Vanilla or Rocky Road is Your Compass

In a seminar program that I have written  called “M&M’s and Peas”‘, I talk about getting clear on your purpose and passion. This is truly the foundational step in your business in my opinion. Whether you are interested in creating your personal brand, or how to use social media, this first step is CRITICAL!

In that process I also talk about goals. The usual goals, like what do you want to have, where do you want to go kinda stuff, but most importantly

“Who do you want to be?”

I believe that this is a very important distinction. We focus a lot of what we want to have. We focus a lot on ‘what we DO’ or want to do. But at the end of the day (IMHO-in my humble opinion), the “Golden Goose” lies in who we want to be.

You see, we can do a LOT of things. We may want to do a lot of things in terms of personal goals and in terms of “what you do for a living”. But when there are a lot of things, you aren’t focused on one. There are lots of books, etc. out there that say to look at your goals and choose based on ‘which one will move you toward your goals.’ While that might be helpful in narrowing things down, there are often a lot of things (for me anyway) that would move me toward my goals! How do I choose?

Enter “who do you want to be?” Knowing THIS answer, together with the other goals is the secret! Knowing what you want to be ‘known for’ is powerful! It’s easy to cave into the status quo, the path of least resistance, what’s others think we ‘should do’ (eyes roll on that one:).

Do you want to BE someone who takes the easy road?

Do you want to be vanilla or do you want to be Rocky Road, or chunky monkey?

Maybe you don’t want to be outrageous, but want to be remarkable. (I will cover ‘remarkable’ in another post). Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with vanilla. But we will all be known for something! Whether we choose what that is or not! We may be really good vanilla, or bland vanilla even, but we will be something!

The topic here isn’t whether we want other people to like us (that’s a whole other post!), although that is a big issue for many. The topic here is knowing for yourself, deciding for yourself, who you want to be. Maybe its kind, or generous, or courageous, or bold. Whatever it is, know what it is. Let that be your ‘true North’.

How do you want to make people feel?

This is the same question, just from a different direction really. If you are unsure or unable to choose ‘one thing’, ask yourself,

If you could only pick one emotion that you could give people ‘as a gift’, what would it be?
In other words, let’s say you are ice cream. If you aren’t sure what flavor you want to be, ask yourself the emotion question. Ice cream can make people feel happy, or for some, it’s comfort, or special…
(This isn’t intended to guide you in the “I want everybody to be happy so I’ll be a doormat” kinda way! Remember this goes along with who do you want to be? wanna be a doormat?)

In other words, when you are clear on these two things, you can usually find ‘the answer’ if you are unclear.
If I know that I want to be inspiring and I want to help people be inspired and help them to feel ‘confident’, that gives me a whole different level of clarity in what I do. If I just focus on “I want to empower people to be who they are, create their own life, and make a difference through the power of social media”, that could go a lot of different directions. If I did that by posting typical blog posts about social media in ‘tech speak’ or articles about the Psychology of Ego for example, that might be relevant, but would not make people feel ‘inspired and confident’.

“People will forget what you say, they will forget what you do, but they will never forget how you made them feel”
~Maya Angelou

We each have our own unique gift. We were not all meant to be (nor are we inspired to be) funny, or ‘the’ greatest listener’, or whatever. We may all be loving and generous and kind and all of those things on some level, and hopefully aspire to be. But there will always be that ‘one thing’ that rises to the top. What will your one thing be?