[00:00:00] Joel: The Greeks, you know them. They were wrong about a lot of stuff. Like, for instance, they thought the sun revolved around the Earth, that our moods came from four bodily fluids, and that our eyes emitted rays that helped us to see. Wrong, and wrong, and wrong again. But they were right about at least one thing, a thing they carved into the temple of Apollo.
[00:00:30] "You need to," they told us, "know thyself." Not just for the sake of humility or authenticity, but this matters for us today because it changes the way we work
[00:00:47] Welcome to Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet. I'm Joel Miller.
[00:00:52] Marissa: And I'm Marisa Hyatt.
[00:00:53] Joel: And this is where we remind you of something you probably already know. It's not about getting more things done. It's about getting the right things done.
[00:01:02] Marissa: Both at work and in life. And today, we're talking about none other than you.
[00:01:09] Joel: Everybody's favorite subject.
[00:01:10] Marissa: Everybody's favorite subject. We're gonna talk about who you are, what you bring, and why that matters for your work. Over the last two weeks, we've been talking about one of our favorite newest tools, which is called The Priority Filter. This is a tool that you can use to figure out what to focus on, and Joel, you like to think of this kind of like a little bit of an accordion, right?
[00:01:35] Joel: Yeah. It's, uh, a remarkable little tool. The Priority Filter covers you, ROI, and now. And at the intersection of those three things, we would say those are your priorities. That's what matters most. That's where you're gonna be most effective. And the cool thing about it is it applies at a daily level at helping you decide, for instance, your daily big three.
[00:01:57] It applies at a weekly level, helping you decide your weekly big three. It works up to the goal level, helping you decide your quarterly big three, maybe even your annual goals. And, I mean, you could blow it really far out. You could even, like, take your life plan, like bunch it up in a ball, cram it into this filter, and if it doesn't come through You, ROI, and now probably doesn't belong in your life plan.
[00:02:21] The only stuff that really counts as a priority is something at the center of that filter.
[00:02:27] Marissa: The best thing about this is it's so applicable. Like, if you just start asking yourself these questions, which we're gonna dig into a little bit more today, and over the next few episodes, we're digging into each of these various parts of the priority filter, it is so incredibly helpful as you're figuring out what the heck to do every single day.
[00:02:47] Joel: 'Cause there are, you know, endless things to do and not an endless you, right?
[00:02:52] Marissa: Exactly. So there's three specific questions that the priority filter is kind of digging into, and there's three parts. So you can kind of imagine this as a Venn diagram with three circles, where the kind of dead center is what we're talking about.
[00:03:08] That's called the priorities that you want to focus on. So the three questions, the first one is you. So what are you wired to do? Next is ROI. What is high leverage? And then now, what matters now? So today, we're specifically digging into that first part, the you part. What are you wired to do?
[00:03:31] Joel: And this fundamentally is about your individual effectiveness, right?
[00:03:35] Like, how good you are at a thing, and good is an expansive term. We'll unpack that as we go along. But how effective are you at doing whatever it is you're setting out to do?
[00:03:46] Marissa: Well, it's important because what you're most effective at is going to inform where you bring the most value, which is incredibly important for all of us to know when it relates especially to the work that we're focusing on day in and day out.
[00:04:00] Because what we don't want to do is focus on work that isn't actually bringing value. Usually, you're not going to get paid well for that kind of work.
[00:04:09] Joel: No. I mean, exactly the opposite, right? If you spend a lot of time doing stuff you're not good at, everyone notices you're not good at it.
[00:04:15] Marissa: And it sucks to do it.
[00:04:16] Joel: And it sucks. It's no fun. All right, so think about, like, a toolbox. If you're nailing something together, a wrench is not quite as effective as a hammer. You need to know Kind of the shape of who you are and the impact that you're effective at having. That's kind of where we're getting at. Like, you have particular passions, particular skills, particular personality quirks that make you unique to do particular things or uniquely effective at doing particular things, and that's where you want to spend your effort.
[00:04:46] Marissa: And as you consider where you're going to be most effective and how and what that's actually going to look like, there's three angles that we want to actually consider here. So the first angle is your personality, okay? So think about how you're actually wired, and there are things about how you're made that inform how you work, and we've been talking a lot about this, Joel, over the last, I don't know, two months on the podcast, right?
