Transcripts
1. Intro: If you've ever wondered
what you are put on this earth to do and tried
to follow your passion. Like so many leaders
have told you to either just didn't
know where to begin. I've got a class for you. Hi, my name is Ilya Lobanov and I'm a creative director
and founder of Studeo. And I have been working as a branding designer and Strategist for the last 20 odd years. Studeo is in part a branding
agency helping clients and a hub and a platform for me to share what I've learned with other designers
and creatives. This class will shatter your concept and what
you believe in relation to the concept of
following your passion. And it will give you
the practical tools for building your creative
self confidence, gaining self-awareness,
and learning the ability to create your own passion in whatever it is that
you choose to do. At the beginning of
our work together, many of the design
students that I coach tend to share the
same kind of feeling. It's as if they are
traveling through life like a boat or a ship
seeking this imaginary yet to be discovered harbour
that they just can't seem to find rather than enjoying what's right
in front of them. And this is how I felt
for a really long time. I felt lost, I felt frustrated. Also judged myself for
the seeming inability of perhaps refusal to
niche down or to find something and settle
on the one specific thing. It took a shock of
me being redundant, in one of my long-term jobs for me
to seriously start to examine and review my life and try and find some sense of
purpose behind everything. And I can tell you that was a rather lengthy
self-discovery process. But through that,
I slowly started to embrace my inner
deep generalist. And so for this approach
that I reverse engineered, I've now taught over a dozen coaching
students one-on-one. And they all report feeling more confident about positioning themselves and
communicating the value as a creative and having
much more success with pricing their services. Thousands of my audience members and followers of my content
share the same sentiment. And today I'm here to share those practical tools and place them into exercises that you can complete and take
advantage of as well. I'm here to tell you
that you are your niche. You have to lean into
what makes you unique, including your
weaknesses, your flaws, and even the obscure interests. And all of those are things that you can take
to your advantage, to position yourself
as a creative, to being clear of who you want to target and attract, who we
want to work with in terms of attracting the
right kind of customers and the kind of creative
partners will resonate with you rather than
going through life hoping that this big calling, this big passion will one
day knock on your door. And so as part of this class project, you will be completing a rather
comprehensive but easy to follow workbook
that I put together that's available as a
download to this class. And I'd love for you to
share the answers to those exercises as part
of your class project. And I can't wait to see
what you can come up with. I'll see you in the class.
2. Exercise 1: Create Your Passion: Follow your passion. They say, well, this is the first mindset shift I want you to make
following your passion. My work for ready born geniuses, people born of innate
talents or abilities. But for majority of us, I think this is
dangerous advice. It actually doesn't work. I want it to be a soccer player or a football to
everyone in the world. Who knows, maybe I
could have become the next grades and
I didn't see them. The French football player will do share the same
birthday it after all. But hey, life had
other plans for me. So let me share my perspective on the concept
of following your passion. It underpins most of the
teachings of this class. I don't believe in
finding your passion. I believe in passion
finding you, or rather you
finding each other. It, in that way it works a
lot like love or inspiration, or the perfect partner
or the perfect job. And what's the philosopher called this, the backwards lot. Stop trying to get it
and you'll have it. But the reverse is also true. The more you try to be richer, the more unworthy
employee might feel, regardless of how
much money you make, the more you tried
to feel better about your life and try
to feel happier, the more hopeless and
unsatisfied the Wallkill, the more you try to chase
the feeling of passion, the more confused and frustrated
you might actually feel. What tends to happen
is we get things when, not when we're trying
to actually force it, but when we are rather
contents without them, but still being open to receive it, to
give you an example, I wasn't always passionate
about creativity and creating products
for idea generation. It's certainly something
that came about after I was tasked with
leading a creative team, a workplace I was
working at, at the time. While I had this kind of intuitive ability
to generate ideas. And I kinda had this
intuitive process. What I've realized
over the years that not all of my
team members could tune into that intuition or couldn't find a way to
generate ideas easily. So I needed to make my
team more effective. And to do that, I
started looking into documenting my own idea
generation process and also looking at other tools
and processes for implementing creativity
for that research. And through that kinda
learning about the processes is something that became one of my key passions and
it's my passion today. And the reason why I'm
sharing this class with you. And the same goes
for brand strategy, which is one of my
big passions today. It's only something
that came about after I worked in website
design and later logo design and product
design and later marketing to start
learning about brand strategy and something
that I really love today. But I didn't set out
to find those niches. And initially, I didn't even
know what I would find. I certainly didn't set
out to find those niches. So I was actually just putting my foot in
front of the other, taking new opportunities and
saying yes to new things. And gradually learning
about myself and, and kinda taking
into diving in deep in my feed into
different kind of pulls, learning more and
more about myself and eventually getting
good at those things. Passion, iPad is
something that you can develop after you become
