A friend of mine with whom I’m doing business coined an AWESOME term around the same time as we were discussing how to get my business, @Du4.llc, off the ground. I wanted to share that with you, O Faithful Consumers of AWESOME, and elucidate on the concept of Weaponizing Oneself.
Jon Iadonisi (or the more nefarious “Jonny I,” as I like to call him), with whom I’ve worked in a variety of irregular roles, once told me this:
“Du4, what you’ve got is unique, innovative and creative. The idea of Du4 is made up of all those things that people get access to when they ask you for your opinion on a white paper or your help ironing out a contract. You need to find a way to weaponize Du4: to take all those unique things do and put ‘em into a delivery mechanism that’ll get you PAID.”
I’ve never forgotten those words, and I’ve been thinking on them a lot since launching my own business. The idea of “weaponizing” oneself, I believe, emerges from an entrepreneurial spirit that galvanizes ones to capitalize on what’s most AWESOME about themselves.
Businesses or organizations may not want to hire you as a full time consultant, whether because of how much you cost or other reasons. But they still want what you got. So they’re willing to plop down something to take you out to the firing range, fire off a few shots, and see how you perform. They may want to buy a limited deployment of YOU and drop you into a project or business scenario to see what kind of damage your particular weaponized payload may deliver.
The bottom line is that you should start figuring out what it takes to weaponize yourself too. Find the unique mechanism that allows you to deliver AWESOME on the timeline and scale that YOU want. I can tell you this: it has been fuckin’ FUN figuring out how to deliver precision strikes of Du4 upon unsuspecting populations in Meagerville and Bullshitberg. No matter your trade, passion, or profession, I guarantee you’ll never regret it.
Here are a couple questions to ask yourself to help you pursue your own personal weaponization strategy:
- Who are you? Answer this question first. Really figure out who the hell you are and what you’re all about. Tyler Durden says you’re not your fuckin’ khakis. I say you’ve got some AWESOME in there somewhere.
- Who enables your AWESOME? Communities will always rise around subjects of interest. Who’s in your social circle that engages you about your passions? Find those people and spend more time with ‘em. Ask questions. They can help.
- Where do you want to go? Weapons have to be deployed, so identify the places you want to drop your Fuckbombs of AWESOME. Best thing I ever did was scrape together enough money to go to TWTRCON DC in 2009 and speak in the Open Mic Contest.
- What are you offering? When you launch your AWESOME Missile, you gotta have a payload already loaded. Is it consulting services? What kind? Are you writing papers, blog entries? Are you delivering physical items on Etsy? Figure it out.
One last piece of advice, at the risk of pissing off the gun control crowd: BE BOLD. Jonny I didn’t use the armaments metaphor to be cute… he did it to show me that I’M A FUCKING WEAPON OF AWESOME and MY BULLETS ARE LIFE CHANGERS. Weapons are loud and leave large swathes of damage, so don’t be afraid to kick over some enemy emplacements on your way to the arsenal. There will be a lot of naysayers and a TON of adversary fire coming at you. You’ll have to take a couple head shots and keep returning fire.
Only YOU knows how rad YOU are, and you’ve gotta make BIG SPLASHES sometimes to show people that your particular brand of machine gun rocks the house.
{Jonny I is only one-half the creative powerhouse of the White Canvas Group. I am also indebted to Tim Newberry for his guidance, mentorship, and partnership in the arts of creatively blowing your mind.}