[00:05:13] Right. We've been discussing- This is like your
[00:05:14] Joel: work style comes
[00:05:15] Marissa: right into this ... your work style. So that's one option, right, for you to determine this, and we'll discuss more here in a minute, but there are things about how you're made that really inform how you actually work. So maybe you're somebody who's super detail-oriented or really visionary, or maybe you're really comfortable with risk.
[00:05:32] A lot of people aren't, but some people are really comfortable. They have really high risk tolerance. Or maybe you're somebody who's the exact opposite. You're super cautious, right? That's how you're wired, okay? You can't usually change that. Maybe you're super extroverted or very introverted, or maybe you're really drawn to novelty, or the opposite would be you just need consistency.
[00:05:55] You need things like always kind of the same as much as possible without a lot of change. Now, all of those types of things are going to inform how you actually show up at work.
[00:06:07] Joel: And I mean, only you really know this about yourself, right? Yeah. For instance, I'm very social, but I'm also very introverted.
[00:06:14] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:06:14] Joel: I love being around people, and I also need, frankly, a lot of low stimulus time to myself. Yeah. You know? Like just time to go park myself in a corner with a book. But if, if that was my whole life, I'd be bored out of my mind and really suffering. I need to be around people.
[00:06:30] Marissa: Well, and for instance, I need to be able to have my hands on kind of the bigger vision of where we're going.
[00:06:38] That is what I love to do. Futuristic is one of my top strengths. I think it's actually my number one strength. And so I need to be thinking about the future as much as possible. Yeah. That's what is, like, where my brain naturally goes. It's just kind of how I'm wired, and sometimes it can be a little bit of a negative, but regardless, it is really important that I, like, dig in to what the future is going to look at and, and hopefully help craft that vision.
[00:07:05] Joel: That self-awareness means that you know what to tackle and what not to tackle, what to, what to do and then what to outsource to either another teammate or these days Grok Bot.
[00:07:15] Marissa: Yeah. Well, and I think this brings up a good point that, like, every single person's personality, we all have strengths, and we all have weaknesses.
[00:07:24] Joel: Yep.
[00:07:25] Marissa: And it's important to know both of those things. If you're only aware of your weaknesses, which frankly most of us are, we're more intimately, um, aware of those weaknesses than often our strengths, it is a problem, right? We need to be able to know our strengths so we can actually leverage those and our weaknesses so we can actually solve for where we're going to potentially get stuck.
[00:07:48] Joel: And the cool thing about that is that when you have a, a working knowledge of your strengths and your weaknesses, you can design your work to spend more time where you're strongest. Right. Like, we all have some agency in whatever job we have to customize aspects of that job to work better for us, and this is kind of part of the lens that you use to focus on what's going to work for you and what's not and help you get serious about redesigning your work.
[00:08:17] So you can spend more time doing the great stuff and less time doing the crappy stuff.
[00:08:22] Marissa: Yeah, and if you do have, which we all do, those things that just- You hate doing, you're not wired for, it feels like you're just kind of trying to run through mud every time you do those things. We can... If we know those things, we can actually anticipate those and help to actually create solutions to those weaknesses.
[00:08:41] Joel: Yeah, totally.
[00:08:42] Marissa: Often when we're wor- working with our Double Win coaching clients, we're talking about things like delegation, okay? Like, if you're somebody who has a team to delegate to, that is a great strategy to get that type of work off your plate. Or if you're somebody like a lot of the people in our coaching program who have nobody to actually, uh, delegate to, there's a beautiful new kind of world in which we're living in where we now all have the power to delegate through AI.
[00:09:10] Joel: I use both.
[00:09:10] Marissa: Yeah,
[00:09:11] Joel: same. And I will tell you, it's kind of amazing.
[00:09:13] Marissa: And they serve different purposes.
[00:09:15] Joel: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:15] Marissa: Even the AI stuff is growing at a rapid pace. I mean, now we have things like Victor and GrokBot, these agents that are kind of like AI employees. My GrokBot, my chief of staff, was serving me up our podcast notes last night at, like, 7:00 and was like, "Hey, you have this recording first thing in tomorrow morning.
[00:09:34] Here's all your notes. You're gonna need to review these between now and, you know, 9:30 tomorrow morning when you're recording." It's telling me conflicts on my calendar and all kinds of stuff, which I hate that kind of stuff.
[00:09:47] Joel: Doing that kind of work you hate doing.