good at something. Because I want this class to be as actionable and practical
for you as possible. Here's your one exercise in one key takeaway from this
particular video lesson, I want you to refer to your exercise number one
on the workbook provided. And you can think of
this as your homework, but you can also viewed
as getting one step closer to capturing your creative genius
and discovering it. So first of all, I
want you to start in the first box by spending three to four minutes
to think about the list of things that
you are currently good at or consider yourself
being pretty proficient at. Then I want you to list
other interests that may be things that you're
curious about. The box number three, I
want you to think about the key skills and knowledge
that you're using right now, are learning right now in
your job or your study ends. Through thinking about
those three things. I want you to reflect on those three boxes
for a little while. And then whether you might see from those three things some kind of an overlap
between those frames. And the fourth box I
want you to list down that overlap or new pathways or opportunities
that you might spot. Now, number four is
a box that I want you to come back to Emory
second week, perhaps weekly. And I want you to
add new things to this fourth box because
you'll learn more about your interests as well as you can add to the other
three boxes as needed. So that's your first
exercise for this class. And in the following video, I will be talking about time. The thing that we all seem
to never have enough of.
3. Exercise 2: Trade off Time: I'm someone who believes in
the abundance of things. I believe that the
universe does have enough resources
for everyone and we can tap into it
if we choose to. However, proved some of my other own experiences
and observations, I do note that life can be seen as a
series of trade-offs. If there is something that you want to get, something new, want to receive, typically, you need to trade away or trade-offs something
else that you have. And this is especially true
of something like time. So we all know, until we work out
the way to reproduce time or time travel,
time is finite. There are only certain amount of hours in the day to fill. So if you need to find time to either discover
a new passion, to put the words a
new site project, or to develop a new skill. But you can't do it because
you are also busy already. I've got news for you. You have to carve out that time. And likely it means cutting
something else down, something else that you spend, used to spending your time on when creating
this class for you. One of the cool things that I would normally spend my time on, other than my work with clients, is creating content for creatives
and designers like you. And that's something that's important to me and something I want to continue to
be consistent with. However, to create this class, I had to prioritize it. And essentially I
had to trade off that time to put towards
creating this class. And likewise, ten
or 15 years ago, I was really, you might say, passionate about
playing video games. I really loved doing
it and I would play sometimes one to
two hours per day. However, at the time when I realized that I
needed to develop my skills and branding and brand strategy and design
and things of that nature. I needed to trade some of that
time away and that's okay. I've played traded off
plenty of hours in time on things that I did
at the time towards things that I wanted to
prioritize in the future. Hopefully with this lesson, what I will help you
to do is do just that. So your exercise and you're wanting for this lesson
is exercise number two, trade-off time in the word book, you will find there's a list of current daily activities and there's another box called
the trade-off activity. So I want you to think about your daily average typical day and list down the
major tasks and activities and things
that you might do for that typical day. So you might be awake for ten hours per day
and you might have a non negotiable
activities such as eating for perhaps let's
say one hour a day. You might have four hours a day working on
client projects. You might have two
hours playing games. You might have one
hour swimming, swimming and gym and
running and cycling. You might have one hour
surfing the internet and you might have one hour
of watching TV shows. Now, can you think of
one of those activities, maybe watching TV for
one hour that you can trade off to put the words. Working on your
creative side project. Probably you can. So that's what the second box in that workbook is for
traded off activities. I want you to list activities
which can sacrifice or eliminate or even just reduce to make room
for new endeavor. And then you will see in the right-hand side box
then the total hours saved daily that you can then
put towards a new activity. Open will do get overwhelmed
with the things, new things that we have to do and the work that we have to do. We might be tempted to
give up or say now, maybe it's a client
requests that seems too difficult for
us current skill set. It could be a project that seems like too much for our
current capacity. We could be a side project that just never gets off the ground because we just don't know where to begin or just
don't have the time. So I want you to
remember the mantra. You can't be done until it is. I'll put, in other words, it always seems impossible
until it's done. You can always learn
that new skill to level up your skill set
for that client's request, you can always have contract or partner up or delegate
with another creative to increase your capacity and work bandwidth for
that larger project. You can always
start with one hour a day to make tiny progress on your side project that will lead to the finished
product over time. Helpful quote that
I like it too. Remember, that's helpful to me, is a quote from The Art of Possibility by
Rosa molten Benjamin Center. I am here today to
cross the swamp, not to fight all
of the alligators. Just remember, you
don't have to do the project in its
entirety today. Right now. You don't have to
master the skill that started to be comfortable till they start
to pick up today. Just have to do that one action, that one task, but one piece, a project to keep it going
because that action will give you the momentum to move
closer towards completion.
