Finding your "-ness": One man's quest for Burtness

Some of you might have seen that OpenAI just released a video about how I use ChatGPT in my healthcare. I haven't been too shy about sharing it!

A concept they really latched onto, was the concept of "Burtness". My definition of Burtness is:

Burtness is a state of mind. It's the concept of how much like myself I am feeling. I think I am generally happy, have lots of energy, talk a lot, get excited by things, love helping other people, am curious, am creative and try to be as engaged and as authentic as possible. I like to learn and to experience.

So in this post (which is quite filled with my ego), I am going to dive more into the concept. I am going to share some of my thoughts, and hopefully, offer some ideas of how to figure out your own "-ness".

First, my Burtness non-negotiables.

Burtness — non-negotiables

• Burtness is how much I feel like myself, even when I’m not at my best.

• It’s a state of mind and a state of being — not how I’m perceived.

• The norm is my norm — and it’s mine alone.

• I look for different paths and angles because normal is boring.

• I don’t optimize for approval. My growth lives outside my comfort zone.

• When I help others, I feel most like myself.

• Burtness is how much I feel like myself, even when life knocks me around.

I am unique, as we all are. We all care about different things. Get excited by different things. Have our own hopes and dreams. And, a vision of how we view who we are, and what we can be. That's our "-ness".

I do score myself everyday on my Burtness scale, from 0-10, where 0 is more like myself than I have ever felt, and 10 is I feel like the polar opposite of myself (my next project might be trying to define my opposite, that could be fun!). Luckily, I have never hit a 10 and I am generally in the 3-4 area.

So how do I achieve my Burtness scores? Well, I focus a lot on what I care about and use those things as filters. For example:

• I love helping people so that wins over anything except friends or family (yes, they are people do, but a different category of people for the purposes of this article)

• I love adventuring, so I plan adventures in my future. Both the planning and the experiencing elevate burtness (don't read into the lower case "b", I just got lazy).

• Movement makes me feel better. So I try to move. I can do better, but I am trying

• I don't take on challenges that need incremental change, I take on challenges that need revolutionary or evolutionary change

• If something isn't working for me, I try to get rid of it or to not do it.

• I don't do a lot that I can't learn from

• I truly believe that great things don't come from comfort zones, so I push. Sometimes too much, but I'd rather pull myself back, than have to push myself forward.

• As chumbawomba said best, when I get knocked down, I get up again.

So, if you want to figure out your own "-ness", what would I suggest? Well, for starters, you know yourself better than anyone. Only you can figure out what it means to feel like you. That being said, here are some thoughts:

• Describe yourself. What 3 words would you use? How are they different that what other's words would be?

• Figure out what's important to you. I have 4 guiding principles for myself (don't forget, I am a marketing guy) that I use to focus on, and make decisions about, where I spend my time and energy:

  1. Heal myself

  2. Better support my friends and family (they have their own things to deal with, not just me)

  3. Help others heal

  4. Help others that help others heal

• Define your non-negotiables. What things are core to who you are? How do those work in the world we live in? What makes you happy and engaged?

Start paying attention once you have the above to how you are feeling. Do you feel like you are living your guiding principles and non-negotiables? I make decisions on where to spend my time and who I spend it with based on both guiding principles and non-negotiables. I've lost some "friends" but built some better friendships because of it.

It's a lot to think about. Therapy helps, writing helps (for sure) walking and thinking without music (or whatever works best for you) helps too. Whatever you do to spend time with yourself and to think about who you are. You definitely have your "-ness" inside you. I hope you can start to recognize it and put it into a feeling. It's been a huge help to me!

I hope this post didn't sound too egotistical or preachy. It's just what's going on inside my little pea brain. And if I didn't write it, would I be living up to my Burtness? ;)