[00:09:49] Marissa: Exactly. Yeah. I hate trying to find, you know, notes and trying to get all the things I need to be fully prepared for the meetings or, you know, the events on my calendar.
[00:10:00] And with AI, like, I don't have to worry about any of that anymore, which is amazing.
[00:10:04] Joel: Exactly.
[00:10:05] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:10:05] Joel: Yeah, it's kind of amazing.
[00:10:06] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:10:06] Joel: So the question is, how well do you know yourself? And there are a lot of instruments, tools, assessments that we can use to help suss that out for ourselves. Probably a lot of you have taken so many of these, but There's like the Big Five personality test, there's Myers-Briggs, there's the Enneagram, there's Kolbe.
[00:10:28] There is now the work style assessment, which we're particular fans of. Super helpful. We've talked to so many people that have been using it, and it's been very illuminating on their work and what they bring to it and, uh, where they shine and where they don't. But these kinds of assessments, as limited as they are and as nuanced as you kind of have to be about applying them or thinking through them, they are like mirrors on our performance or on our personalities in a way that enables us to see some stuff that we can't.
[00:11:01] And that's gold, because self-awareness is probably one of the, I don't know, I've heard it called the meta skill of, like, the modern era, and I think that's totally right. If we're not... If we're kind of like wand- wandering through the world, banging into stuff, performing poorly 'cause we can't even see what we're doing, that's a negative, and these kinds of tests enable us to get a sense of what we are really bringing to the table and what we do well.
[00:11:29] Marissa: Yeah. Well, and I think the more that you can be self-aware, the better you can get ahead in your career. Self-aware professionals, I think, are the ones who are making the most amount of money. They're the ones who are getting the most, you know, respect and recognition. Like, these are the type of people who are doing their best work because they're having the highest impact.
[00:11:52] And so if you can, like, dial into this and really get to know yourself, um, and we've shared several great assessments that we personally love here at Full Focus, um, but there may be others that you want to dig into. There's certainly others that I personally have dug into.
[00:12:06] Joel: Working Genius is great.
[00:12:08] Marissa: Do we mention StrengthsFinders?
[00:12:10] Joel: Yeah.
[00:12:10] Marissa: That is such a good one. In fact, I actually have a mug that has all five of my strengths on it. Um, and it's just a good reminder of, hey, these are the things I'm good at.
[00:12:32] Joel: Okay, so the second thing that you wanna keep track of, the second angle that we're looking at this from is proficiency. So if you think about your experiences and your skills and how they roll up into not just your, like, your aptitude for something, but, like, where you really bring excellence from the things that you do.
[00:12:53] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:12:53] Joel: A lot of us think about our skills and experience only when we are Applying for a job, not, like, once we're actually in it. But you've lived a lot of life, and the skills you have gained are really valuable, and they can impact your performance across the map. And a lot of times we're not fully aware of what it is that we're actually proficient at.
[00:13:18] Marissa: Yeah. Well, and again, I mean, this is just all about self-awareness, right? And so the more that we can be, like, keenly in tune with our skills and drawing from those past experiences, typically that's gonna serve us really well. And it makes our work more enjoyable too, which I think is- Totally ... is important.
[00:13:37] Just getting tapped into what you're good at, you know, what are the skills that you are uniquely wired for, and really tapping into that is where, again, you can have your highest impact.
[00:13:49] Joel: This, it's also worth saying, is not something that you can judge wholly on your own.
[00:13:55] Marissa: Mm.
[00:13:55] Joel: So when we talk about proficiency, it's worth remembering that this means other people validate you as being proficient in it.
[00:14:03] So in the marketplace, you are recognized as good at what you do. A lot of people think they're good at what they do, and they're not. Yeah. And the only thing you really get to count as proficient is if somebody else is willing to say, "Yeah, you're proficient enough, I'll write you a check for that."
[00:14:20] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:14:20] It reminds me of, um, you know, all the voice type of shows that are these competition shows, American Idol, The Voice- Right ... so on and so forth, you know, America's Got Talent, and the people who are going and auditioning, they need to be proficient, and that doesn't just mean that they think they're good.
[00:14:38] Joel: Yeah. Well, the early episodes in all those shows, that's, I mean, like, the entertainment value is watching people not be proficient when they think they are.
[00:14:46] Marissa: Right, or even the ones that are, truly, truly are proficient and just knock your socks off.
[00:14:52] Joel: Right.
