Question 1

What is a Personal Imprint℠ ?

Accepted Answer

It's a way to navigate work and life by knowing what shape you are rather than what box you fit in.

Question 2

Why do I need to know it? I've done fine without it so far.

Accepted Answer

If you're one of the few who has always known what your wanted to do and done exactly that, great! You don't need this. If you've bounced around jobs, roles and companies trying to find out what kind of work feels good for you, this is a better way.

Muscling through your jobs or coping through your career will sap your soul. On the other hand, choosing activities aligned with  your Personal Imprint℠ will provide you the most precious resource of all - energy.

Question 3

What exactly is my Personal Imprint℠? When was it formed? How does it work?

Accepted Answer

Your Personal Imprint℠ is four, sometimes five internal engines that fire up when you're doing work that is aligned with the way you are naturally shaped mentally, emotionally and neurologically. You have been shaped in a unique way, through a set of circumstances unique to you interacting with your natural personality. This combination of your natural tendencies and formative experiences have left you best suited for certain kinds of work.

You've had the experience of doing activities that fire you up and activities that de-energize you. Your Personal Imprint℠ explains why. Knowing this lets you navigate the world not by trying to muscle through it or tough it out, but by testing and detecting what kind of work energizes you and why, and doing more of that.

Your Personal Imprint℠ is your internal compass. It's a set of attributes, unique to you, that you can rely on lifelong to find activities the fire you up, whether in personal or professional spaces.  This matters even more as careers become shorter, disciplines morph and disappear in the face of super-intelligent technology.

Question 4

Why are there always four or five elements to my Personal Imprint℠?

Accepted Answer

Since the Personal Imprint℠ emerged as a whole from interrogating direct experience and not some intellectual framework, it's hard to say for sure, but the author has some educated observations as to why: the elements seem to be paired and interconnected.

For example, in the author's Personal Imprint℠, Precision & Complexity are paired. He will engage in activities that have a certain minimum level of precision. Rough, approximate activities and professions do not fire him up. Complexity is a counterpart since it offers the author headroom to learn and grow. Things have to have a minimum level of complexity to interest him.  Similarly Aesthetics and Making are paired. Making fires him up, and making things with aesthetics fires him up even more. These four elements are held together by the central element of Developing Human Potential, with the author first developing his own potential and then that of those around him.

In terms of a metaphor, if you are an airplane, four of the elements are your four engines and the fifth is the body of the airplane to which the engines attach, powering the whole person, moving him or her forward at great speed.

Question 5

What does my Personal Imprint℠ look like? What's your Personal Imprint℠ like?

Accepted Answer

It's elegantly simple. It's typically four to five attributes with an internal order between them. Each one of them is an engine of energy for you. All attributes work together. You can go through life firing on one engine, and sometimes you have to, but as you make choices that are aligned with your imprint, you can bring your full self and all your instincts online, feeling fully alive.

The author's own imprint looks like this:
- Precision 
- Complexity
- Making
- Aesthetics
- Maximizing Human Potential (for self and others)

Precision and Complexity play together. Making and Aesthetics play together. Maximizing Human Potential is the central backbone that organizes the other attributes. The author started with a career that activated precision and complexity, then moving to a career that activated making and much later a third career that activated aesthetics.  Maximizing human potential for self and others fires him up the most at the moment, with his other four engines online.

Question 6

When did you discover your Personal Imprint℠?

Accepted Answer

The author writes periodically on the psychological processes underpinning learning like curiosity, confidence and more.  In one article on the nature of purpose, he was reflecting on his own journey across 25 years of working and three distinct, successful careers. Specifically, he was inquiring into what were the drivers of the decisions to engage in one career or leave it for the next? What was the first career missing and what did the next one offer? His Personal Imprint℠ surfaced in the process of this exploration. He has since helped many others, starting with friends and family, discover and use their own Personal Imprint℠.

Question 7

Does my Personal Imprint℠ change over time?

Accepted Answer

No. Unlike your personality, and even your capabilities, which morph and flex over time, your Personal Imprint℠ seems to be the one thing that is formed early and remains stable throughout your lifetime. A good analogy is the structure of Earth. Your personality is the surface of the Earth and reshapes in response to the environment. You can start introverted and flex to ambiversion when needed. The mantle or middle layer of the Earth is your capabilities.  While not evolving as rapidly as the surface, it does move around over time. You may start with skills that favor precision and eventually add on skills that favor creative self-expression.

Your Personal Imprint℠ is like the core of our Earth. It's dense, connected, and flows together but does not change. It operates under the radar at all times, guiding your choices of activities from when you were very young. If you deeply enjoy a certain activity, it is likely because it forms an element of your imprint. If you find a particular activity de-energizing it is likely because you are going against an element of your imprint.

Naval Ravikant talks about looking back at things you did as a child that interested you, to figure out what you should work on. I believe it is the same underlying pattern we are both pointing to. This is important for the times we live in. If you anchor to your personality or skills, it can feel like you're out of sync and you need to either be someone you're not or develop skills that feel unnatural to you. Your Personal Imprint gives you an internal compass that guides you towards environments and skills you are likely to feel good doing and therefore get good at, if you keep at it.

Looking for your Next Thing?

What if there was a better way to find it?

One that starts with what's true about you.

And never changes throughout your life.

So you always know where you fit.

And never feel lost again.

Welcome to Your Personal Imprint.

SM

THE DOORWAY TO YOUR TRUE SELF

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