Unique Ability & Zest Barometer

Welcome everyone, it is Tuesday, October 3rd. This is our, uh, coaching call for the Catalyst Club community. Uh, we have a Catalyst Club member here, Penny, uh, and, um, but we did not have any forms come in with a, a specific challenge or, um, situation to unpack. So I, I'm going to use this, this call, at least the beginning of which, before I, I go to Penny to see if she has anything to unpack, I'm going to go over something that I started to share on the Monday on Purpose call yesterday that a lot of people have asked for more information about. And so what this is, is this is, this is going to be a framework for thinking about how to step into and stay in your zone of genius, that the work that you love to do more often. And how to use something of mine that I call the Zespirometer to kind of be checking in with yourself and course correcting if you find yourself feeling a little dissonance about whether or not you're actually, you know, stepping, sharing from your superpower in any given moment of your day, doing the work that you do, making the difference that only you can make. So The first part is these are 4 lenses that I got from Dan Sullivan. He is a pretty famous, pretty famous in the coaching world. He has a program called, or platform called Strategic Coach. I've never visited that platform, but I've read a bunch of his books and I really like his stuff. He works often with co-author Benjamin Hardy, and some of you have heard me talk about Benjamin and his work. Dan has this, this thing that he calls unique ability. And if you are familiar with my work, unique ability in Dan's language would be that skill or superpower that really lights you up and energizes you, you know, when you're doing that work. And in my language, I would say unique ability could be defined as the difference only you can make, that unique set of talents and experiences and skills and perspective that you bring to doing the work that you're meant to do or love to do, that, that work that makes you feel like you're living your legacy. You might think of it as purpose, passion, calling. A sacred duty, whatever you want to call it. It's doing the work that really lights you up and energizes you. That's at the center of the circle. Going out, there's excellence, competence, and incompetence. So we're always striving to be in our unique ability because that's where we're doing our best work. We have our biggest impact and we're doing work that fills us with a sense of fulfillment, meaning and purpose, uh, and gives us energy. Turns out that the other place that we can do that is in incompetence, because the thing about incompetence is you have no expectation that you're going to be good at this. Incompetence is when there's something that's worth exploring, you know you don't know anything about it, and so you can go in with an attitude of playfulness, experimentation, just fooling around with an idea or a skill. And there's no stress because there's no expectation that you're going to be good at it. The stress lies in excellence and competence. So excellence are those things that also kind of come natural to you, like your unique ability, the things that you're good at. Maybe they're talents that you have. Maybe they're skills that you've developed that align with your talents or your disposition. Your temperament and tolerances, but they exhaust you. It's not the work that you love to do. So excellence is, okay, I'm good at this, but just because you can doesn't mean you should because it's actually depleting and exhausting you. And then competence might— is a stage where maybe you've moved from incompetence to competence, and it's something that will serve your zone of genius, that unique ability. But it's, you're only good enough to do it pretty good when you're really thinking about it, when you're putting a lot of focus, attention, and energy into it. So it's stressful because, you know, it, it, there's a lot of effort and intellectual, intel, cognitive and physical effort going into it, focus, attention, and all that. And you know that you're not that good at it. So you've got all the narratives around, people judging you or you judging yourself about your level of competence in this thing. So unique ability is where we want to be doing the work that we love to do that fuels us, fills us with a sense of fulfillment, meaning, and where we can make the most impact. Excellence, stuff we're good at that maybe it would be better if we automated that or got someone else to do it. Competence, that place where we live between incompetence and unique ability, where it's something that might help augment our unique ability, but we're, we're not quite there yet. We haven't gotten to excellence or unique ability. And then incompetence, which might be things that we're just trying, or they might be skills that we know we need to learn, but we just haven't experienced much. Does that much make sense to you, Penny?

Yeah. Yes. I, I think that the big thing that I learned and I wonder about is these things don't happen overnight. And I think working with you to find a process and a way is, is so important.

