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.
Copyright © 2012, AlexSandra Lett