Knowing Yourself Is A Business Advantage
I was talking to a talented friend this week about Write To Know You. She was an early participant, and she recently brought me in to teach the process to her university students. In our conversation, she mentioned something that really resonated with me.
“Knowing yourself is a business advantage.”
Most of us have an inherent drive to elevate our position. Whether it's sparked by a competitive spirit or the defaults we mentioned last week, it’s also a part of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Why is self-actualization near the top of the pyramid? Is it just a summit that we spend our lives reaching toward? Let’s think about it as an on-going process that can unfold every day.
The first two layers make sense. If you are hungry, thirsty and fighting for survival, you aren’t likely to spend time journaling or in quiet moments of self reflection. Let’s assume for this thought experiment that we are fortunate enough to have food and shelter.
The art of knowing yourself is a life-long, intentional process that can provide a valuable return at all stages of our lives. Once you begin, it’s like having an internal feedback loop to process what you see and what you feel. Journaling is just a first step where you transform thoughts into objects, and those objects are your source code to apply in various ways. Don’t wait for the end of the journey to begin the important stuff.
So, why do we wait so long to give it a try?
The inertia default that we discussed last week is partially to blame. It can appear unclear how knowing yourself will help you be successful in the business world.
Wellness has become more of a priority for employers, and being rooted in a true understanding of yourself is the means to live well. Let me cast some ideas for consideration.
A shared writing experience (like Write To Know You) will:
1️⃣ Activate empathy - Empathy is the key to nearly all of our endeavors, whether personal or business-focused. Writing with other people and identifying themes together naturally brings empathy to the forefront.
2️⃣ Spark curiosity - Curiosity is a never ending fuel source. If your work is powered by your curiosity, the results for you and your employer will be game changing.
3️⃣ Improve decision making - When you are grounded in self-awareness, decisions become easier to make because you are confident in your process. One of my early outputs was a set of guiding principles that help me make decisions today.
4️⃣ Reveal your why - With an understanding of what really drives you (not what those defaults suggest), it becomes easier to identify intersections with your work. When you lean into those intersections, you’ll be able to create value for your employer and your customers, while feeling a tremendous sense of fulfillment.