Yeah. Well, I really appreciate that reflection because What I found is, and you, you've actually been part of this journey for me, is when I'm working with someone that's a freelancer or a coach, a solopreneur or a creative that has a business that is, you know, either just getting started, but they're really excited about, or something that they've been doing for a while, but it's just not— they're not able to make enough of a living at it to really justify all the time, energy, money that they've invested. If you just concentrate on, okay, here's someone that wants to get this result, I'm gonna help them get this result. Sometimes they get it because sometimes that result they want is putting them in their zone of genius and their unique ability and the difference only they can make. Sometimes they don't get it, and it can happen because of this, this other piece, which I call the zest barometer. So the zest barometer is something I coined that's a way of measuring, or, you know, when you notice that you are consistently feeling depleted, frustrated, impatient in a specific task or a specific, you know, part of your daily routine, you check your zespirometer by saying, huh, I noticed that this thing that I'm doing is not really fueling and fulfilling me. I'm feeling a little lost and depleted. Am I doing the wrong thing? Or am I doing the thing wrong? If you're doing the wrong thing, you need to figure that out so you can stop doing that thing. Because if you're putting a lot of energy, time, and effort, focus and attention to the wrong thing, you are getting further away from what you really want, which is to be playing your game all in, full out, on your terms, without compromise. If you're doing the thing wrong, which is, can be very frequently the thing. It may be that you're, you're, you're doing the thing that you should be doing, but you're not operating from that unique ability. You're in excellence or competence. And in which case you need to recognize that and figure out, okay, so how do I close the gap to have this augment my unique ability? Or how do I automate or outsource this thing that I really shouldn't be doing because it's taking me away from doing the work that, um, where I can really bring the most impact and value to the world. So here's the thing that relates to what you were saying, Penny, is by checking your zest barometer, one of the things that you're kind of also double checking is what you were talking about. Like, does it take time? Of course.. But most of us, most of the time, have a sense of or have been exposed to that unique ability, that gift, that distinction, that difference only we can make, purpose, passion, vocation, whatever you want to call it. We have an idea of what that is, and we actually possess everything we need to be doing more of that work. But what happens? Well, there's the distraction of social media and there's the exposure to all the gurus that are selling all these tools and tactics that give us dopamine hits because we think we just found the magic key or the secret formula or the, the magic roadmap. When actually all we're doing is is learning how to play someone else's game instead of playing our own game. Um, and so one of the ways to think about how do I get clearer about and closer to what that unique ability of mine is, is to check where you're spending all of your time, check where you're putting a lot of your focus and attention. If it's on trying to, you know, find the next guru or take the next course or watch the next instructional video or attend the next motivational seminar or join the next mastermind that's going to give you the love and encouragement and support and learning that you need, you're probably, probably actually adding things to your day that are taking you further away because the best way to to learn about the work that you're really meant to do is to do the work, do that work to the best, to the best of your understanding, to the best of your ability every single day. And to continue to pay attention. If you are operating closer to your unique ability or the difference only you can make, you will find yourself feeling still a sense of, you know, fulfillment and meaning and purpose and, and feel like, um, you're energized by that. And if you're feeling consistently depleted, you're probably doing the wrong thing or doing the thing wrong. And so it takes time to move from incompetence to competence through excellence and, and put something into augmenting your unique ability. But there's, you possess a unique ability right now, whoever you are, wherever you are. You just have to do some, you know, put, put in the reps, put in some time, do some pruning of all the things that you're doing that aren't really helping you and focus on those things that, that will put you into activities and conversations where you can be practicing these things that you suspect are going to be putting you into that zone of genius. I personally feel like, and this has been true for almost all of my clients, and Penny, I'm gonna pick on you as one of them. You know, Penny is someone that I've been working with for a number of years. She has consistently been on point with this idea of hers called mission-centered fundraising or renewable philanthropy. The idea that it's easier to get happy donors to give again to a cause that they believe in and feel like their donation is making an impact on the community than it is to treat those donors poorly and chase new and bigger donors. It makes sense because it just makes sense. She— if I'm— if it's okay, Penny, I mean, you have had some challenges bringing this brilliant idea, which is true because it's true, to fruition. And the things— the thing that we've worked on is the thing that I'm advocating. What Penny is doing right now, if you follow her on LinkedIn, is she is doing her work out loud and in public. She is engaging in conversations, you know, that are sharing her perspective, her experience, her knowledge, her wisdom, sometimes to celebrate people that are getting it and/or are close to getting it. And also pointing out the fragility or the fractured thinking of people that don't get it, that are just actually trying to promote the status quo. This is the way we've always do it. This is the way we continue to do it, even though it doesn't work. And so that idea that people have heard me talk about, about doing your work in public, showing your work is what Seth Godin would say. And doing it over the shoulder, giving people a peek at your process, at you explaining how you do what you do, why you do what you do, you know, how what you do works and why it works better than the things that people are currently doing. These are ways that you will clarify your unique ability or the difference only you can make. They will help you get better at articulating the difference that only you can make and who it's really for and what it can really do. And it will promote your work, your offer, the, the, this thing that you can help people with to more of the right people. And it gives people a way of evangelizing for you by sharing the content that you're putting out there or by engaging in the conversations that you're having. So I'm gonna, that's my little riff rant on combining Dan Sullivan's Unique Ability and the 4 layers of, you know, moving from incompetence to competence, excellence to unique ability, and how you might employ the Zespirometer to clarify your unique ability, but also to live there more often and outsource the things that are in your zone of excellence and competence that should be outsourced or automated and give you time to play in the zone of incompetence where you can actually experiment with things that might actually be things that you can move across the barbell. Some of you will know, know what I mean by that and move them into, you know, additional assets that only augment your unique ability. So opening it back up to you, Penny, for any reflections or questions.

