Ch. 4-5: Putting Your Purpose Together

Welcome to this special Book Club Series! Over the next several episodes, you'll be able to go "behind-the-scenes" with Jonathan Milligan as he teaches through his latest book, Discover Your Message!

Think of it as your own special audio course to go with the book!

Don't have a copy of Discover Your Message yet?

Click Here to Grab Your Copy!

Implement the Blogging System that 40x My Online Business! Click here to get the training video

Transcript

0:40

Hello, and welcome to the market. Your message show. I'm your host, Jonathan Milligan and author of the book. Your message matters as well as the brand new book. Discover your message. Which is what we've been going through as a community for this audio book club. This is a behind the scenes chapter by chapter. And we're going to jump into chapters four and five today. If you don't have a copy of the book, you can get it via Kindle paperback, hardcover, audio book. And if you go to platform growth, books.com. Platform growth books.com. The link is in the show notes. You can go grab a copy. Alright, day four is your one. Word. Now, this was a powerful concept when I first discovered this tool many years ago, and it was very important in my journey of understanding what did I have. That could contribute value to others. What is the magic? That seems ordinary to me. In fact, my friend and author, Brian Dickson says what's ordinary for you is magic to others. And I believe that's true. And in the beginning of the chapter I go through and share a story. About in the summer of 2022, how I took a 30 day sabbatical. And I've been doing that for years. Every July. I try to unplug from my work, spend more time with family and I just. Step outside of my own business, rest vacation. And normally I try to dive into some hobbies that I don't always make time for. But during the 2022 sabbatical, I dove back into sports cards. Now I've been collecting sports cards since I was a kid in the late eighties and nineties, probably remember a story that I told when I sold sports cards in my. Grandfather's hardware store in Indiana when I was a kid. But. I started jumping back into it. And what was so amazing about it is I started figuring out, wait a minute, I got all these sports cards and there's a lots of buyers online. If I can figure out the right system. And so I had started just diving in and learning as much as I could about this model. And so many people that was watching the videos saying, oh, you can't sell the average sports card, the low end sports card because it's too time consuming. And. And yet a lot of people were trying to figure this out. A lot of people in that space, we're only selling the what's called graded cards, where they're in the hard plastic. They're more expensive. Yep. A lot of people have just boxes of sports cards laying around. You probably have some at your house. So I dove into that world. And during my sabbatical, within just a few days, I had set up a complete system of how to throw my cards. Not gently put them into a scanner and scan like 50 cards, images front and back in literally two minutes. And I found a software that I could put them into that creates the eBay listing for me. And then I created a inventory system with a skew system so that I could. Not only like a list 50 cards at once on eBay by uploading the spreadsheet. But I would have it organized. And then I figured out a whole shipping system so that it literally could be done in two minutes. Now fast forward to today, I'm still selling sports cards every single day. No, it's not my primary business, but it's one of our businesses. And my wife charity helps to ship out those cards every single day. Why am I telling you all this? My parents who are now retired. Learned what I was doing and wondered if they could do the same with books. So I went up there. I stayed with them for a few days. And I helped them set up their entire business system. And they have been selling books every day, two to five books, some days even more. On eBay every single day. Since I just talked to him yesterday, they had sold another five books on eBay. And it's pretty awesome. It's pretty fun to see now, the reason I'm bringing all this up. Is because I learned years ago. That this process of one word, the one word that I came away with years ago that I've leaned into all these years was the word. Are resourceful. Now resourceful for me means that I'm a practical, resourceful teacher. I have a natural inclination to go learn everything I can on a subject. Break it down. Two very simple steps and then do that to get a result and turn around and teach it. I love that. And I've done that so many different ways. Now the reason I'm bringing all this up is not to talk about me. It's to talk about you. That I want the same for you. And when you discover your one word. And unlocks a whole world of opportunity for you.'cause How you can show up best for others when you walk into a room. When you're in a meeting. When you're gathered amongst friends. Your superpower, how you can best help others. And that's what day four in the book is all about. Now we're not going to go through all of it. You can go through the book. This is just to hit the highlights. But there is a process that I have you go through. And basically it starts with identifying five people who know you best. And asking them. That