Unique Ability: Creating the Life You Want [Paperback]

Catherine Nomura (Author), Julia Waller (Author), Shannon Waller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2003

You have inside you an incredible force called Unique Ability. It's a combination of your personal talents, passions, and skills. You've always had this ability, but you may never have stopped to clearly identify it. Few people do. When you begin to figure out this important foundation of who you are, you'll understand what you do best in life, what you love doing most, and what makes the most difference for the most people. You'll also be able to focus on doing more of what works in your life and stay away from what doesn't work. This book offers a simple and powerful approach to creating a life that works, a life that you love, because it comes from who you truly are and what you're all about. This book contains a complete process that will help you identify your Unique Ability, then immediately put it to work in your life.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are."
- Joseph Campbell

What would life be like if you could focus on doing what you’re best at and love to do most?

For over twenty years, The Strategic Coach has helped successful entrepreneurs in its programs balance their work and personal lives while also achieving unprecedented results. A core concept of these programs is that every person has a talent they love to use that translates into activities they do exceptionally well — a Unique Ability — and that using this Unique Ability is the surest route to a happy, meaningful, and successful life.

Like everyone, you too have a Unique Ability. When you know this key piece of information about yourself, you’ll not only find it easier to see what you should be doing, things will really start to "click" — because when you act on your Unique Ability, it works.

This book will help you:
- Understand the philosophy of "Unique Ability."
- Define your own Unique Ability.
- Learn how to free yourself up so you can apply your Unique Ability in everyday life.
- Determine how you can have the greatest impact on the world around you.

About the Author

Catherine Nomura joined The Strategic Coach in 1998 with a masters degree in development studies, an MBA in entrepreneurship, and a passion for promoting entrepreneurial thinking as a way for people to take control of their futures. A member of the company's core strategic leadership team, Catherine envisions and guides the creation of new products, strategic relationships, and forms of communication to spread Strategic Coach wisdom to new audiences. Julia Waller, a teacher with a masters degree in international education, joined the Strategic Coach team in 1997. A key leader in the company, Julia is one of the main designers of workshop programs, tools, and systems. Her passion for Unique Ability led to the development of The Unique Ability Discovery Process featured in this book. She has worked with numerous team members and entrepreneurs to identify their Unique Abilities.

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: The Strategic Coach Inc. (December 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1896635628
• ISBN-13: 978-1896635620
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #152,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Views from my CEO Blog., April 10, 2006

By 

Jim Estill (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unique Ability: Creating the Life You Want (Paperback)

Unique Ability

That is the title of the book I am working on right now. Great book by Catherine Nomura and Julia Waller. I say working on because I have already read the book but is one of those books that you have to do the exercises to get the value.

The theory is "the more you know yourself, the more you can spend time in your unique ability area and the happier, more productive and the more value you can add". I like the theory and believe in it.

The exercise is to ask the people that know me well to give me their input on what they think my unique talents, abilities and characteristics are and to use these to synthesize a unique ability statement about myself.

I have to say the responses I have had are humbling. I really need to live up to a lot to live up to what people think of me.

This book hits me at the right time. Since I sold to SYNNEX and changed roles from running the smaller company to the larger one, I often find myself in areas that are not my strengths.

My challenge is to figure out how best to add value while at the same time fitting within the SYNNEX culture or where appropriate to help mould the culture into a better one. The biggest challenge I face is moulding corporate culture but that could be a topic of a full blog itself.

Unique ability is a theory developed and perfected by Dan Sullivan of www.strategiccoach.com. Dan has developed a great consulting company based a lot on this principle. I like a lot about what Dan teaches but have a conflict with one of his ideas - to take lots of time off. One of my unique abilities is boundless energy and high work ethic and taking time off conflicts with the work ethic part. Also my success and industry demands high availability.

I have actually found the people at strategic coach to be rude. They do not return emails for example. I think this is a result of their work ethic. They do not see common courtesy as one of their top priorities so they do not do it. I listed this book as one of my top books in a Forbes article. This is huge and would help them sell a lot of books. I sent them a note telling them this and did not even get the courtesy of a thank you email.

This said, true maturity is the ability to filter. Do not reject what you can learn just because you disagree with one point.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn about Yourself through this Book, May 20, 2007

By 

Lover of Truth "Jason" (Saratoga Springs, UT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unique Ability: Creating the Life You Want (Paperback)

Unique Ability talks about the importance of living what you know the best, not dwelling on what you do not know. Guides and activities help make this user-friendly and the format is easy to understand. It truly makes you think, "Yeah, I do do that better than anyone I know." It helps you to focus on what you do great and how to accomplish more with less energy wasted on other less important things which take away your time and abilities.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Change your life!, March 2, 2005

By 

Dylan (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unique Ability: Creating the Life You Want (Paperback)

People always give you the advice to go find whatever it is you love to do and find a way to get paid for it. This sounds great of course, but how to turn this into reality? This book will open your mind to a whole new range of possibilities and give you the courage to align your lifestyle and career with who you truly are. Great book, but I found myself wanting more examples of true life stories. The authors, however, do give you some excellent suggestions of further reading to satisfy your hunger for more.