No, it's more reflections of thinking that I have brought it out more to the more clarity into what I'm doing. And I'm going to take another shift where I've been talking about the donors thinking that the fundraisers reading it would, would be interested in ideas about the donors. I'm going to switch now and talk to fundraisers and try to move them. And the donors will, will come along. I just think maybe I've been playing in that incompetence where I, it's been an amazing learning for me to work with you and, and to connect with other people so that you see what they're, they're struggling too. So you don't feel that you're the only ones with these kind of learnings that you're trying to do to, in order to do what you wanna do.

Yeah. Well, you, you share something that I think is, is worth highlighting, which is when you look at what seems to be succeeding in the online marketing digital offer world, it looks like everybody's an expert and everybody has the answer. And these are always, you know, often, you know, I'm spending a lot of time learning more about artificial intelligence and how it can be leveraged to help amplify me and the work that I do and the difference I want to make and how it can help automate some things that should be automated because they can be done better through automation and AI. And so, you know, I spent some time investigating all these people that just overnight, as soon as ChatGPT became something that was in the ether, they suddenly became AI experts. It's like, wow. AI expert. Just 2 weeks ago, you were a Facebook ad expert, and right before that, you were an Instagram expert. And, you know, and so, you know, there's people that are just, that, that are, are chasing the trends and trying to generate content and to generate offers just because something is trendy at the moment. And what I discovered was, you know, I found Howard Getson, who's been involved in AI for almost 40 years and has been the CEO of an AI tech company for 32 years, who has invested millions of dollars in developing AI tools. That's an expert. That's someone that's worth listening to, and he doesn't have anything to sell me. And so the, uh, You know, I bring this up because the gurus and the experts are smart people, and smart people love to be valid and they like to be right. I find that the kind of people that are actually worth listening to and working with are people that, who only want to be helpful and useful and have the intellectual courage to not know everything and to be curious and to consider alternative truths and perspectives. And that's one of the things that I love about watching the way that you operate on social media is you're not trying to be the expert with a secret solution that nobody's ever heard of before. You're engaging in conversations and often it's your argument is just in a question that reveals that the faulty reasoning of the expert that's telling you that this is the only way to become a better fundraiser or to do fundraising, you know, or to prop up the traditional way Um, which clearly is not working, otherwise people wouldn't be talking about it so much. They'd actually be raising money, right?

That's right. It's not working.

All right. So I'm gonna wrap up the recorded call. I did record, didn't I?

Yes.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Technology man has been known to forget to press the recording button. So I'm gonna end the recording there, but then you and I can hang out and, um, see if there's anything else that you need some help with.