Unique Ability

Hello everyone. This is Wayne Rivers at The Family Business Institute. Thanks for tuning in as always. This is your last
chance. Quick reminder. This is your last chance to sign up for the fall Contractor Business Boot Camp. October 15th is the
date. For your young high potential rising leaders in your company, by all means, get them signed up. There's just a little
bit of time left. Thank you.

This week, I want to talk about Unique Ability. This is a Dan Sullivan, you've heard me refer to Dan Sullivan many times in
the box, Dan Sullivan concept. To me it is his top concept of all time. In fact, there's a book about it. Unique Ability: Creating
the Life You Want written by Catherine Nomura, N-O-M-U-R-A that you can get on Amazon. It is a terrific book. It's an easy
read, but it is life-changing in terms of how it describes unique ability and the journey for finding, discovering what your
unique ability is.

Okay. Let's talk about why is that even important? Why should we talk about unique ability? Well, because it's all about
impact and most leaders in construction companies or any other businesses for that matter are pulled in too many
different directions every day. They don't focus enough to get the most out of themselves and then to get the most out
of their people and their companies. Unique ability's all about impact ultimately.

Let's define it first. Dan Sullivan says unique ability is the essence of what you love to do and what you do best. It's
characterized by four things. It's an ability that is so rich in you, that other people notice it and value it. The second thing.
You're passionate about doing your unique ability activities, and you want to do them as much as you can. You enjoy
utilizing these abilities. The third thing. Utilizing your unique abilities energizes you and energizes the other people around
you. Instead of sucking the life out of you that so many business activities do. This, using your unique abilities, energizes
you, and you want to do more of it. The fourth thing is you love it so much that you sense that while you're very good at
it, there's always ways to be better. You're passionate about developing your unique ability and it doesn't seem like work
to you. We don't give ourselves enough credit for having these unique abilities because frankly, they come easy to us.

Going back a long time. I remember we had a college English assignment. We had to go in class. We had to write a short
story in the 50 minutes of allotted class time or something. I was able to, I always got A's in English. I was good at English.
And so I was able to do it in like 30 minutes. If you were done, you walked out of class and I was done and I got an A on it,
ultimately of course, in this girl under her breath says, "Must be nice. Must be nice to be able to knock this out so quickly."
Well, I was kind of embarrassed and I felt kind of guilty because I was able to leave early, but it came so easy. Writing
came so easy to me that it just didn't seem like a unique ability. Here we are, all these years later, four books later and all
these blogs and everything, it's, it's clearly a part of my unique ability. You have the same opportunity to discover yours.

Dan Sullivan said something that's so genius. He said, "In business life, we don't suffer from a lack of opportunity. We
suffer from too much opportunity." You have an opportunity to be pulled in a thousand different directions every business
day, if you'll let that happen. Focusing on your unique ability is an antidote to that. So key to focus on your unique ability
activities, that's going to get more out of you, get more out of your company, inspire more of your people, et cetera, et
cetera. I only want to do four things. I mean, I still do other things of course, but I know I'm only good at and want to do
four things. Business development, writing, speaking, and hiring people. Those are the ways that I can make the most
impact at FBI. There's a handful of ways that you can make the biggest impact in your company. If you focus on just that
tiny handful of things. The unique ability process is really simple. It's kind of fun. Actually.

I read it a number of years ago. It's a great book. I encourage you to buy it. In our program, we offer four things in our
peer group program. We say we're going to help our contractors make more money in less of their time with fewer
headaches and a higher quality of life. I think ultimately if you boil down the benefits of focusing on your unique ability
and unique ability activities, I think ultimately those four things will find their ways into your life too. More money and
less of your time, fewer headaches and a higher quality of life. That's what we're all looking for. This is a key to getting it
done. I'd love to have your comments. What other books have impacted you?

This is Wayne Rivers at The Family Business Institute. Thank you.