[00:14:52] Marissa: But ultimately, you know, you can think of those judges sitting in their chairs, you know, saying, "Oh my gosh, you're incredible," or, you know, think about Simon Cowell, you know, saying, like, "Dude, you're delusional.
[00:15:03] Get a different passion." You know? You
[00:15:04] Joel: need a different dream.
[00:15:06] Marissa: This is not, this is not what you're wired to do a- at all.
[00:15:09] Joel: Totally.
[00:15:09] Marissa: Um, so we've gotta have that, uh, kind of objective understanding of our proficiency.
[00:15:15] Joel: So in the publishing business where I came from, a publisher would be responsible for doing things like managing the budget, handling author relations.
[00:15:26] In my case, I kind of, like, graduated into that role from being an editor. Mm. And I was good at some of those things. I, like, learned some proficiency around some of those things, but my passion was always really in editing, and that's where my skills were the most. So everything I had to learn around running the publishing business I just kind of learned on the job, and some of it I got good at, and some of it I didn't get good at, and I just had to, like, let other people handle those parts.
[00:15:55] Marissa: And all of those things, Joel, serve you in the role that you're in now here. I mean, you're editing a lot of things.
[00:16:02] Joel: All day long.
[00:16:03] Marissa: All day long. You're writing a lot of things- Yeah ... all day long. You're ideating new concepts, whether that's new products or content for our coaching program or trainings that we're gonna do, right?
[00:16:13] Like, you're constantly thinking of those things. You're also having to have good relationships with vendors. So it's a different ... It's kind of probably taken on a little bit of a different shape or color.
[00:16:23] Joel: Yeah, much.
[00:16:24] Marissa: But those skills are really serving you. That experience is really serving you in this role.
[00:16:30] And so for all of us, we can kind of think through all of those past roles that we've had. You know, what are the specific skills that you possess that you wanna use more intentionally now?
[00:16:42] Joel: And it's worth saying that sometimes the current job that you're in is underusing certain skills and experiences you have.
[00:16:48] Sure. And maybe, maybe there's a way to, like, bring that to the fore and get more out of your role- Get
[00:16:53] Marissa: more, yeah ...
[00:16:53] Joel: just by focusing on that, on those things.
[00:16:55] Marissa: Yeah, so this could look like maybe you, you know some type of specific software platform, you know, inside and out, and you want to transfer that skill and that experience into the current role and either bring that software into your current role or suggest that you do, or whatever that may look like.
[00:17:15] Maybe, you know, you've led through really big transitions and you're good at managing conflict. That can really serve you. Maybe you built your team, your last team's project management system. You know exactly how to get the work done and get a lot of people to get the work done. That's a amazing skill if you know how to do that.
[00:17:33] Um, we might call you. And then maybe you've trained or onboarded new hires, and you have a really amazing process for that that you wanna bring into the current role that you've got. You know, maybe you're really far down the AI rabbit hole and see lots of opportunities for your team.
[00:17:51] Joel: We know people like that.
[00:17:52] Marissa: We definitely know people like that. So once you know really what you have to offer, again, most of us don't think about this unless we're looking for a job, but think about it now in the role that you're in. Once you know that, you can really put yourself in rooms and in a specific position where those skills are really needed and valued.
[00:18:13] Joel: And this goes back to that idea of redesigning your job. Like, we all have agency, and we can all kind of stretch and push our elbows out in little different w- uh, directions to kind of make the role fit more of what we want, and this is one of the ways that you do it. You start looking at what you really bring to the table and start advocating for using those skills in your role and changing your role as you do it.
[00:18:36] Marissa: Well, our third angle is Your passion. So this is where you're gonna think about the type of work that you love. Okay? I always like to think of this like this is the easy work. It's the stuff that just kind of comes naturally, you feel energized by it, you're excited by it. This is the stuff that you wish you had more time to do, always.
[00:18:58] Yeah. It's like I wanna spend more time doing the stuff that I feel passionate about. Some of that is gonna relate to your personality, right? Some of it's gonna relate to your proficiency. The truth is, is that we often enjoy what we feel like we're good at.
[00:19:14] Joel: And quite the reverse, right? We hate the work that we're not good at.
[00:19:17] Marissa: Yeah, it makes us- Yeah ... feel like crap about ourselves.
[00:19:19] Joel: Exactly.
[00:19:20] Marissa: Not good for the self-esteem, by any means.
