Discover your brand in 21 questions

In order to do for others what you would wish they would do for you, and love your neighbor as yourself, you need to do for yourself what you would wish others would do for themselves and love yourself as you would wish others would love themselves.

Love starts with knowing, and knowing starts with asking, and asking starts with being curious.

Discovering your brand is a useful way to discover your strengths and weaknesses, what you love and what you hate, so you can find out how you can make your way in the world doing what you love and being an inspiration to others while doing your share in solving problems in the world and helping to bring paradise.

Thus finding your brand is a wonderful way to bring the spiritual into the practical and lead a harmonious life where you can make a living doing what you love, and love living, and help make the world a better place.

Your brand is a way to package your gifts in a way that they are recognizable for others and you can use them to serve others, and at the same time attract wealth by the value you bring to others.

Finding your brand is a fun and productive way to soul search.

Your brand is very personal. Your business should look like you, sound like you and its values should align with your values.

The ABC of branding is: Your brand should be:

A. Authentic to you, have your DNA.

B. Built to last, subliminale, solid, something people can trust. It should have consistency.

C. Created to support you in having a significant impact on the world. And that is not about numbers, it is about fairness, truth, love and health.

The 5 pillars of a legacy brand can be described in the acronym LASER:

L. LegacyWhat do you want to build that will outlast you? Why does the business exist? What is your story? Why does it matter? Why you?

A. Brand archetypes Secret Sauce. They tell a story and they are a short cut to meaning. What is your brand archetype? Find out by answering the questions below.

S.Your Story. Wherever you go, you take your story with you. What is your story? Find out by answering the questions below.

E. Expression, everyone looks for that look and feel of the brand. What is the ook and feel of your brand?

R. Results: A business and a brand should not live independently. One should not exist without the other. They should work together. How do your business and brand work together?

Discover your brand in 21 questions, which you can fill in in your very own Brand Chart (Click the link to upload and fill it in).

4 questions to discover your purpose,

4 questions to discover your ikigai and

12 questions to discover your archetype

And a bonus question where you describe your brand in 3 words.

1. What do you love? That reveals a gift that’s in you.

2. What do you hate? That’s what you were born to fix.

3.What makes you cry? That’s what you heal best.

4.What annoys you? That’s what you are best at solving.

Ikigai: basically means that you plan your activities at the intersection between what you love, your mission, what you are good at, your passion, your profession, your vocation, what you think the world needs and what you can get paid for.

What are you good at?

What do you love?

What do you think the world needs?

What can you be paid for?

Profession: What are you good at that you can get paid for?

Passion:What are you good at that you love?

Mission: What do you love that you think the world needs?

Vocation: What do you think the world needs that you can get paid for?

Ikigai: What do you love that you are good at and can get paid for that you think the world needs?

Or: What service or product that does not exist but which you wish existed can you provide?

Michel Neray says:

-What you do is your product. What do you do?

-How you do what you do is your brand. How do you do what you do?

-Why you do what you do how you do it is your story. Why do you do what you do how you do it?

Archetype:

Look for the 3 archetypes that suit you best.

Read them all, put down “yes” under the ones that are you, “no” under the ones that are not you and “a little “ under the ones that are kind of you.

Highlight the yes’s in yellow: with underneath number 1 for the top, 2 for the middle, 3. for the least.

Highlight orange for a little.

Red letters for “no”

The Innocent

Motto:

Free to be you and me

Core desire:

To experience paradise

Goal: To be happy

Greatest fear: To be punished for doing something bad or wrong

+Strategy: To do things right

Weakness: Boring for all their naive innocence

Talent: Faith and optimism

The Innocent is also known as: Muse, traditionalist, naive, mystic, saint, romantic, dreamer.

Everyman

Motto: All men and women are created equal

Core Desire: Connecting with others

Goal: To belong

Greatest fear: To be left out or to stand out from the crowd

Strategy: Develop ordinary solid virtues, be down to earth, the common touch

Weakness: Losing one’s own self in an effort to blend in or for the sake of superficial relationships Talent: Realism, empathy, lack of pretense

Everyman is also known as: The regular guy/gal, the orphan, the good old boy, everyman, the realist, the working stiff, the solid citizen, the good neighbor, the silent majority.

The Hero

Motto: Where there’s a will, there’s a way

Core desire: To prove one’s worth through courageous acts

Goal: Expert mastery in a way that improves the world

Greatest fear: Weakness, vulnerability, being a “chicken”

Strategy: To be as strong and competent as possible

Weakness: Arrogance, always needing another battle to fight

Talent: Competence and courage

The Hero is also known as: The warrior, crusader, rescuer, superhero, the soldier, dragon slayer, the winner and the team player.