4. Exercise 3: Find your Genius and Your Niche: This lesson is titled Finding
your genius and unique. But in actuality
it should be more like discovering
or uncovering it. And the punchline
for this lesson is, there is no such thing as a
niche that's too obscure. I want to draw your attention to an medium article that
I came across recently, and it's called the
pen pencil websites prove that no hobbies to
obscure to become a business. And it was written by
grade efficient fishermen. In article gradient talks
about pencil subculture. Bloggers who write
about the passion, pencils while still being able to find a way
to monetize it. So to you and I, Pencil might just
be a simple pencil, but those vloggers, it's subjectively obscure
passion that has also turned into
money-making businesses. For me. Well, ever since I was about seven or eight
or nine years old, I was obsessed with Lego. And although I haven't
found technically a way to monetize this passion
obscure interests. It's still something that I
pass on to my daughter today in teaching her the power
of play and creation, creating those immersive
experiences and universities. In all of this leads to
creativity and imagination, which I'm sure has taken a, made a great impact in me finding my initial
and my passion, which is the passionate about creativity and brand strategy. And often even your weaknesses can be turned into advantage
or, or your niche. Just look at cotton and John, he's a popular pop
musician in the 90s and he turned his stuttering
into his greatest asset. Likewise, English isn't
my first language. So some people may look at
that as a disadvantage. However, I've always
tried to see it as a positive thing
because it helps me to see new perspectives, gives me additional perspectives in terms of being able to see it from different
cultural point of view. And that additional
perspective helps me to inject it into
dealing with clients, dealing with my students
and coaching students. And I'm sure something
that they appreciate. And I always comment
on me being able to spot areas where
maybe easily spotted. So your one thing for this lesson that your
exercise for this lesson, something that I want
you to take away is write down your
weaknesses and obscure hobbies and interests
into exercise number three, I've given a provided
four boxes in case you have multiple
obscure interests. And what I'd like
you to do for each of those four boxes is generate five or ten ideas for how you can turn it
into an advantage. There are no wrong answers here. Anything that's bizarre
and outlandish ideas, those are all good. So they can be ideas
for our business. It could be a new project
that you want to explore. It could be just a novel
way to do something old. As a bonus tip, try
combining some of your weaknesses and obscure
ideas and interests. Generate those ideas. So I'd love to see what you can come up
with for that exercise.
5. Exercise 4: Embrace Your Best Self: Let's be honest. Most people prefer to
think of themselves as a little bit better than the average person, at
least in some things. And the truth is, you are better than most in some things. You might be a Picasa taking
care of people's needs. And you might be
an instant when it comes to supporting
missing information. Or it might be a genius at empowering others
to act on ideas. Any of those things in
the right context can become your advantage
and make you better at your creative process and empower you to become
a better creative, easier thing for this lesson,
here's your exercise. I want you to focus on
exercise number four, embrace your best self. And what I would
like you to consider is answered this
form boxes provided. The first one being
described by a friend's S. So what do your family or friends say that you're passionate about or
are really good at. Maybe the certain things
that they always stay in on social media or
maybe they always call you about the
particular type of problem. Number to list. All of the phases
are elements of a typical project or work
activity might be involved in. Which do you find
the most favorite? Two. Number three, I
want you to think about things that you do from a work perspective that
might working with clients or working in your
college projects. What are the things
that excite you the most and which parts
k in the most. And finally, for the fourth box, or I'd like you to think
about dealing with others. It might be customers that might be a teacher, might be appeased. But how do you want others to feel after they get to work? A few more collaborate with you. How would you want them to feel? In the next lesson,
we're going to take a look at Mission down, which is especially crucial for us if we're working
in the creative industry.
