Find Your Thing. Whittington Lucy

your own Thing.

      You're looking straight past it

      Because your Thing is on the end of your nose, it means you look straight past it every day… your Thing is so ‘there’ it's not there. You overlook it, stare right past it and just get on with what needs doing. You look past what you do brilliantly. Everything that's automatic and natural for you is actually your Thing… but you don't see its value, you just do it.

      But surely that's just common sense? Sure it is. It's common sense to you because it's your Thing… But your common sense isn't someone else's common sense. So it's actually uncommon sense. Am I making sense? Keep reading and all will be revealed. Thing finding this way…

      How to use this book

      If you're a fast reader like me you might want to race through this book in one go, and please do (after all, I want you to read it!). But I also encourage you to pause and ponder while you do. You will never find your Thing by looking ‘really hard’ for it; instead, it shows up in the spaces you leave. So however you need to create space, do it – take a break, look out of the window for a few minutes or write a few notes while you have a cup of tea, whatever works for you.

      The book takes you through a process, so the order does make a difference. Of course you can skip to the chapter that takes your fancy, but the ideas build up as you read through so bear that in mind… And while it's been written in order, this isn't one of those ‘and here's another exercise you must do now – fill in the blanks before you go on to the next step’ books. They annoy me, as I just want to read on and find out what's next! But that's not to say I don't suggest you do some of the exercises, or work some ideas through, just do them when you want to.

      I've left a few pages at the back of the book if you need to scribble down thoughts and ideas (although I'd prefer you did that in pencil as I'm one of those ‘don't bend the spine, books are sacred’ kind of people!).

And of course if you're reading this on a Kindle, you can just stare at those blank pages and meditate! Take your time, enjoy and let your Thing show up in the spaces.

      PART ONE

      FINDING YOUR THING

      Chapter 1

      WHY FIND YOUR THING?

      I could answer with ‘why not?’ Do you want to always just do what you’re good at or would you like to do what you’re brilliant at instead? That’s the difference between doing your Thing and not. Would you like easy work or hard work? Would you like to leave a legacy or just leave? Doing your Thing is about sharing your gift – and you can take that in a ‘talent’ or ‘life purpose’ way or you can merely think about it as the type of gift that you wrap and present to someone. If you were able to give the perfect gift to someone – maybe it’s an answer, or an idea, a different way of thinking, a product that solves a problem or just an angle that works better – what would you give? You have something that will be the perfect ‘gift’ for someone else but chances are you’ve not wrapped it up and handed it over yet. And just as a side note, I’d be charging for this gift not giving it away.

      Here’s my Thing

      It’s going to make sense for me to tell you a bit about me and my Thing so you can see how it works and relate it back to where you are. Now I’ll be honest, there was a time when I thought my Thing would be more ‘Kylie’ or ‘Kate Moss’ than it ended up being. Clearly I am neither an international pop star nor a world-famous supermodel; it turns out my Thing is something else.

      I’ve always loved business and the way it ‘works’. My first degree was in Economics (joint honours with Politics for my sins!), so clearly this was never going to lead me to international pop stardom. That said, it’s clearly not led me to being Chancellor of the Exchequer either. I’ve also, in the pursuit of thinking my Thing lay in qualifications, got an MBA too. Like I said I love business, but this extra 3-year studying stint was perhaps taking things too far. Oh and then there’s the MCIM too (Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing). Yes it’s true, I was a letters-after-my-name collector for a time, which is actually all part of looking for my Thing with hindsight, because I figured when I got that perfect qualification I’d feel I’d got ‘there’.

      If you already run your own business I’m sure you’ll agree that the best way to learn about business is to have one. There’s only so far ‘theory’ can take you, the rest you need to work out as you go along ‘for real’. The irony of course is that I worked in marketing for most of the time I had a ‘proper job’ but you only really ‘get’ marketing when you have to sell yourself. Ha, if only I’d known…

      So I worked my way up from Marketing Assistant to Marketing Director, taking in small start-ups and international plcs along the way, and ‘found’ myself an ‘expert’ in business software marketing. Has this happened to you? Expertise ‘finds’ you even though you maybe didn’t choose it – just because you hang around long enough doing something. Now business software marketing might sound a little bit exciting but when I spell out that actually I was marketing accounting and payroll software I am sure any ideas you have of excitement will soon disappear (don’t worry, I’m used to it!).

      So, while I maybe hadn’t chosen this ‘Thing’, I still saw it as valuable and when I started my own business in 2005 I carried on doing what I was known for. Yes I did the lazy thing – I did my old ‘job’ as a consultant and worked in the business software industry doing marketing. Hardly the ‘big leap’ into the unknown as a risk-taking entrepreneur, instead I merely went independent. That said, I got paid more, I was in charge of my own time and if I wanted to I could work in my pyjamas

. This was me being an ‘Independent Professional’ but not an ‘Indie Professional’. It’s easy to mistake doing a thing for your Thing thing. But you’ll know if it isn’t your Thing, as it just won’t sit perfectly with you. I knew I was just doing something to get paid.