if they could describe you in one word. What word would they choose? And then you collect all those words and you look for what's common. And the common thing that came up for me was the word resourceful. Or practical. Those were the two. That I heard time and time again now in the book to make it easier. We've given you over 65 common attributes that humans tend to have that. Can they can be used to help and support others. So go to the book. I'm not going to sit here and read off all 65, but you definitely want to look at that. So your exercise for day four is to find your one word to do the one word exercise. And to complete it. And some of the key takeaways from chapter four. Are the following. Your unique, super power is the driving force behind your success and impact. That's why we want to uncover it. Understanding and embracing your one word, not only refined your message, but also provides guidance through life's inevitable changes. So what's great about that is. Things change. That is a fact of life. But what's changed less. Is you. In other words, that thing that you do is change us. We need to find what's changed to us about you. See, I can't help, but just think in a resourceful, practical, you throw me in any environment. And I'm going to be the person who says have you thought about this? Or here's an idea. Because it comes natural to me. There's things that come natural to you. And then the third point as a takeaway, Is seeking input from others. Can offer valuable insights in defining the essence of urinate strengths and the reason why that's important. So as a mentor told me long time ago, you can't read the label when you're inside the bottle. It's hard for you to know, because things that. And back to our first point, things that are ordinary for us. Our magic for others. And we discount the ordinary because we think everybody can do it this way and they can't. All right, moving on today. Five chapter five, putting your purpose together. Now the goal of this chapter is to take your one word. So in my case, that's resourceful. And then we're going to combine that with your primary influencer voice. We talked about that on the last podcast. Go back and listen to that. I believe it's either chapter two or three. I think it's chapter three. The influencer voices are writer, speaker, teacher, and coach. And what we want to do is we want to combine those two together. To give you real clarity about your purpose. Because remember the whole discussion here is your purpose. Is not an a thing. It's not an idea. It's not in a. N a company. Your purpose is what's changed us about you. It is your hidden superpower, your gift. And when you understand that everything else becomes a little bit easier because How you can add value to others. And so when we put this together for me, It was a resourceful teacher. Once I understood that I show at best for others when I'm a resourceful teacher. I started leaning into that as much as I could. And at the beginning, it was a CPA career coach block. Where I was writing articles and being resourceful teacher. I created a course to help. Accountants get better jobs. Then I started a second business on blogging. Started creating blogging courses. That we're helping people back in 2011 and then transitioned into this. Subject matter expert space, which is a little bit of all of it, right? Whether it's blogging. Or podcasting or creating YouTube videos, speaking, writing, teaching, coaching. All of that together is what I enjoy most is creating the resources to help you take this complex topic. And understand it in its simplest parts. So you can go and take that. So here's the takeaways from day five. Discover your gift is essential to finding your purpose. And remember the igniting your message framework. The premise of this whole book is for you to get clear on your purpose, your people and your passion. These last few chapters have just been on purpose. That's where we're focused right now. And we're going to be moving to people very soon. Your purpose is not a thing. It's already inside you. Number three, your passions may change. But your purpose remains. That is the thing that's changed less about you. My friend. And your purpose is how you show up best for others. That's stated in simple plain English. And then listing your one word. And primary influencer voice together. Can help you uncover your purpose. I know for me, it's being a resourceful teacher. And I want you to have that kind of clarity. So if you don't have a copy of the book, go to platform growth books. Platform growth books.com or you click on the link in the show notes. And go get a copy of the book. I think the Kendall's 2 99 and you can join me. In this journey together. All right. And the next episode. I have this podcast, this audio book club. We're going to start getting into the people equation. We're going to talk about the egoic label exercise, which has been an effective exercise. I've used for a number of years now. To help you identify your audience. And then we're going to jump into chapter seven or day seven, the audience filter scorecard. How do we pick the right profitable audience for our unique strengths? That's it for this episode. I hope this was helpful to you. If you enjoy this, take a moment and like share, subscribe, or even review our show. And until next time never forget your message matters