As a result of the Cog Economy, one of the biggest problems we face today, (even among top-level CEO’s) is the lack of personal awareness.
On the one hand, it's easy to taken your greatest gifts for granted, because they come so naturally to you. But more tragically, you may have ignored your unique strengths in order to fit into a generic mold of ‘success’. In either case, it is all too easy to overlook, or undervalue, the very things that make you stand out.
That’s why the first step to making a difference is taking careful inventory of the tools you’ve been given to make that difference - your personal assets.
Your Personality: shapes tone, voice and style of your work, and it serves as a vehicle for you to connect with your ideal community, and the world.
Who Gives a Crap uses their combination of playfulness, irreverence, and toilet humor to tackle the problem of water sanitation and unnecessary deaths by diarrhea.
Your Talents: point to the unique product you are made to create or service you are equipped to provide to the people you are positioned to serve.
Riders for Health turned their love of motorcycle racing into transportation systems for the deliver of health care in seven countries across sub-Saharan Aftica.
Your Experiences: will point to the people you’re meant to serve, and the problem you’re called to solve.
Jamira Burley turned the tragedy of her brother's murdered into an antiviolence program, reducing the rate of violence by 30% and attracting state funding for the program’s implementation at ten high schools in the city.
Your combination of your personality, talents, and experiences, are as unique as your fingerprint. And it's your responsibility to translate your assets into something that can add value to others.
There is not another you, there never was another you, and there never will be another you. So your work can’t be replaced, and your life won’t be repeated. You are here, at this moment in history, to use your gifts in the service of others, to reach, and to teach a segment of people in a way that only you can. Your gifts weren’t meant to be wasted.And you’ll make your greatest contribution when what you do is aligned with who you are.
Your contribution, the one you want to make, the one you were born to make, that’s what we’re waiting for. So take this time to take a methodical inventory of your assets. Because when you stop trying to squeeze into a mold you were never designed to fit into, and focus on being true to your own strengths, you'll start to become who you actually are, and do what you're actually made to do. And that’s what the world needs more than ever.
"A genius is the one most like himself." -Thelonious Monk