you re sitting down at a place where you can write this down, great.
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If not, you know, go back and listen to this at a time when you can do that.
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But I want to ask you three questions that are basically going to fill these three little diagrams.
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We re going to do a little exercise here.
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So question one, just write this down and then we ll talk about how to chart it out.
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Question one is a question of passion.
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You need to ask yourself, what do I love?
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Because that is important.
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What do I love doing?
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So not like I love my dog and I love steaks, although those are great things, but what do you love to do with your time?
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And that s the first question to this exercise.
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And what I want you to do is draw a little circle now, and put a P in the middle of that circle, and then fill it with one to three things.
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Have a few things in there that you love doing.
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And this is how we do what Parker Palmer calls listening to your life.
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Parker Palmer said in Let Your Life Speak,
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Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I need to listen to my life telling me who I am.
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So before we decide, I want to do this, this is my dream, it s going to be amazing, ask yourself, who am I really?
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And that really begins with the question, what do I love doing?
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So you re going to make a list of those things.
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That s question one.
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Question two is a question of skill.
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Ask yourself, what am I good at?
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What am I better at?
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Not than everybody in the world, because that s, you know, like a hard question to answer.
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But what do you think you re better at than maybe 10,000 other people, than most people?
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What s something that s really obvious to you that, in the words of Derek Sivers, is amazing to others?
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What s something that you take for granted?
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You re just naturally good at computers or auto mechanics or math or whatever it might be.
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Something that feels pretty natural to you.
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You can do it in your sleep and it s not a big deal.
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Make a list of those skills and then draw a second circle that intersects with the first circle.
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So you go at a P circle.
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Now you ve got an S circle for skill.
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That s the second question.
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What am I good at?
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Third question.
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is a question of demand.
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What do I have that the world needs?
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Which sounds like a big question, so a more approachable way to ask it is, what do I have that other people want?
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Maybe it s expert advice, it is the ability to encourage other people.
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Forget for a second whether you love this or even if you re good at it.
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What is the thing that people just won t leave you alone about?
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You just find yourself getting into situations where you re always leading the conversation,
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Telling the funniest jokes picking the restaurant whatever it might be what is the thing that other people rely on you for and make a list of about three things and draw a third circle so i got a diagram the third circle has a d on it for demand you got passion skill and demand what you should have in front of you is you ve got.
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three big circles then you ve got three smaller ovals and you ve got one little like triangle shape in the very very middle where all three intersect and that is your sweet spot we re gonna come back to that in a second so let s talk about when you get intersection between the first two passion and skill you re really good at it and you really like it
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That s called a hobby it is okay to have hobbies right so i m not saying don t have hobbies but what i think we do with this you know we think what should i do with my life i should change my passion i should do things that i m good at i should just do things that you know provide usefulness in the world and that are of utility and what we re looking for obviously is an intersection of all three of those things but we also wanna know where should we compartmentalize these things that don t fit into the very small core sweet spot of what it is we do
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So passions and skills things that merge there you re good at it you like it.
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That s a hobby.
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I went biking with a friend of mine.
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I don t even know that I could call myself good at this but it was fun.
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It was enjoyable.
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I did it without dying.
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That s a hobby.
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I have no desire to do this competitively.
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So that allows you to sort of take stock of the things that are your hobbies that you re going to spend
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you know ten twenty percent of your time at most doing in your free time you don t have to be great at this you don t have to get paid to do this it s just something to do on the side so that s the first sort of oval in between passions and skills the second one just kind of moving down i ve got a little drawing here passion skill demand between skill and demand there s another little over where you intersect and that i call drug work today job nothing bad about it
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You may spend half of your waking hours doing this.
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You re good at it.
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People want it.
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You could do this till the day you die, but you don t love it.
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You re not passionate about it.
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It s not.
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You re not going to be able to sustain this for a very, very long time without having existential crisis after existential crisis.
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So, you know, maybe that means you re a lawyer or a doctor or a shopkeeper, whatever it means.
