One of my favorite all time movies is ‘City Slickers” with Billy Crystal. Have you seen it?  It’s a story about a guy who is hitting middle age and has lost his zest for life.

So Crystal heads off on a cattle drive across the American Midwest to find his purpose, and in this one wonderful scene, he is riding along side a weathered old cowhand typecast perfectly by Jack Palance.
With a cigarette dangling from the left side of a parched mouth and in a voice raked over gravel, Palance begins this memorable exchange.

“Do you know what the secret to life is?” Palance asks.

Crystal who, up to this point, had not been able to get more than a grunt or a spit from the old curmudgeon responds quickly with –

“No, what?”

Palance then holds up an index finger and utters one word.

“This.”

“Your finger?” asks Crystal being a smart ass.

Nonplussed, Palance pauses and says  – “One thing’.

Another Pause.  “Just one thing.”

Still holding up his finger, the old cowboy adds —

“You stick to that one thing and the rest don’t mean shit.”

Crystal now aware that he is being given a nugget of lifelong wisdom, however brief, asks–

“That’s great, but what’s the one thing?”

Palance delivering the pivotal line in the movie replies weighing heavily on every word  –

“That’s what you gotta figure out.”

I agree wholeheartedly.  Simple but so powerful.  The key to awaken your personal brand is to figure out your ONE THING. Have I got you thinking?

(Next time: I will tell you how I started to figure out my “ONE THING”.)