The Caregiver

Motto: Love your neighbor as yourself

Core desire: To protect and care for others

Goal: To help others

Greatest fear: Selfishness and ingratitude

Strategy: Doing things for others

Weakness: Martyrdom and being exploited

Talent: Compassion, generosity

The Caregiver is also known as: The saint, altruist, parent, helper, support

The Explorer

Motto: Don’t fence me in

Core desire: The freedom to find out who you are through exploring the world

Goal: To experience a better, more authentic, more fulfilling life

Biggest fear: Getting trapped, conformity, and inner emptiness

Strategy: Journey, seeking out and experiencing new things, escape from boredom

Weakness: Aimless wandering, becoming a misfit

Talent: Autonomy, ambition, being true to one’s own soul

The explorer is also known as: The seeker, wanderer, adventurer, individualist, pilgrim.

The Rebel

Motto: Rules are made to be broken

Core desire: Revenge or revolution

Goal: To overturn what isn’t working

Greatest fear: To be powerless or ineffectual

Strategy: Disrupt, destroy, or shock

Weakness: Crossing over to the dark side, crime

Talent: Outrageousness, radical freedom

The Rebel is also known as: The Outlaw, revolutionary, the villain, wild man/woman, misfit.

The Lover

Motto: You’re the only one

Core desire: Intimacy and experience

Goal: Being in a relationship with the people, work and surroundings they love

Greatest fear: Being alone, a wallflower, unwanted, unloved

Strategy: To become more and more physically and emotionally attractive

Weakness: Outward-directed desire to please others at risk of losing own Identity

Talent: Passion, gratitude, appreciation, and commitment

The Lover is also known as: The partner, friend, intimate, enthusiast, sensualist, spouse, Teambuilder.

The Creator

Motto: If you can imagine it, it can be done

Core desire: To create things of enduring value

Goal: To realize a vision

Greatest fear: Mediocre vision or execution

Strategy: Develop artistic control and skill

Task: To create culture, express own vision

Weakness: Perfectionism, bad solutions

Talent: Creativity and imagination

The Creator is also known as: The artist, inventor, innovator, musician, writer or dreamer.

The Jester

Motto: You only live once

Core desire: To live in the moment with full enjoyment

Goal: To have a great time and lighten up the world

Greatest fear: Being bored or boring others

Strategy: Play, make jokes, be funny

Weakness: Frivolity, wasting time

Talent: Joy

The Jester is also known as: Provocateur, trickster, entertainer, practical joker or comedian.

The Sage

Motto: The truth will set you free

Core desire: To find the truth.

Goal: To use intelligence and analysis to understand the world.

Biggest fear: Being duped, misled; ignorance.

Strategy: Seeking out information and knowledge; self-reflection and understanding thought processes.

Weakness: Can study details forever and never act.

Talent: Wisdom, intelligence.

The Sage is also known as: The expert, scholar, detective, advisor, thinker, philosopher, academic, researcher, planner, professional, mentor, teacher, contemplative.

The Magician

Motto: I make things happen.

Core desire: Understanding the fundamental laws of the universe

Goal: To make dreams come true

Greatest fear: Unintended negative consequences

Strategy: Develop a vision and live by it

Weakness: Becoming manipulative

Talent: Finding win-win solutions

The Magician is also known as: The visionary, alchemist, catalyst, inventor, charismatic leader, shaman, healer, medicine man.

The Ruler

Motto: Power isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

Core desire: Control

Goal: Create a prosperous, successful family or community

Strategy: Exercise power

Greatest fear: Chaos, being overthrown

Weakness: Being authoritarian, unable to delegate

Talent: Responsibility, leadership

The Ruler is also known as: The boss, leader, aristocrat, king, queen, politician, role model, manager or administrator.

See how your archetypes fit in the archetype wheel and what their colours are:

Blue:Creator (Innovation) , Ruler(Content) , Caregiver(Service): Provide structure to the world.

Green: Innocent(Safety) , Sage (Understanding) , Explorer (Freedom) : Yearn for Paradise.

Yellow: Rebel (Liberation), Magician (Power), Hero (Mastery): Leave a mark on the world.

Red: Lover (intimacy), Jester (Enjoyment), Everyman (Belonging) : Connect with others.

Some use other colours:

3 words to describe your brand:

Fill this Brand Chart in and come back to it now and then to see how your answers evolve or change, or maybe stay the same.

Begin with the end in mind, end with the beginning in mind, and always think, what is the best step to take next, and take that with the following step in mind.

Service plus Significance equals Success.

-Oprah Winfrey

Doing what you love is not only important for your success, it also helps your body make the happiness proteins, which are very important for your health.

It’s the sweet spot of being self aware but not selfish, so you can serve more, and serve better,with more happiness and effect, and thus with more satisfaction.

Combine that with an oxytocin promoting work environment and you are all set for a health and happiness promoting way o life.

Listen to professor Paul Zak’s explanation how to achieve that:

The Moral Molecule | Paul Zak | Talks at Google, March 24, 2015