Have you recently asked yourself what keeps you going? Do you feel you have unused potential that you are not manifesting in your life or in your job? Do you feel you are missing joy in your life?
If so, I found a helpful tool for those of you wishing a way out of this situation. It is fun to apply, and it is the best way to unleash your full potential in both business and personal life. The tool I am talking about is Your One Word.
Evan Carmichael describes this tool in his book “Your One Word, The Powerful Secret to Creating a Businessand Life That Matter” or Lilly Ma in her TEDx Talk.
WHAT
If you were to describe yourself with one word, what would it be?
It should be a word that expresses your essence, your passions, a word that shows who you are. It should inspire you to be your best self and to live your full potential. It should be your single most important value as defined by yourself when you know what you stand for as a human being, or what you stand for as an organization. It should determine what you want to accomplish. The one word is the engine to your success.
For example, Evan’s one word is BELIEVE. He believes in people’s potential to become their best selves. According to Evan, all great people have their one word – Steve Jobs’ is IMPACT, Martin Luther King’s is EQUALITY.
There are various businesses that have built their success on one word. An example would be Jessica Alba’s Honest Company built around the word “Honest”; it was valued in 2017 around 1 billion $. Another is Menlo Innovation, which is all about “Joy”. Menlo Innovations has a meaningful and inspiring story about driving joy in your company: https://www.menloinnovations.com/joyinc/. Having around 5 million $ revenue, Menlo Innovation is on the Forbes list of America’s Best Small Companies of 2017.
HOW
Finding your one word is not difficult. You must ask questions like: What makes you happy? What traits do you hate? What’s your constant? Is this really who you are?
If you would like to follow up and find your word, here you can find Evan’s full questionnaire: https://www.evancarmichael.com/oneword/workbook.pdf.
Have fun with it.
WHY
Your one word is essential for your success in life and business.
Once you found the one word that symbolises who you are and what you want to accomplish in life, you can use it in different ways. For example, in decision making. Before every decision, ask yourself in which way that decision will support or fall short of your one word? As a result, you will make faster and better decisions.
Finding your word might be easy, executing your one word is not. You need commitment and focus to achieve that genuine feeling of fulfillment we are all looking for. We’ll pursue Focus and Commitment in the next weeks.
Meanwhile, have fun finding your one word and let me know which one it is and why.
Keep growing,
Your Ioana
PS: My one word is GROWTH. It has always been my word, even before I realized it. I always had this drive to do more, to be more. All my actions have led to the same result: growth towards my best self.
