©2014-2020, Dancing Star International; all rights reserved.

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Why Your Uniqueness Matters –

To Your Business, and To Your Life

What makes you unique? That thing you do that no one else does, that you notice or understand intuitively that baffles others?

How fully, on a scale of 1 to 10, do you bring that uniqueness into the work you do?

Do you see the things that make you different from others as a strength yet?

On the lawn of the courthouse in the county seat of Northampton, Massachusetts, there's a plaque that has always struck me. It memorializes a young man in his late 20s or early 30s. This young man was a "maintenance technician". Which probably means he cleaned floors and toilets. Not the sort of person typically honored with a plaque.

I’ve always wondered what made this young man, working in a humble job, so unique that people chose to honor him in this way after his death?

And I’m curious: what is there in you that impacts others similarly?

How might knowing this impact your business – the work you do in the world – today?

Why Be Unique?

We live in a crowded world.

It can be tempting to want to hide in the crowd, to be one of the masses, to keep our heads down and play safe. And yet it is that which is unique about each of us – the parts we’re uncomfortable with as well as the parts we welcome – that is the contribution only we can make.

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Without us, that voice will not be heard, that contribution will not be made.

Our uniqueness is also what gives us an edge in business, whether we are part of a large organization or running our own company. When we are fully expressing ourselves, no one can do what we do, the way we do it. Think of Richard Branson, Anne Mulcahy, Tony Hsieh, Steve Jobs, Indra Nooyi, Jack Welch, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates. Each a very different person, with very different business practices and approaches. They succeeded in because of the ways in which they were different from other people around them; because of the perspective and voice they alone bring to their work. Not by trying to be like everyone else.

What is unique about us is also a key strategy for standing out in a crowd, what I call our unassailable competitive advantage. Yes, it can be scary to be visible, to let ourselves be fully seen – and therefore vulnerable – in the world. Other people don’t always understand; sometimes they can say cruel or thoughtless things that hurt. And yet, it also hurts to have to hide – to be unable to express ourselves fully. Hiding can leave us feeling frustrated, stuck, all stuffed up, blocked, dis-eased...

A Case Study

I had a client once, educated at top schools, on track to become a partner in his company. He came to me because he nonetheless lacked self-confidence and was thinking about quitting his job. He was pretty miserable.

It turned out his boss was a bit of a bully; not just to him, but to others in the company. Once he realized that others were being hurt like he was, he was able to initiate conversations that brought the issue out on the table and reduced the negativity this boss was spreading in the company.

Then we did a 360˚ review of his peers. The feedback he got was that he tended to be much more “touchy-feely”, or “right-brained” than many others in this largely “left-brained” environment. He also got the feedback that most of his peers wanted more of this, because his was the only voice bringing these ideas and concepts into these collegial conversations. They said that without his voice (he was one of only 2 or 3 in the whole company of perhaps 40 people bringing this perspective) a vital part of the conversation was missing.

My client’s lack of self-confidence had been coming from a nagging suspicion that he was different – in ways he’d not articulated to himself much less anyone else. I’d call this his uniqueness; when he explored further, he came to see that in fact that uniqueness was highly valued by his peers.

Whether you are a right-brained engineer in a left-brained company; a bulimic “people’s princess” able to shine a compassionate light on the poorest and most broken among us; the son of a tribal chieftain angry enough to take on the government of your country and in the process raise awareness worldwide of the problem of

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racially-based disenfranchisement; a CEO who donates a pair of shoes for every pair he sells … these are people – each of them unique, each very different from the other – who have been a force for good on our planet from a place well outside the mainstream. With all their imperfections, they have each contributed their unique voice to help address a challenge that we are facing in our world today. They have each achieved something important in their businesses and in their lives.

How would it feel for you to do the same?

How To Find Your Uniqueness?

It is to help business people understand their own uniqueness that I created the teleseminar Your Uniqueness Is Your Business. Why business people? Because business has a huge impact on the world we live in. I assert that it was people wanting to do business – in places like Russia, China, Berlin, India – that ended the Cold War; opened up China; brought down the Berlin Wall; is fueling India’s growth. Yet how many business people consider the responsibility that gives us for shaping the world we live in?

I believe we each carry that responsibility, and that understanding ourselves more fully is an important part of the way we can best discharge it.

I also focus on business people because I found, somewhat to my surprise, that my practical, results-oriented nature makes me good at business. And I enjoy helping people become more successful.

My goal is to help other business people understand the ways in which they are unique, so they can bring more of themself into the work that they do. I know from experience this

helps us to stand out and feel fulfilled internally at the same time. When we do this, it is impossible for anyone else to compete with us, because no one is just like us. It also allows us to be our whole selves. It is my belief that the more we bring all of ourselves into our work in the world, the more we will be happier, healthier, more

©2014-2020, Dancing Star International; all rights reserved.

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whole, and more congruent business people – which will make the world a better place for all of us.

Business has such a huge impact on the world in which we live today…business is the new community. That makes this work pretty important, I think.

If all this resonates with you, here are some next steps you might consider:

1. The Your Uniqueness Is Your Business Teleseminar I created the teleseminar out of my own career change experience in my mid-40s. This is an in-depth, 10-module course in a small group format. For details, go to www.DancingStar/YourUniquenessIsYourBusiness. 2. The Your Uniqueness Is Your Business On-line Course The self-study version of the teleseminar, where you can go at your own pace, with or without a group. Again, details at www.DancingStar/YourUniquenessIsYourBusiness. 3. 1:1 Executive Coaching If you have a major transition toward which you want to work in a focused way, then let’s explore whether we’d be a fit for working together.

And do, please, let me know if you’d like to join my mailing list; I typically send out two emails per month or less. Who I Am I work internationally – both 1:1 and with groups – as a thinking partner to business leaders. I help them achieve goals, resolve overwhelm, and most of all, see what makes them unique, and how best to leverage those differences in the work they do. Through my company, Dancing Star International, I provide executive coaching, consulting, and facilitation services to successful business leaders, executives, and owners who have realized that something is missing in their lives and work, who are in a time of transition, or who need to develop stronger, more productive teams. I have helped solopreneurs triple their revenue, change markets, and reach profitability; leaders to successfully navigate challenges; owners to grow existing businesses and create new ones. However, I take the most pride in the fact that I have helped individuals achieve career and life changes that have brought them not only more money and more time, but also more self-awareness, more self-expression, and therefore more satisfaction and engagement with themselves and their lives.