6. Exercise 5: Niche Down: You've heard this before.
Leaching is important, especially if you're a
solopreneur or business, a freelancer, a
greater professional. It's something that
helps you to stand up. But I think most
people get wrong. And so I'm here to share a different perspective
on the issue. So yes, of course you can niche by industry
that you know well, that can be an event industry. And yes, you can leach by specific service such
as website design. And yes, you can
even niche down to a single deliverable like
a lead magnet creation, PowerPoint presentations
and so on. But perhaps one of the most efficient and authentic ways to niche is when you combine all
of those things together. Referring to exercise number
five in the worksheet, I would first like to list those three things in
the free boxes provided. Think about the disciplines being the services that
you can offer and perform. Things that you can already
know or potentially deliver. Potential deliverables
and products that you can create
based on nodes. And based on the previous
insights and exercises. Least what industries
might need, what you offer and
can afford it, and industries that
you like to work with. Then the most helpful of all, I'd like you to think about
those three boxes overall. And then think about, and consider the
following question. What group of people do feel most connected and
comfortable with? Are you good at socializing? Perhaps you might look for professionals who embody
that every day in a job. Do you enjoy telling people
about cryptocurrencies? Look for professionals
with the same interests. Are you carrying an empathetic? Seek professionals
whose job it is to be? So in the next couple of videos, we're going to look at
things that you're probably aware of and probably heard of called the imposter syndrome and the shiny object syndrome. So those will be coming in
the next couple of videos.
7. Exercise 6: Beat the Imposter: Imposter syndrome is something
that many of us feel, especially if we're working
in the creative industries. And I believe that if you are experiencing something that's called the Imposter Syndrome, chances are you
are actually more qualified and equipped
and skilled to do the task challenge project
that you are assigned, then you give
yourself credit for. In my humble opinion, if you are not experiencing
the spilling on the imposter syndrome
at least once or twice, every now and then, you are either not
challenging yourself or groin or you didn't really care about the outcome of whatever it
is that you're involved in. And neither of those two options is great for you long-term. So conversely, if
you are feeling like an impulse that you
are likely growing, ends are challenging
yourself enough. So give yourself the credit
for putting in the work on the main reasons why
it tends to happen is we feel that
others will judges, they will judge our work,
our contribution ends. They will realize you
are not good to death. I say world is an extremely
unreliable critic, has, Ethan Hawke says
in his TED talk, there are lots of examples where people consider something today as creative or
imaginative or great or good, where they originally judged the ridicule that at the time when it was first
being released. So you have to let go of being good because that's
not up to us. There was a Roman
philosopher Seneca. He wrote in his writings to practice of finding
one thing each day. That makes you a
little bit smarter, a little bit wiser,
a little better. Just one nugget, one quote, one little prescription,
one little piece of advice. In everything that
you're involved in, from client projects, from side gigs to new skills
and tools you're learning whether you think the outcome of this might be good or not. I want you to keep a daily and weekly diary noting that one nugget for each
key experience of young devil that you
undertake in the worksheet, you will see the exercise six, I've listed four key activities. I'd like you to
keep track of this. So this could be
milestones, projects, side gigs on new skills and tools that you're learning
for this particular month. So for every of those four
activities, for every week, I want you to document and one summary of one key
insights that you've learned. One key takeaway. Based on that, you might actually get some
ideas for new hobbies, new interests, new
skills to develop, and new endeavors to explore. In bonus project or
your bonus task for this lesson is to try at least
one new thing every week. I've given you the
fifth box here and that exercise worksheet
called the new thing. I want you to pick a new thing, new activity events, skill
to explore experience. It might be just
something that you do once to try it and
then move on if it's not your thing or it may become a more regular
thing that you want to do. So we decided that
the interest in chess is something that
others might enjoy. Well, set up our
Virtual Chess cup and promote it on social media. You get an idea
that might be for some active outdoors
activity because you love sports and nature will
sign up to the next stuff, mother event, thinking that you might enjoy making
custom candles because you'll have
a beautiful sense and making something
with your hands. Go ahead and order that
candle making kit. The thing to remember about this takeaway from this lesson is the new thing I want
you to continuously do, even when you feel like you
finally find your passion. Perhaps this might be a couple
of months down the track, a couple of years down the track after you've seen this lesson, this class in this videos. But I want you to continue keeping up this practice
of doing one thing every week because learning new skills and new experiences
can help us grow.
