You have inside you an incredible force called “Unique Ability.” It’s a combination of your personal talents, passions, and skills. You’ve always had this ability, but you may never have stopped to clearly identify it. Few people do.
When you begin to figure out this important foundation of who you are, you’ll understand what you do best in life, what you love doing most, and what makes the most difference for the most people. You’ll also be able to focus on doing more of what works in your life and stay away from what doesn’t work. This book offers a simple and powerful approach to creating a life that works, a life that you love, because it comes from who you truly are and what you’re all about.
This book contains a complete process that will help you identify your Unique Ability, then immediately put it to work in your life.
From the Foreword
In 1967, I came across a piece of two-thousand-year-old advice from the philosopher Socrates: Know thyself. The secret to happiness in life was to know yourself. I spent the next 20 years figuring out what that meant for me and came up with an answer that has been very useful for many other people as well. Unique Ability. Based on my own self-improvement and insights from thousands of other individuals, I was able to devise a very simple approach to human learning, growth, success, and satisfaction that seems to work for everyone who is willing to try it. 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. Here’s the basic idea:
Each of us is born with a potential Unique Ability that has four characteristics: First, it is a superior ability that other people notice and value; second, we love doing it and want to do it as much as possible; third, it is energizing both for us and others around us; and, fourth, we keep getting better, never running out of possibilities for further improvement.
Do some imagining with me. 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. 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. 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.
Everyone to whom I’ve described the four Unique Ability characteristics immediately understands what I’m talking about. They’ve had moments, experiences, whole days and weeks in their lives, where they remember operating in their Unique Ability. Some people call it being in “the zone.” Others describe it as “flow.” Or “on the beam.” For most people, these situations have been infrequent, but for a growing number of people, being in their Unique Ability has become a daily way of life, and the results are remarkable. They live with a sense of direction, confidence, and capability that most people would think of as a dream. They are truly people who know themselves in the way Socrates encouraged us all to do. This book describes how Unique Ability can become a conscious, systematic reality in your life.
…
Dan Sullivan
November 14, 2003
From the Foreword
In 1967, I came across a piece of two-thousand-year-old advice from the philosopher Socrates: Know thyself. The secret to happiness in life was to know yourself. I spent the next 20 years figuring out what that meant for me and came up with an answer that has been very useful for many other people as well. Unique Ability. Based on my own self-improvement and insights from thousands of other individuals, I was able to devise a very simple approach to human learning, growth, success, and satisfaction that seems to work for everyone who is willing to try it. 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. Here’s the basic idea:
Each of us is born with a potential Unique Ability that has four characteristics: First, it is a superior ability that other people notice and value; second, we love doing it and want to do it as much as possible; third, it is energizing both for us and others around us; and, fourth, we keep getting better, never running out of possibilities for further improvement.
Do some imagining with me. 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. 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. 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.
Everyone to whom I’ve described the four Unique Ability characteristics immediately understands what I’m talking about. They’ve had moments, experiences, whole days and weeks in their lives, where they remember operating in their Unique Ability. Some people call it being in “the zone.” Others describe it as “flow.” Or “on the beam.” For most people, these situations have been infrequent, but for a growing number of people, being in their Unique Ability has become a daily way of life, and the results are remarkable. They live with a sense of direction, confidence, and capability that most people would think of as a dream. They are truly people who know themselves in the way Socrates encouraged us all to do. This book describes how Unique Ability can become a conscious, systematic reality in your life.
…
Dan Sullivan
November 14, 2003
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