[00:19:22] Joel: Here's a little thought experiment. Go grab your to-do list and scroll down it and wince visibly to yourself every time you see something that just, like, rubs you the wrong way. There's probably a lot on that list right now that does that.
[00:19:38] Marissa: Yeah. Well, and just a little preview, in future episodes we're gonna talk about how to figure out how to get that type of work really off your plate, renegotiating a lot of that. So stay tuned for this. So there is work that you're gonna be passionate about, um, that you feel energized by, that you love, that you enjoy, and, you know, it's often because it feels, like, purposeful and values aligned-
[00:20:05] Joel: Right
[00:20:05] Marissa: for us. It's the stuff that we're like, "Man, I feel like I'm making a difference."
[00:20:10] Joel: In my case, it often involves stuff that's novel or interesting. Yes. So as you, and now our audience knows, I am an improviser. Novelty on the work style assessment, novelty is, like, a huge thing for me. Right. So the more new, the quirkier, the more interesting it is, the more I'm attracted to it, and the less interesting, the less novel, the- Mmm, I would rather chop my foot off
[00:20:38] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:20:39] Well, okay.
[00:20:40] Joel: Yeah.
[00:20:41] Marissa: Um, well, for some of us, it's because this type of work really aligns with the future that we're wanting and that we're trying to create. Yeah. I know for me that is a huge motivator. I feel super passionate about that type of work because it's like I'm so connected to what this gets me in the future.
[00:20:59] And so when we're doing this type of work that we love, that we're passionate about, like I said, our energy is gonna go farther. You know, time feels more fluid. We feel like we could just kind of get lost in this type of work, and we want more of it. We want more, more time to be able to do this type of work.
[00:21:19] Joel: For me, I wanna hear what it is for you. You've already mentioned vision. Yeah. I've already mentioned editing on my side. I really love being able to get in and think through how to present an idea-
[00:21:31] Marissa: Mm-hmm ...
[00:21:31] Joel: to our audience and to our clients, and sometimes that involves design considerations. Sometimes it involves, like, the conception of the idea.
[00:21:41] Sometimes it involves the specific expression of an idea, and usually it involves, and the best version of it, is when it involves all of that in one package, and I can completely get lost in that kind of work. I love that.
[00:21:54] Marissa: I'm with you. I, I feel the same way. Just, like, same coin, but different side on the marketing side of things- Mm-hmm
[00:22:03] of that. Of how can I attract more people to the solutions that we have so we can get the transformation for those people? Like that, oh, I feel so passionate about that. I feel so excited. Like, earlier this week, one of the things that I was doing was working on retooling one of our sales pages and making it really dialed into the product and really attractive to the person that, um, we believe that we can really help with that product.
[00:22:30] And man, that energized me. I found myself getting super lost in that, almost like, you know, g- going into my own creative cave, and then I'm like, "Wait, I still have other things that I need to be doing today", but I could've just dug into that for the entire day if I had had the liberty to do that, and that's a good sign of things that are energizing and ultimately that you're passionate about.
[00:22:54] Joel: Totally. So we've already kind of alluded to this, but it's worth talking about the danger zone on passion, which is that sometimes our passion can overshadow a lack of proficiency. Like, we are more passionate about a thing than we are proficient, and that's a tricky place to be. You know, like, we've been around people like that, I think everyone has, where y- you can just see they're so energized by the work, but you look at the work product and you cringe a little bit.
[00:23:25] Ugh. You know?
[00:23:25] Marissa: It always is so hard when you're that person's leader.
[00:23:29] Joel: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:29] Marissa: And you feel like you're just about to, like, really rain on their parade.
[00:23:34] Joel: Yeah.
[00:23:34] Marissa: But to have to redirect their energy to something where they're really hopefully passionate but also really proficient at it. So again, this whole concept of knowing what you're wired for.
[00:23:48] Again, we talked about your personality, which is really important. You've gotta know what, you know, you're uniquely wired to do. And again, we just came out with a free assessment, the work style assessment, which highly encourage all of you to take. It's free and will give you a lot of, uh, insight into how you're wired to work.
[00:24:07] And then what are you proficient at? What are you naturally good at that other people validate, that other people would agree with?
[00:24:14] Joel: They're willing to sign you a check.
[00:24:16] Marissa: Yeah, and then also, like, what are the things that energize you, that you feel passionate about, you feel drawn to? And if you can get all of those things together, that's a great recipe for success.