8. Exercise 7: Shiny Object Syndrome: The previous video we
talked about picking out the new thing
to do every week. One new activity, one new hobby, one new tool, new
skill to develop. And the truth is, as creatives, the shiny syndrome
object is a real thing. We can't see, can't help but to explore this new
hobbies all the time. I guess the challenge with
that comes with, first of all, finding the time and energy and motivation and resources
to be able to do this, but also not being distracted midway through something
with something else. And another key thing
is feeling guilty when you're working
on something that may not necessarily
turn into anything. So how do you keep focus and motivation for continuing
on with this tasks? Well, consider a
couple of things here. First one is called
skin in the game. So consider investing
something in this activity. If you do start realizing
that it's something that's more than just a thing
that you want it to try. Once. It might be
investing some money, it might be setting up a
goal or joining a challenge. For instance, the first six days of type works
really well for, for this reason and things
like 100 days of high coupons. Or it might be you investing
like a thousand dollars or $2 thousand into a 12-week
course or challenge. So investing in something
makes you more committed to it and therefore higher likelihood of you kind
of sticking to it. Another thing to kind of give you that
motivation and focus is remembering that
experimentation before you hit it. Big advantage, people like Jessica Walsh show or maybe Chris doll and, and grappling. Before they become big, they have a lot less risk to
experiment with their ideas. No one really has any
expectations from you for what to expect when
they don't know about you. Can chef Anthony Baldwin wrote his first book when he
worked in the kitchen, when he was still a
kitchen aid, I believe. And he said that that
certainty that nobody would read it is what allowed him to actually write itself really. Third thing that I
want you to consider is you have to make it
into a daily routine, have to commit
whatever is feasible, any amount of everyday to make
progress on this project. So we've talked about
in the second exercise, of course, trading of time. And that's where
you find that time. Once you've worked out what
your free available time, this is you have to assign that time. You
have to schedule it. So we could be 30 minutes
as soon as you wake up. It could be 50 minutes
directly before lunch. Japanese author
Haruki Murakami says, the repetition
itself here becomes the most important thing for us, creatives, creative
side projects and developing new skills. This is like one of
the cofactors for, for you growing and evolving and actually being able to find
your passion and niche. But of course, the travel is finding that right balance of the shiny syndrome are constantly bouncing from
one idea to the next, taking it back and
grinding it a bit to habitual routine rather than just being distracted over time. So for, for your task in your
exercise, for this lesson, focusing on that one thing where with the
previous lesson we talked about that practice of experiencing one new
thing every week. With this lesson, I actually
want you to cultivate the deliberate
practice focusing on that one cost kill
on that endeavor, on that side hobby
or side project, once you work out that something
is of interest to you, something you'd like
to pursue more than just on a one-off basis. I want you to schedule at least
one time slot every week, ideally every day to work
on this protect this time like you would with
any other commitments, something that you would
put in your calendar, in your diary, like
an appointment. And over time, you may end
up with two or three of the scheduled blocks for
different times of the week. And eventually they will
either be dropped and replaced with new
ones or they become your primary or regular
activity which may turn into your genius and your niche as a part-time thing. I want to leave you with
this piece of kind of interesting commandment
that famous right and paint a Henry Miller
created in 1930 to work on one thing at
a time until finished. Start normal new books. Abnormal new material
to Black Spring. Don't be nervous, were
commonly joyously, recklessly on whatever
it is at hand. Work according to the program and not according to the mood, stopped at that point in time. When you can create, you can work Samantha
little every day. Rather than add new fertilizers. Keep humans, see
people go places, drink if you feel like it. Don't be a drought, drought. Horse work with pleasure only. Discard the program
when you feel like it, but go back to it next day. Concentrate, narrow
down, exclude, forget the books
you want to write. Think only of the
book you are writing, right first and always
painting, music, friends, cinema, all
this come afterwards. I hope this perspective
to help you in some way to motivate the fine focus to the schedule most
creative side road projects in your life that are
so, so important.
