3 Questions to Uncover Your Personal Brand Pillars

Over the last decade, I have been pouring through business books in an attempt to keep myself at the top of my game. I have learned how great company cultures are built (Creativity, Inc., by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace), how to manage complex organizations (Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things), and the secret drivers of brand success (with classic books like Jim Collins, Good to Great).

However, the more I read, the more I realize that most business books seem to assume that corporate ascension or extreme financial gains are the most important factors to everyone. Furthermore, when they speak of higher purpose it often comes from the company’s perspective over the individual. On the contrary, for younger Millennials finding a way to leverage their individual gifts, passions, and experiences increasingly trumps climbing the corporate ladder. Their pursuit of true happiness (of which the highest most sustaining form comes from having a higher purpose –  Authentic Happiness Theory by Seligman) is increasingly becoming a stronger motivator. Below, I have outlined my simple formula to help folks begin to uncover their truth AKA Personal Brand Pillars:

1. What are your God given Gifts?
   1. What comes really easy for you or can be mastered with little to no practice?
   2. Source – The Bible (at least for me it is)
2. What do you Love?
   1. What do you have a burning passion for or would do without compensation?
   2. Source – Your heart
3. What do you have Mastery over?
   1. What do you have mastery over from putting in at least 10K hours towards?
   2. Source – Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

At the intersection of these three points are your true personal brand pillars. Give it a try and let me know what you discover about yourself.

– James Cuth