Estimated time: 30-60 minutes

Take a look at the last box from Exercise 2.

In fact, write down your list of favorites again:

• Add a dot to the left of the topic you think you’ll focus on first.
• Next, underline the topic you’re most passionate about.
• Finally, add an asterisk to the right of the topic you’re most comfortable calling yourself an expert on.

If your dot, underline, and asterisk all land on the same topic, you’ll do one deeper dive. One expansion.

But if you’re like most people, the markings won’t converge, so you’ll do this exercise for the topic you think you’ll focus on first, the topic you’re most passionate about, and the topic you’re most comfortable with your expertise.

The topic you think you’ll focus on first:

HOW Ideas. These all start with “how to.”

Set a timer for five minutes and get a bunch of your HOW ideas on the page.

WHAT Ideas. What is your topic? What are the various components of your topic?

Set a timer for five minutes and get a bunch of your WHAT ideas down.

WHY Ideas. Why is your topic important? Go deep here. Leave yourself space to not know exactly where you’re going. This is the basis of your philosophy, and it might not come easy.

Set a timer for ten minutes. This will be harder, so let yourself sit with this topic, and write down some of the WHY aspects of your topic.

Now, repeat this process for the next two topics.

The topic you’re most passionate about:

HOW Ideas. These all start with “how to.”

Set a timer for five minutes and get a bunch of your HOW ideas on the page.