9. Exercise 8: Define Your North Star: So when I take my
clients through a strategic brand process
from my branding clients, what I tend to do
is steal all of the findings and
insights that we've learned about the brand values, the Customer Insights,
the competitor analysis, and the brand personality, a package and still
it all into a, what I call a
positioning statement. That positioning statement
is something I tell my clients will become
that Northstar, it will guide their future
branding activities because it represents
who they are, who they want to serve, and where they want to go. Similarly, what I'd
like you to do now is the next exercise and
the final exercise needs to think about all of the previous seven exercises we've completed before and kind of put it all together into this positioning
statement that will guide your decisions
in the future. So I've provided
the hand the page in the workbook
called in summary, this is where you can kind of summarize all of your
key findings from the previous seven exercises on one page for one handy guide. Once you've done that,
I want you to go to Exercise number eight and craft your
positioning statement. So this positioning
statement is not necessarily what you will tell people when asked
you what you do. It's more like an internal
piece that can guide your decision-making process
and Skype communications. It can acute decide
which projects or job opportunities you
may want to consider or take and also what type of clients you may
want to work with. So I'll get it. Some people
might find this really hard to come up with something
succinct and meaningful enough. Writing is hard and not
everyone is a writer. So if that's you, I
totally get it and I've got you in seventh
position statement. You can think about the
previous seven exercises as a kind of overarching idea. And based on that,
create an artifact, a piece of art project of some
kind that represents that. And that will become
your north star. So every time you have a key created decision
to make in the future, you will refer to that artifact or piece of art to kind of guide your decisions because
you will think about what it
represents for you. So something that communicates you and your value
as a creative. If you do decide to have a go
at the position statement, I want you to use
a loose formula, but keep in mind that it's a very loose formula
just to give you some indication of what kind of things
they can include. Statement. Essentially, it should
summarize and have the essence of all of the previous
exercises as a whole. So I create maybe ten, maybe 15 different versions when I do this for
my branding clients. And we look at the
best versions that communicate the
right message and feel and sit with us the best. So I recommend you do the same, tried to create as many different options
in versions as you like and see which ones
it's less than a few. You can even share some
of those pigs with us in the class project or send
them to your friends who know you well and ask
them to comment on the different versions of those statements to
see which resonates. Most of them in terms of representing who you are
based on them knowing you. Taking a look at
Exercise number eight, a ruse formula that
I've listed them. And I want you to create one to three sentence statement that distills that essence. Couple of options
in examples that upgraded with some of my
students in the past. I'll read them out to you. However, there are obviously
more design-related and brand strategy
strategists related because that's who
I tend to coach. But if you don't work in the creative industry or
you're not a designer, you can definitely tailor it and adjust it to what you do, do. One of the example
statements here is, I work with busy entrepreneurs
who are ready to launch their product-based
businesses with a bang. I'm not just a designer, I'm an analytical side. Some might say nerdy thinker, because I'm surprisingly good
at spotting early trends. And no doubt on tailoring marketing messages and visuals
based on analytical data. Base place to help entrepreneurs
to share the vision, connect the audience,
and convert them in to loyal
fans and followers. So the formula we're using is, of course, I worked
with kinfolk. So this is the people
that you resonate with, the people that you
feel most connected to in one of the
previous exercises. You then you have
to tell how and who will benefit from that
based on your know-how, your current skill set
and you'll know how. Then you might list what
type of services and service providers that
you work with or as ends. How are you different based on the things you are good at? So unlike other
service providers, I can provide x. And then you might
add something that other friends describe you
as or how the preferences. So in this example, we just looked at they're surprisingly good at
spotting trends and no doubt been talking about marketing messages
that might list your what your friends describing or your obscure
interests that you've listed. Then you have to finalize
that as some kind of a key outcome for
who you're serving. Let's finish with something
like because I can help too. And then you would insert the change or the
outcome you can deliver based on those common themes and learnings from your insights, from the one thing
exercise that you've kept learning and reviewing
