Have you discovered what you were born to do? Do you believe that you have a unique destiny that you were put on Earth to fulfill? In his latest book, One Big Thing – Discovering What You Were Born to Do, Phil Cooke offers numerous insights and encouragements on how you can stop being average at so many things in your life and start becoming extraordinary at one big thing.

Cooke suggests that discovering your one big thing comes at the intersection of two questions: (1) What am I supposed to do with my life?, and (2) In a hyper-competitive, cluttered, and distracted world, how do I get noticed?

To help you discover what you’re supposed to do with your life, Cooke encourages you to engage in an honest self-evaluation by answering these four questions:

1. What comes easy for you? We often discount our natural strengths when looking for our one big thing, when many times our greatest skills and passions are right under our own nose.
2. What do you love? You’re probably familiar with the old saying, “Find a job you love to do and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Cooke subscribes to the same line of thinking and encourages you to determine what you’re passionate about doing and then find a way to get someone to pay you to do it.
3. What drives you crazy? This could be something that’s broken that you want to fix, something that’s working that you want to improve, or it could be something that breaks your heart and compels you to action. Sometimes the things that make us the most crazy is also what ignites our passions.
4. What do you want to leave behind? All of us will leave a legacy. The question is, what kind of legacy will you leave? How do you want to be remembered? Answering this question can help you determine the answer of how you want to live your life.

Once discovering your life’s purpose, Cooke believes you have to distinguish yourself from the crowd in order to get noticed. Not surprisingly, given his expertise in media production and branding, Cooke advocates that living your one big thing is your personal brand. He makes a solid case for having an authentic personal brand when he says, “Too many people think that developing or influencing their own brand is about becoming something they aren’t, when it’s really about discovering what they truly are.” Keeping in line with his belief in the value of self-awareness, Cooke writes, “Ultimately, a significant part of being different is being honest about who you are and how you’re perceived.”

I don’t think Cooke breaks any significant new ground in the One Big Thing, but I think he offers wise counsel and helpful guidance for seekers on the journey of discovering their life’s purpose, particularly the four questions listed above. My biggest take-away from the book was the affirmation that for the vast majority of us, discovering our one big thing is a life-long journey that usually finds its fulfillment in living our lives in authentic harmony with our most important and treasured values.