[00:24:27] Joel: As we're talking about the priority filter, though, that's only one of three. It is. And we are going to be talking next week about ROI and the following week about now, so that you'll get the full package. But I wonder if we could spend a moment and just think through some strategies on making sure that people are really dialed in on this you question, on what is it that you're wired to do.
[00:24:53] Marissa: The first thing you can do is take some assessments. So we've talked about this. We shared several today. I would encourage you to at least take your work style. It's for sure free, and the others are mostly paid, so if you're not looking to invest a lot of money or time, it can probably take you five minutes or so to take it, it'll give you a lot of insight.
[00:25:13] And all the better if you can take more than just one assessment because, you know, it's gonna add a little bit different perspective. Each assessment has its own kind of unique angle, and that's gonna provide more insight to different parts of you. Personally, I love the StrengthsFinders I have a love hate relationship with the Enneagram.
[00:25:35] Joel: Tell me about that. What, what's, what's the hate part?
[00:25:37] Marissa: I think that it can often be mis- you can be misdiagnosed.
[00:25:42] Joel: Mistyped, as it were?
[00:25:44] Marissa: Yeah, several people, including myself, I thought for years I was an Enneagram 8, and there was something about it that just didn't quite resonate with me. I don't know. Mm-hmm.
[00:25:55] It just never quite fit. And after probably six years of walking around thinking I was an 8 and kind of hating and resenting a lot of that, I ended up taking a new test, the, I think it's the IE-
[00:26:08] Joel: IQ 9?
[00:26:09] Marissa: IQ 9. Thank you. That test is the most accurate Enneagram one if you're interested. And I redid that and found out I was an Enneagram 3.
[00:26:17] And as soon as I read that, I was like, "Yeah, this resonates a lot more." Um, but I know a lot of people who've been misdiagnosed with the Enneagram, so.
[00:26:25] Joel: When I first got exposed to the Enneagram, people began telling me that I was a 9, and-
[00:26:33] Marissa: Interesting ...
[00:26:33] Joel: I didn't know if I was a 9. It kinda made a little bit of sense.
[00:26:38] And I went to a conference where an Enneagram expert was on stage talking about all the various types and all the thises and the thats, and she was making a lot of jokes at the expense of 9s. Wow. And I remember being, like, ticked off. Interesting. And it was really odd because after the fact, I realized I'm actually more like a 5.
[00:27:03] I'm not like a 9.
[00:27:05] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:27:05] Joel: And I still feel... This is, like, so funny to even admit. I still feel annoyed at that lady for the way she treated 9s even though I'm not a 9.
[00:27:14] Marissa: For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's no bad number, but if it's wrong, if it's... First of all, we should not shame anybody. No. But if it's, if it's also not a fit for you, there's probably some friction there.
[00:27:23] Joel: The idea here is it's gotta match. Like, it's gotta be you, otherwise it's useless.
[00:27:28] Marissa: Yeah. So, you know, these assessments are usually right, uh, most of them, but you still have to validate it with your own brain and body, and you have to be honest. Yeah. Sometimes we don't wanna look in the mirror. And sometimes we need to.
[00:27:41] Like, sometimes it is a little bit like, "Ooh, yeah, that is true about me."
[00:27:45] Joel: The way I think about assessments like this is they're directionally accurate. Yeah. They- they're, it's not like they're pinpoint accurate. They can't- Yeah ... really be. I mean, you've got eight billion of us crawling around on this planet- Right.
[00:27:56] and we're all different, you know? Yep. And so, like, how accurate can any one assessment be at nailing you exactly as you?
[00:28:04] Marissa: Yep.
[00:28:04] Joel: And the answer is, you know, it's more like a shotgun, it's not a sniper rifle. It's- it's gonna- Right ... it's not gonna get you exactly right. But it doesn't have to to be helpful.
[00:28:12] Marissa: And I think that having a few of these, like we said, makes it even better.
[00:28:17] Yeah. Because you get a little bit more color. In our coaching program, we have our clients do this, where they take several assessments, and then we have what's called a maps profile, which basically takes all of those and synthesizes them into a singular, um, profile about you, and it's really helpful. But regardless, I would encourage you, as your kind of first strategy here, take at least one, if not a few, different assessments to get to know yourself a little bit more.
