1: Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was working on his groundbreaking research on flow, the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.
Mihaly contacted Peter Drucker, the preeminent management thinker, to interview him regarding creativity.
Peter’s response struck a chord with Mihaly, so much so that he included it in his book:
“I am greatly honored and flattered by your kind letter of February 14th — for I have admired you and your work for many years, and I have learned much from it. But, my dear Professor Csikszentmihalyi, I am afraid I have to disappoint you. I could not possibly answer your questions. I am told I am creative — I don’t know what that means. . . I just keep on plodding. . . I hope that you will not think me presumptuous or rude if I say that one of the secrets of productivity (in which I believe whereas I do not believe in creativity) is to have a VERY BIG waste paper basket to take care of ALL invitations such as yours–productivity in my experience consists of NOT doing anything that helps the work of other people but to spend all on’e time on the work that Good Lord has fitted one to do, and to do well.”
Yesterday [hyperlink], we began an exploration of Dan Sullivan’s concept of “Unique Ability.” Peter’s letter speaks of its power and how we should think about our Unique Ability.
Our “Unique Ability is where we have superior skills,” Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy write in 10x Is Easier Than 2x, “where we’re completely intrinsically motivated and thus energized and engaged, and it’s also where we see never-ending possibility for improvement.”
2: Clarifying our Unique Ability begins with paying attention to what we like and dislike doing. Â
“The basis of Unique Ability is to continually be conscious of the activities and the settings we like and that energize us—and the things that don’t. This is where freedom starts,” Dan notes: “Our own judgments about our own experiences are 100 percent valid.”
Unique Ability is specific to each of us. “It never is a lot of different activities,” Dan suggests. “It’s only a few activities. People say, ‘Well, I have a Unique Ability in 10 different areas. And I say, ‘Well, that might be good for the next 90 days. But you’re going to notice at the end of 90 days that seven of those someone else could do. There’s just 2–3 that are really yours.'”
It also evolves. Dan writes: “I’ve been on this now for 25–30 years and it’s interesting that we think you’ve gotten to the end of it. But I find, because I’m always doing new things, that what I thought was my Unique Ability before I started taking on a bigger challenge and producing a bigger result, I can fine-tune it even more.”
The 80-20 rule tells us that 80 percent of our results come from 20 percent of our efforts.Â
Dan is the co-founder of The Strategic Coach, one of the world’s most successful coaching programs for entrepreneurs. When these business owners begin Dan’s program, they often find that “far less than 20 percent of their time is focused within their Unique Ability,” Dan and Ben write.
“Instead, they’re investing their time, energy, and focus all over the place,” they note. “They’re caught up in the 80 percent where they may be good or even excellent, but they’re not in their Unique Ability. As someone takes their Unique Ability seriously and shifts the majority of their time to developing it, 10x and non-linear jumps follow.”
Embracing our unique Ability begins by seeking to understand what makes us unique.
Yesterday, we looked at world-class skateboarder P-Rod. He “doesn’t just skateboard with an extreme degree of skill,” Dan and Ben write, “but also an extreme degree of uniqueness—which is actually a core component of mastery.”
We go “all-in” on what we can contribute.
Interestingly, when we value our own uniqueness, we also develop a heightened sense of the uniqueness of everyone else.
And vice versa. “The right people will immediately recognize and appreciate beyond what we can presently imagine,” they observe. “The more we commit to our Unique Ability—which is the 20 percent of a chosen 10x jump—the more our lives will transform.”
3: What’s required is “extreme commitment and courage,” Dan and Ben write. “Although Unique Ability may come ‘naturally’ to us, that is misleading. Committing to our Unique Ability is the hardest and most intense thing we will ever do.”
Doing so provides us with a sense of freedom.
We’re no longer “inhibited by what other people think. We’re not avoiding what we ultimately want to do. This is why things come easier for us when we’re in our Unique Ability than they come for other people. It’s not that things are ‘easy’ for us. It’s that we’re going all-in on what we most want to do, and because we’re all-in, we grow and transform at non-linear and exponential levels.”
How?
“We learn 10x faster than most people,” they write.
“We progress 10x faster than seems normal.
“We make leaps in our progression, skills, and results that are otherworldly.”
When we live with our Unique Ability, our work becomes play.
As we “follow our curiosity and interests, we become open to new potential and possibilities,” the authors note. “We reach outside and above our current skill level, which enables greater flow and higher performance. We’re continually elevating our standards within our domain, making them higher and, more nuanced and unique. No one else is competing with us. We’re in our own world of creativity and innovation. . .
“We’re continually letting our most exciting future dictate what we commit to, and we go all-in. We don’t become complacent and content with what we’ve done in the past. We don’t settle for 2x.”
In his book Mastery, Robert Greene writes: “The great Masters in history. . . they excel by their Ability to practice harder and move faster through the process, all of this stemming from the intensity of their desire to learn and from the deep connection they feel to their field of study.
“And at the core of this intensity of effort is in fact a quality that is genetic and inborn—not talent or brilliance, which is something that must be developed, but rather a deep and powerful inclination toward a particular subject. This inclination is a reflection of a person’s uniqueness.
“This uniqueness is not something merely poetic or philosophical—it is a scientific fact that genetically, every one of us is unique; our exact genetic makeup has never happened before or will never be repeated… With those who stand out by their later mastery, they experience this inclination more deeply and clearly than others. They experience it as an inner calling. It tends to dominate their thoughts and dreams. They find their way, by accident or sheer effort, to a career path in which this inclination can flourish. This intense conection and desire allows them to withstand the pain of the process–the self-doubts, the tedious hours of practice and study, the inevitable setbacks, the endless barbs from the envious.”
Going “all in” on our Unique Ability takes us down surprising and unexpected paths.
“Take for example, Michelangelo, who went from drawing human bodies to sculpting the 17-foot David to painting the Sistine Chapel to becoming the lead architect of the massive dome of St. Peter’s Cathedral,” Dan and Ben write. Â
“None of these 10x jumps were linear,” they note, “but each were completely intrinsic and intuitive to Michelangelo. Each 10x jump he made required him to renovate the foundation he’d built in his previous 10x cycles, often in a lateral or non-linear direction that only made sense when ‘connecting the dots backward.'”
As P-Rod expressed in his 20 and Forever interview: “The one saying that my dad told me when I was younger was, ‘What got you there will keep you there.’ He was trying to prove the point that just because you think we’ve made it, doesn’t mean it’s time to take it easy. It means it’s time to keep it going.”
Indeed.
“Our life’s objective is to develop mastery in and fully express our Unique Ability,” Dan and Ben conclude. “There’s nothing more important to master. There’s nothing more important to dedicate ourselves to. It’s our work. Our life’s work, and if we don’t do it, no one else will.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Have I ever articulated my “Unique Ability,” my radically unique way of doing what I do?
Action: To define my Unique Ability, work though the exercises in the Unique Ability 2.0 Discovery book.
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