More than anything else in the world, we all care most about ONE thing.
Ourself.
Whether it’s the sound of our name or the stories that involve us. We love it all.
And it’s not selfish. It’s practical.
But as much as we enjoy hearing about ourselves, our actions don’t always align to maximize our own best versions.
We rush into commitments, relationships, careers…without taking a deep dive and figuring out who we truly are. We skip the inner work that gives us clues on what is actually best for us.
It’s like assembling brand new IKEA furniture, but without looking at the user guide.
An afternoon assembly would morph into weeks. “Uhh what am I supposed to do with this thing? and “Ahhh If I only knew this earlier!”
It would be a stressful and endless endeavor.
But it’s essentially what we’re doing with our lives. Stumbling into a career without understanding what really goes into it. (Even worse, without actually enjoying it.) Or going through the motions of a relationship built on a rocky foundation.
Instead, we should develop our own user guides. One that doesn’t leave us with achy-knees and a wobbly end product. A user guide that doesn’t get thrown out at the end — instead it gets better with time.
Where do we find such a thing? (and does it come with meatballs?!)
The personal user guide is not found, it’s developed. Using our own experiences and our reactions to those experiences, our personal user guide comes alive.
The Hedgehog Concept
Bestselling author and researcher, Jim Collins, teaches the “Hedgehog Concept” as a framework to focus on what we do well. There are three circles and it’s our job to find the intersection of all three.
- What we’re absolutely passionate about. What do we love?
- What drives our economic engine. What will people pay us to do?
- What we’re genetically encoded to do. What are we best in the world at?
Collins says to study ourselves like a bug. What is this bug? What is this bug genetically encoded for? The key is to make non-judgemental empirical observations. The more we study ourselves the more data points we have for our guide.
Okay, let’s make this more personal to illustrate some examples.
What am I deeply passionate about? I often think about how I’d spend my time if money was no object. How would I fill my days?
A quick way to find this out is to just look at how I like to spend my free time on the weekends. I love learning about ideas and concepts around personal development. I dive into books, podcasts, articles. I also love copywriting and how to clearly express new ideas I’m learning.
Heck, I dropped four g’s on this 5-week online cohort, Write of Passage. And I’m loving every minute of it. The writing process, the feedback, the people. Note to self: I especially enjoy connecting with others in the group.
I’d double down on education and take more courses. I’d likely go study psychology as well.
I currently attend a bi-weekly public speaking event here in Austin. I’d likely create more space for this. Maybe I’d join toastmasters, get involved with giving a TED talk, or make weekly YouTube videos/podcasts.
Oh man, this fantasy is getting me excited. Let’s keep going.
What drives my economic engine? Right now I have a salary at a software company where I lead a marketing team. Before that, I had a marketing agency.
I currently get hit up (emails, dms) periodically to help with content marketing (consulting for YouTube, email lists, promotions, etc).
Note to self: I especially enjoy helping and connecting with others using real content marketing examples I’ve learned.
What am I genetically encoded for? This one seems like the hardest. A good way to think about it — what feels like fun to me, but to others looks like work?
As with the other two, I’m still very much figuring this one out. But my intuition tells me it’s around human connections and emotional intelligence. Maybe it’s something around connecting with and helping others. And as a bonus, it likely involves something goofy or fun.
Specifically, connecting with people at events and sharing vulnerabilities through deep conversations sounds like fun to me. But to others might sound like work. The same goes for public speaking.
By the way, the best way to figure these things out? Is just by trying a bunch of stuff. Note to self: try a bunch more stuff.
So the “hedgehog concept” is quite a useful framework, but it’s just one component of the personal user guide.
Ongoing Responsibility
The personal user guide is more than just these three circles. It’s a personal responsibility for life.
Just like lawyers are responsible for knowing the law, doctors are responsible for knowing medicine, pilots are responsible for knowing aviation…we are responsible for knowing ourselves.
This responsibility is never finished and is always being refined.
They say with great power comes great responsibility. But with the personal user guide, the reverse is true. With great responsibility for ourselves, comes great power to achieve anything we want.