[00:28:47] Don't feel like you're being pigeonholed or put into a box, but just be open to what you can learn about yourself and how you're wired. Now, secondly, you probably need to do a little bit of personal reflection here. And you may need to consider, you know, as you kind of look back at your life What do you notice about yourself?
[00:29:07] And what are you going to do about it? You can get honest about the things that you love about yourself, the things that frustrate you about yourself, the things that frustrate you to other people. And what are you going to do about it?
[00:29:18] Joel: Related to that, because the truth is there's only so much of yourself you can see.
[00:29:23] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:29:23] Joel: It's helpful to talk to other people about you.
[00:29:25] Marissa: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:25] Joel: You know? Like, if you have a spouse, if you have a close friend, it's useful to take some of these assessments, the reports, and, like, say, "Give me 30 minutes. I want to talk about this with you, and just tell me, like, does this resonate? Does this sound like me?
[00:29:40] How would you correct it?" Yeah. And what you'll get out of kind of triangulating all of that is hopefully a clearer picture of who you are and what you bring to the world.
[00:29:51] Marissa: Yeah, and if you feel comfortable doing this, if you have a good relationship with the people that you work with, it can be valuable to ask your boss this.
[00:29:59] Like, "Where do you see my strengths and where do you see my challenges?" Or, "Where do you feel like I struggle? Where do you feel like I'm really excelling?" Or you can ask a colleague, you know, somebody who you're working closely with, 'cause they're probably noticing things that you're just not picking up on.
[00:30:12] Joel: Guaranteed they're noticing things- Yeah. ... you're not picking up on. I mean, I think the truth is our coworkers know us sometimes way better than we know ourselves. It's
[00:30:21] Marissa: true.
[00:30:21] Joel: There have been, let's just say, many moments of humor at my expense when people just know things about me, and they'll be like, "We're going to work around this little thing of Joel's," or whatever, because everyone knows.
[00:30:34] Marissa: And we all have those, 'cause we're spending so much of our time together doing a lot of things together.
[00:30:41] Joel: Yeah. All of this conversation so far brings me back to something Art Blakey said. And some people may not know who Art Blakey is. You can be forgiven. But you should go remedy the situation as quickly as you can.
[00:30:53] Art Blakey was a jazz drummer. He founded a band called the Jazz Messengers, and they played forever. A lot of, like, the major names in jazz, like Wynton Marsalis, for instance, played in the Jazz Messengers. That was, like, the launching pad for a lot of different people. Wayne Shorter started there. Lee Morgan started there.
[00:31:12] All kinds of great people came out of the Jazz Messengers. And Art Blakey was really great at, like, pithy statements that just happened to be, like, resoundingly true, and here's one of them. He says this: "Whatever you are, be it, and be it all the way, because nothing else is gonna work anyway."
[00:31:32] Marissa: That is good.
[00:31:33] Joel: You just think about that from, like, the perspective of a musician standing on stage improvising. They can't copy what the other guy's doing. They gotta do what they're doing. Yeah. And we're in the same boat. We are all jazz musicians improvising on a stage day in and day out, and the only way to do it well is to do it like you.
[00:31:49] 'Cause there's only one you, and you can't really copy anybody else.
[00:31:53] Marissa: I feel like that's, like, mic drop.
[00:31:58] be you, get to know you
[00:32:00] Joel: And just knock the heck out of it.
[00:32:01] Marissa: Yeah.
[00:32:02] Joel: Yeah. Because we can't be good at everything, and thankfully, we don't have to be. That's why we have teams, that's why we have other systems that we can pull in, like AI to augment areas that we're lousy at or whatever. But when you know you're good at something-
[00:32:17] Marissa: Mm-hmm
[00:32:17] Joel: you can do a lot more of that, and you can try to solve for or get rid of everything else.
[00:32:22] Marissa: So, like, the TLDR here is it is a good thing that you're you. The world is better for you being you. So go ahead, be you, and figure out where you, as you, add the most value.
[00:32:46] Joel: Thanks for joining us for Focus on This.
[00:32:48] Marissa: This is the most productive podcast on the internet, so please share it with your friends. Hit that share button right now, and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen or at focusonthispodcast.com.
[00:33:01] Joel: We'll be here next week, where we're gonna talk about how to identify your highest leverage work.
[00:33:08] Back to the priority filter. Now we're talking about ROI, and that is next week.
[00:33:14] Marissa: It's gonna be a good episode. So until then... Stay focused.