What do you take for granted, that you can do freakishly well?
One of my superpowers is reading ridiculously fast.
I’ve challenged myself to read 100 books this year and currently reading number 55 (Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology - so good).
I’m proud of that fact and I’m loving the challenge but I never mention it if people ask what I’ve been up to. I don’t post pictures of my books or do Amazon reviews. It’s just something I like doing.
In the same way we often we take what we do everyday for granted, it’s easy to take your knowledge for granted too.
You’d be surprised to know how unique your perspective is.
You forget that other people don’t know what you know. You forget that others might value that expertise or find it useful.
That’s why I love to dig into our clients’ brilliant brains and reflect their genius back to them.
They are often surprised to realise how unusual their blend of experience, approach and perspective is.
But it’s precisely this unique recipe that influences how you do what you do and why.
In other words, the recipe that can make your business stand out in the sea of sameness.
Here are a few of my favourite epiphany-inducing questions for business leaders and teams:
- What did you want to be when you grew up?
- How does that relate to what you do now or how you run your business?
- Is there anything else you just feel born to do? Or that comes unusually easy to you?
- What would you do even if no-one paid you to do it?
- Did a teacher ever change your life? How?
- What are famous for among your close friends and family?
- If you could do a PhD for free, what would you study?
- If you were given £5,000 to solve any problem. What would you choose?
No-one on Earth will answer these questions the way you have, or the way your team does.
You may take these things for granted but they are part of what make you perfect for wrangling the kind of problems you enjoy wrangling.
(My freakish speed reading is certainly handy for immersing myself in unfamiliar businesses.)
So… I’d be curious to know what your super powers are? Or those things you do freakishly well that you might have been taking for granted?
(photo credit: Chris Hopkins)