every second week. Here's another example
for statement. I help stay at home. Mothers like me to earn
passive income on the side. Unlike other cultures, I've tried and tested over a
dozen health niches myself, my friends call me Rachel
Branson because of my many failed and successful businesses,
business launches. Those lessons helped me to
become the cold chyme today, enabling me to spot and exploit the most obscure passive
income opportunities. So here are a couple of examples for writing your
position statement. And you can see that there is, the Lewis formula is always, there were always talking about Kuwait helping the kinfolk
that we're connecting with, how they can benefit from us. How we're different to others that might do
something similar. What are some
obscure interests or what particular passions or skills and what we're good at, and what our insights from
learning about ourselves. So we kind of packaging it all into one or two or
three sentences. And during that out often. So thinking about positioning
statement, again, once you've written a couple of versions for your statement, you kinda pick fruit, the one that fits best with you and things to remember
about this is don't be afraid that this is something that's going to
lock you in into this. No one wants statements forever. It's something
that can certainly change and evolve over time. And I actually encourage
you to review it, maybe quarterly and see if it's still relevant to
you if you need if you feel like in your digestion
because he continuously going to be learning more about
yourself over time. So certainly it's something
that can change and something that can evolve. However, keep in mind
that having a piece of artifacts or statement like this piece of art
that you create. If you're not
writing a statement, something like this can
be your North star and can be referenced to actually
guide your decisions, which hopefully
will be easier than going through for life
with no direction at all.
10. Final Thoughts and Class Project: Thank you for sticking
with me on this journey. But I can tell you
that you're churning, it doesn't end there. I have made this class is
practical and actionable as possible as I can possibly make it. And I hope you find it. So however, nothing
will happen if you just fill out the worksheet
and let it sit there? You actually have to go through the motions and
keep an eye open, keep yourself open to new experiences and
reflect on exercises. Ultimately, you have
to listen to your gut. So fraught my contents. I often use analogies to
bring the point across, and especially food analogies. So it goes another one. The answers in the workbook are basically just ingredients. There is the
potential to combine those ingredients into something that's creative and tasty, tasty dish if you like. But you still need to find that creative and
effective weight to combine it altogether. And that's not something
I can help you to do. That. Something unique to yourself. I can't help to guide
you through above that doesn't exist yet
because there is no path. As often with these things, there is no path to follow
and kill you, walk it. So I'll repeat that
again as it's important. There is no path to
follow until you walk in. Just think about
that for a moment. So I do want to end this video with one last thing as
per the previous videos. One of the things
that you need to continuously fuel is something
that helps you grow. Something that might
challenge you, something that might be
a little bit exciting, but some something that ultimately recharges
you and helps you to find new opportunities
and new energy and passion. And for me that's traveling, I find that that really
helps me to open up new additional perspectives
and energizes me. For you. It might
be travel as well. And I do highly recommend
that you try if you haven't. Of course, for traveling, you need money tends
to be expensive. So here's one thing
for this video. For every single paycheck, wherever it may come from, immediately transfer
at least ten per cent of it of every single
paycheck and funds that comes in through bank into a not to be touched and under any
other circumstances, count, this is going to be your savings account
that's going to fuel your annual trip
somewhere new to experience. If if travel is not your thing, it will fuel something
else for you. So that's it for this class. I do hope that
you've enjoyed it. And this class is intended
to be a seasonal class, something that you returned
to perhaps quarterly, to review your answers, to go through the videos again, to learn new insights
about yourself, and to share those insights
with us in the class project. And I do encourage you to update your class projects with new information as
you learn about it, because it's exciting to hear
how you evolve and grow. But if you don't return to the
videos, at the very least, I do recommend that
you referred to the workbook that you've
completed every three months. Review your answers, reflect
on them at something new. And it's kind of use that time for self-reflection,
self-awareness to, to kinda see where you wave Cao Pi over two and what
you've learned about yourself. So I hope you take care
of yourself and remember, the world needs your creativity and you do have the
power to ignite it.
Ilya Lobanov, Creating brands that make impact
