Customer Reviews

Power of Uniqueness, The

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I am going to be brief. I have been through a number of job changes over a thirty year career so far. This is one of the top books in its class-- for job hunters and career changers!

Art Miller's book assumes you are created with uniquely motivated abilities that are written into you as your own internal job description.

Matching this internal job description with that of an employer is what enables you to get JOY out of your job by flowing in the areas of giftedness that you are motivated to use.

Imagine your motivated abilities as a water faucet. In a good job fit situation, you can turn on that faucet and let it flow. In a poor fit situation you have to keep it at a drip. Where will you be happiest? Where will your employer be happiest with your work?

This book, (or a number of consultants out there-- check the web) will show you how to assess your motivated abilities, using Art Millers SIMA profile, or "system for identifying motivated abilities". Art started working on this system in the early '60's. It has been around for a long time and a number of major corporations, and churches, non-profits, are using this system to find the right fit for the people they hire.

Take the job fit test at their web site for a taste at www.sima-pmi.com.

In The Power of Uniqueness: How to Become Who You Really Are, Arthur Miller addresses the subject of giftedness of individuals. He writes not only to Christians but also to anyone who is interested in learning more about their own pattern of giftedness, and particularly to those who are able to affect change - personal or structural - in the marketplace. Miller's principal assertion is that a person's pattern of giftedness "emerges in early childhood and remains fundamentally the same throughout life in its essential content, structure, and dynamics" (18).

He begins by asking the reader to reconsider the conventional way of evaluating people - looking at where they were educated, for how long, and what related experience they have - and invites us instead to evaluate them by looking at what a person likes to do and do well. By employing both case studies and lists of examples of various gifted patterns, he then invites the reader to rediscover their own giftedness, or motivational pattern. The author argues that by examining how a person does things and why they do them, individuals can "unlock [their] essence." Finally, Miller concludes with a plea to reorient life and society in light of these truths. In addition to encouraging the individual to pursue the life and career for which they are most suited, he suggests substantial changes on the institutional level - in work, education and religion - to rebuild a society that better enables life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all.

The Power of Uniqueness is provocative and informative. Aside from giving an informed view of how he believes a person's environment shapes giftedness, Miller's book succeeds both in delivering a refined method of evaluating giftedness and in empowering the reader to see themselves and others as individuals who have something unique to give. Miller's book truly engaged me to reconsider my preconceived notions of personal evaluation, rediscover what has been given to me, and reorient my own life and work accordingly.

The purpose of this book is to help you identify your uniqueness and build upon your discovery. He writes, "... you are the customized expression of a loving God." He describes the process of success as being ongoing and discusses how to maintain the momemtum. Discovering one's area of giftedness and building on that in a way that glorifies God is the essence of the book.

He devotes more discussion on specific ways of discovering one's giftedness and how to apply that knowledge to everyday life. The weakness of the book is the extreme to which he takes his argument. He sees dramatic shifts occurring in society to accomodate people's giftings. His proposals are far from practical. Sometimes one simply has to work outside one's giftedness tempoarily, e.g., when one is in college.

The first part of the book is the strongest. His insight is helpful in getting a better handle on how to live in a targeted, fulfilling manner.

The great myth of America is that you can be anything you want to be. And it's not a myth because of economic or social structures, but because God has not designed us to be anything we want to be. This book does an excellent job of emphasizing this fact and calling one to pursue not what others say we should but the specific design of our creator. That is why I believe the old subtitle is a better description of the book's thesis and frankly more provocative for a culture that has bought into the American myth.

I believe we are all unique and should be working in a job or profession which allows us to use our talents and motivations to tap into our life purpose and live out a fulfilled and happy life--while making a difference in the world. this book takes a unique approach into giving us a framework for uncovering our talents and motivations, the place where we can be the most productive. this book is very powerful for me as it takes a spiritual approach to this process while keeping us grounded in reality--our own life history/experience and what we can learn from it. we can use the process outlined in this book to tap into that deep place inside each of us. some call it intuition. some call it that all knowing voice which reveals our truth, our calling which can enable us to live a more fulfilled and satisfying life, while contributing our gifts to the world. it doesn't get any better than that. I strongly recommend this book as the foundation to the process of finding satisfying, fulfilling, energizing work and living out your unique life purpose. I consider this book a must read for all business owners and CEOs who want fully engaged, energized, creative employees resulting in increased growth and profitability through dramatically increased productivity and dramatically less turnover. I consider this book a must read for anyone seeking meaning, fulfillment, and success in their life, regardless of how you define success.

I found this book so extremely boring; droning on and on, chapter after chapter, about the importance of finding one's uniqueness, but never actually getting to the method. There was no structure to the chapters, just more and more of the same, on and on, with no end in sight and no clear method at all of putting anything together. If you want to read meaningless stories of other's so called achievements and then use them as a guide to yourself then good luck. I didn't find that process at all helpful. There was a lot of God talk, probably filler. How someone can write so much and say so little is amazing to me; maybe that's the author's particular talent. The subtitle is "How to become who you really are" but it could have read "How to be more confused than you really are." I certainly wasn't enlightened by reading this book and would say look elsewhere for guidance. I definitely recommend "The Hero Within" as a much better source of self understaning. I also recommend "Seven Kinds of Smart." I wouldn't recommend this book at all.