September | 2012 |

The message of Labor Day should dominate our work and our lives all year long. I relish ideas about work that relates living in alignment with our life’s purpose. This week I am reading“The Laws of Lifetime Growth, Always Make Your Future Bigger Than Your Past,”written by Dan Sullivan.

Sullivan is a business coach and a professional speaker from Canada. He is founder of the Strategic Coach, a company that teaches successful entrepreneurs to create balance in their professional and personal life while also producing extraordinary results and rewards through their business activities.

Sullivan says that everyone spends their time in four different areas: Incompetent, Competent, Excellence, and Unique Ability, and the most important is Unique Ability.

The guiding principle of Sullivan’s Strategic Coach company is that every person has a talent that they love to use that translates into activities that they do exceptionally well…a Unique Ability.

Sullivan’s company has published a book titled “Unique Ability: Creating the Life You Want,” written by Catherine Nomura, Julia Waller, and Shannon Waller.

In the book’s introduction Sullivan notes that each of us is born with a potential Unique Ability that has four characteristics:

1. a superior ability that other people notice and value;

2. we love doing it and want to do it as much as possible;

3. it is energizing both for us and others around us; and,

4. we keep getting better, never running out of possibilities for further improvement.

Sullivan states: “Imagine that from an early age, you had a growing clarity about what you were really great at in life — and that your whole life could be organized around the never-ending development of that ability. As this ability grows, so does your sense of confidence about how you can contribute best to a greater number of people. As a result of this growing contribution, you are constantly rewarded with increasing income, resources, and opportunities. This continually inspires and motivates you to develop your ability even more so that you can make an even greater contribution.”

Sullivan continues: “Now imagine being surrounded by dozens, hundreds, thousands, and millions of other individuals who are growing and contributing in the same fashion. Imagine the impact on the world in every sector of life. Imagine the creativity, innovation, improvements, and breakthroughs that this would introduce into every situation.”

Sullivan concludes: “Finally, imagine that all of this is entirely possible with the concept of Unique Ability. I know it is, because I am seeing it at work all around me in the lives of thousands of individuals.”

Sullivan’s journey to discover his Unique Ability was greatly accelerated by a powerful question posed to him by his wife and business partner, Babs Smith, at a point in my life when he had experienced tremendous failure in relationships and in finances.

In the book Sullivan explains: “‘Why are you doing that?’ she asked one day in reaction to seeing me, yet again, involve myself in some activity without success. ‘You haven’t been successful at business because you’re doing all this other stuff. Do what you’re really good at, and I’ll set up a structure that will handle the rest.’”

With his wife’s help in keeping him focused on his Unique Ability Sullivan has become one of the top coaches in the world, credited with transforming the lives of thousands of people.

Sullivan states: “The Unique Ability concept is easy to grasp, makes life immediately more enjoyable, contributes enormously to improved communication and cooperation, produces results in the world that keep getting better, and makes personal happiness a daily reality instead of a wish.”

So I ask you what is your Unique Ability and how can you use it to get excited about your work and then contribute your talents to others?

It is obvious that drawing upon our Unique Ability not only leads to a greater sense of success but a higher level of fulfillment.

In observing Labor Day recently I thought about how blessed I am to love the work associated with my communications career. While writing a book about reinvention I am evaluating my previously published articles and reviewing favorite books to create another draft of my manuscript titled “Risking It All For Reinvention.”

Currently I am re-reading two books “Brilliance, Unleash the Power of Your Authentic Core,” written by Amber Grady, and “Release Your Brilliance: The 4 Steps to Transforming Your Life and Revealing Your Genius to the World” by Simon T. Bailey. Grady calls herself a spiritual teacher and healer, and Bailey is well known as a motivational business speaker.

Both authors agree that the key to happiness is drawing upon our unique ability…discovering our innate brilliance and incorporating it in every aspect of our personal and professional lives. These experts have helped thousands of individuals get in touch with their core brilliance and in turn excel in their careers and enhance their lives.

Grady’s book attracted my attention because the back cover states: “Discover a new and empowered way of living. Create the brilliant life you’ve always wanted, a life that flows with an ease and serenity you never thought possible. The secret? Unlock the infinite power of your authentic core. You hold the key – now learn to use it.”

Before the book’s preface there is a penetrating poem by Sharon Serkin:

I once was held prisoner
and I was the guard.
I kept myself locked
in my own back yard.
Never did I know it,
but now I see
Always in my pocket
I held the key.

Grady says if you want to experience a brilliant life “you need to know something: you are not broken. You do not need to be ‘fixed.’ To live a happier, richer, more fulfilling life you simply need to rediscover, or uncover, the real you – your authentic core.”

Bailey’s book “Release Your Brilliance” and his programs show people how to transform their hidden genius into passion, purpose, and productivity. His goal is to help readers and audiences discover how to be brilliant in the New Normal, which involves constant reassessment and reinvention due to business uncertainty and economic turmoil.

Bailey says, “Just as a raw uncut diamond carries its brilliance below the surface; we all carry a spark of brilliance within us to create the destiny we want. All it takes to sparkle is knowing how to shine in the midst of change.”

I think Bailey’s most powerful quote is “Brilliance is released when you delete negative spam from your heart drive.” Anyone who uses e-mail knows how troublesome spam is, and I love the idea of eliminating unconstructive energy from our operating system. In fact, our minds and bodies can be compared to a computer in the sense that we allow energetic messages into our lives. We are the gatekeepers in terms of choosing whether we respond to energetic input either by computer, phone calls, personal visits, professional meetings, etc. and how we handle incoming information.

Each of us possess a unique talent that is the radiance at the heart of an exquisite jewel. Grady says this “incandescent light seems to emanate with brilliance from its every stunning feature. Each of us – without exception – has within us an equal center of brilliance, an authentic core.”

Somehow, even when we are totally surrounded by issues related to survival, we must take time each day to mine our gems, to do something we love to do regularly, even if not for pay, and discover our soul’s purpose. As we feed a burning desire to express our brilliance we unleash the power of our own inner glow that will eventually help us soar to greater heights.

Monthly Archives: September 2012

Honoring our “unique ability” leads to greater fulfillment

Unleash the power of your core brilliance