Daniel Borschel explains how to pick three words that describe your best self and repeat them daily to clarify who you are and who you're becoming. He shares how a reminder prompted a career-changing meeting and recounts a conversation with Oprah about the practice.
As you develop yourself, as you choose your three words as an example, you choose your identity, and you live into those words on a more consistent basis, you'll be more in touch with your natural and best being. And from my work, I found if people find a way to access their best self on a more continuous basis just by reminding themselves of who they really are, they feel more confident and more purposeful and fulfilled. When people have clarity about their future and clarity about their purpose, it tends to come in different categories here. Okay, so let me give you some of those categories. First is yourself. I know that sounds like no duh, Brennan, but no, this is yourself in terms of your identity. This is yourself in terms of who you are becoming, and this is your self in terms of your self worth. Okay, I'll cover those three elements here in a second. Self in regards to your identity, who am I? Self in terms of who you are becoming, who do I believe I am meant to become or do I desire to become? And self in terms of self worth, am I worthy? These questions make you either feel connected as a purposeful being, or they make you feel terrible. And so let's explore them. Your identity. I always ask this in my seminars. If you've never done this work with me, it's from one of my other books called the Charge. And the charge being like the amp, like the battery pack, like, you know, the subtitle was activating the 10 human drives that make you feel alive. Book is called the Charge. And one of the things I started asking people to do in high performance work was to share with me, to generate and share with me, what are the three words that would define the best of who you are today? Like, if you had to describe yourself, like, let's say you went on speed dating and you sat down across from someone and the question was, okay, share the three best parts of you. And with using one word, describe that. Now it's kind of like that, right? It's like, what's the three like? If I had to describe the best of who I am in three words, what would my three words be? What are your three words? Like, what are your three words that that is the best of who you are, or if you struggle with that, the three words that would describe the best of who you want to be. I want to make sure that you have your three words. And I want your three words on a board, or I want the three words on your mirror, or I want the three words next to your computer. And every day you look at those three words and say, today, I'm going to be this. At midday, am I being this? At the end of the day, was I. That we need to develop a purposeful sense of being and remind ourselves of it. Would you like a tool to do that? Shocking. In growth day, you can go to the plan section and you can set reminders for yourself. So if you are a crazy person of growth day like me, I go into the plan section, I have typed my three words, I set a reminder, and I have my three words go off in my growth day notifications three times a day. And so I just. I get a ping. I look at it. I'm like, right, okay, be that Brandon. I always joke that one time I was about to kind of go pitch an idea to somebody who I really admired, and right before I went in the meeting, my phone went off, and I had set an alarm in my phone. This was before growth day. I used to just set alarms on my phone. Now I just use growth day for reminders. But I said it, and it went off. And one of my words at the time was bold. And the truth was, I don't think I was that bold, but I was trying to become more bold. And I know it was in me, and I know it was the best of me, but it took a lot of courage to summon, like, boldness, like, take a big action or ask for a big thing. It happened right? This thing. The. The reminder went off right before I went in this meeting. And in the meeting, people started talking about this big new idea. And usually I would just kind of sit there and listen and take notes. And I heard them, and I heard the enthusiasm, and I loved what they were talking about. And I literally put my hand on the table, and it kind of made a thump. And I said, hey, all right, I'd love to quarterback that. What do you think? That's all I said, I'd love to quarterback that. What do you think? Everybody kind of looked around the table. One person said, you'd like to do that? I said I would. They said, go for it. And I got, like, a dream project. If I hadn't got that reminder to be bold right before the meeting, I don't think I would have ever done that. And that became a very critical, changing moment in my life in terms of my career. And so I shared that with you because there's a sense of purpose that comes into our life when we are being who we know we should be at our best levels. But just like you need a fulfillment habit, you need to remind our Habit about yourself. Because who gets down on yourself sometime? Sometimes the words you say about yourself are terrible and you're on repeat on terrible words. I want you to have positive words and I want you to be able to repeat about those. It might take some time. I didn't even believe my three words for the first year I did this activity. But then I had the blessing one time of sitting down with Oprah on her porch in Maui. And it was like I just taught her and her team about change management. And we were doing this big program together about your next bold move. And I had taught about these three words. And so I asked Oprah's three words, and I'll keep that private to her. But what's amazing is when she said them, I heard them. I'm like, yep, yep and yep. They are all totally true descriptions of who she was because she lived in integrity with that intention of who she wanted to be. It was just like so obvious. And so the beauty there is as you develop yourself, as you choose your three words as an example, you choose your identity and you live into those words on a more consistent basis. You'll be more in touch with with your natural and best being. And from my work, I found if people find a way to access their best self on a more continuous basis just by reminding themselves of who they really are, they feel more confident and more purposeful and fulfilled. Game changing. Now, we also talked about the idea that your identity is about who you are and who you are becoming. So these three words are very profound. The best of who you are. Then I would love for you to think about this conversation about self worth. If you view yourself as a terrible or tragic or awful person, it's super hard to feel purposeful in life. And sometimes the only thing that you got to do is pull away the old labels and activate that more purposeful being each day. That's what I meant by taking those negative words off repeat. And sometimes you need therapy for that. Sometimes you need a coach for that. Sometimes you just need to start an affirmation practice to start reconditioning your brain towards the positive, towards who you really are and what you're capable of. Because sometimes you discount yourself so much. But all you have to do, like the woman I shared with you, is allow yourself again to step into more purposeful state of being. It will change everything. And the good news is it's just a choice. Sa.
