Discovering your Unique Ability (http://uniqueability.com/) and spending time honing and developing your Unique Ability will set you up for a lifetime of personal and professional success.  At the core of your being are characteristics and values entirely unique to you.  Discovering your Unique Ability gives you freedom and purpose.  Purpose is one of the pillars of happiness and a long life.

What is Unique Ability and how is it connected to your success?

Unique Ability, by definition, is the essence of what you love to do and do best. It is your own set of natural talents and the passion that fuels you to contribute in the ways that most motivate you. When articulated, it describes the “you” that makes you who you are.

By strengthening the areas where we have the possibility of achieving extraordinary results, it allows us the greatest opportunity for success. It also gives us the freedom to determine our most satisfying path in life.

• Superior skill. You produce outstanding results with this talent. It’s so natural to you, you can’t help but do this amazingly well. Others notice this skill, rely on it, and value it.
• Passion. You love to do this, and probably did it in some form long before you got paid for it.
• Energy. Using your Unique Ability gives you a boost of energy. The people around you get energy from you too, because it’s fun and exciting to be around someone who’s both passionate about and talented at what they’re doing. Likewise, when you surround yourself with other Unique Abilities, your days are filled with positivity, dynamism, and creativity.  Working outside your Unique Ability is a serious energy drainer.
• Never-ending improvement. You’re already exceptional at this, yet you could do it for the rest of your life and always find new ways to get better.

The development of your Unique Ability will never cost you anything; and in fact, it saves you money, it makes you money, and it saves you time.  It is everything aligned with who you truly are.  When you aren’t living in your Unique Ability, life is hard.  When you’re mentally doing something that’s out of alignment who you are, it drains the life out of you. It takes enormous amounts of energy to live incongruently with who you are. On the other hand, when you’re living in your Unique Ability, you become more excited and more confident, and you’re happier and much more productive. You create value for others and for yourself. You create win-win situations.  Figure out where your energy comes from and how it’s sustained. Within that is your Unique Ability. When you live from that place, you’ll not only make a lot more money doing what you love, you’ll have a sense of satisfaction about every part of your work and life.

Start listening to your strengths.  Focusing on your Unique Ability—again, that unique, superior skill combined with passion that every individual possesses—is more important now than ever with the rapid technological changes impacting our world. From the perspective of Unique Ability, the future is full of opportunity and there’s a sense of simplicity because you’re clear about the right path.  Imagine an organization that’s designed to bring out the very best of the unique talents, skills, and energy of everyone involved. This results-oriented company promotes inspirational ideas, has measurable goals, and encourages self-motivation and teamwork. Does this sound intriguing to you? Having this kind of team-oriented business is key to building a Self-Managing Company. Team members have a shared vision of future goals and are proactive in their contribution to the success of the company. The owner is then freed up to focus on creating ideas and taking the risks that build and grow a business exponentially.  The best way to build a Self-Managing Company of your own is to identify everyone’s Unique Ability and use this as a basis for redesigning people’s roles and responsibilities.  When you create a Unique Ability culture, you create a powerful team environment.

When you connect your unique talents and abilities with a passionate vision you will become unstoppable.

“If you spend your life strengthening your weaknesses, at the end of your life you will have a lot of strong weaknesses.” – Dan Sullivan

Stephany Cohen, Assistant Controller