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I think people still keep shops, but it s drudge work and it s fine.
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There s a place for this.
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A lot of us spend most of our time doing this, but it needs to have a compartment and we need to be honest about what this actually is.
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I m good at it.
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People want it.
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I don t love it.
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It s drudge work.
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The final little oval spot is passion and demand.
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You love it, but you re not necessarily good at it, but there s a demand for it.
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I call this a fad.
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Sometimes it just hasn t been around long enough.
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Take Snapchat for example.
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Has Snapchat been around for somebody to be really good at it?
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I don t know.
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Maybe there are Snapchat masters out there.
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I don t mean to offend any of you Snapchat senseis out there, but something that is fairly new, and everybody s excited about it, you re excited about it, people want it,
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but there may just not be a possibility to be really good at it yet, or you re just not good at it, but you re playing into the hype.
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That s a fad.
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That s obviously gonna fizzle out over time, because there s no real skill there, and so you either need to develop that as a skill and push it into the sweet spot, or you need to go, this is cool, I m gonna ride this wave for a while, but this is not something that I m gonna do forever, because I m just not good at it.
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And so when you ve got these three little ovals, you ve got the hobby, you ve got the drudge work, and then you ve got the fad,
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you have a choice to make do i keep doing these things and realize i m gonna spend a minority of my time you know doing the hobby or pursuing the fad or even a good check of my time doing the drug work understanding that it s not gonna be the most fulfilling and meaningful work possible or am i gonna try to go pro with one of these things and push it into the middle sweet spot and i like trying this out cuz you realize
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that that very very small center where passion skill and demand intersect that s your sweet spot i call that a calling you can think of it as a vocation your life s work your purpose whatever you want but the point is this is the one thing that you can do well that you can do and love it i m not gonna say it s not like there are days when it s not fun but everyday you get up and this is meaningful work
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You don t have to spend 40 hours or 60 hours or 80 hours a week doing this, but this is your one thing that you do that basically nobody else can do like you.
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You re good at it, people want it, it s adding value and meaning in the world, and you re having a blast doing it.
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And so as you sit down and look at these three different compartments of life, passions, skills, and demand, my challenge to you is this.
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Take some time take thirty days put right down three passions three skills three things that people want from you and then find an intersection for one of them and spend the next thirty days finding more time find thirty minutes an hour a day to dedicate to this if you don t have something that falls in the sweet spot look at one of these fads or hobbies or drudge work and say,
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Could I learn to love this?
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Could I become better at this?
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Could I find somebody to want or need this or even be able to pay me for it?
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Pick one of these and try to move them into this center sweet spot and do it for 30 days and see how it feels.
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This isn t about, you know, overnight going, Oh, now I know what I need to do with my life.
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But as you look at the things that you could pursue, uh, or as you look at making career decisions now, or even going deeper in the business or life or work that you have,
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Ask yourself this question anytime you pursue something.
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Do I love this?
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Am I good at this or could I be good at this?
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And do people want this or could I find people to want this?
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And I think the goal for all of us is to try to move more and more of how we spend our time here on earth into that sweet spot so that we can live better, more meaningful lives.
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Thanks so much, Jeff, that has been super useful.
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I mean, look, it s a little complicated to go through a written drill in an audio-only format, so hopefully people will take some time at home and do that, because obviously if and when it works, it s been well worth the time.
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And I want to remind people about the Art of Charm Challenge as well.
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We designed this to help you connect with others, create more productive personal and business relationships,
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and we have step-by-step challenges to help you move forward.
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So if you like drills and exercises like this, you ll love the AOC Challenge.
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And there s a Facebook group with thousands of other AOC family taking the challenge at the same time as well.
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And of course, AJ and I are in there with the rest of the Art of Charm team, helping you all move through these challenges as well.
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So you can get there by texting CHARMED, that s C-H-A-R-M-E-D, to 33444 here in the States, or just go to theartofcharm.com slash challenge and get rocking.
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Alright everybody, have a great week.