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Dedicated to developing others’ talents and skilled at puzzling out how the different parts of a person fit together, Julia Waller creates paths for people to grow and fully express who they are by connecting the dots between their experiences, talents, and passions.
For more than two decades now, Julia has been having one-on-one Unique Ability meetings with Strategic Coach team members, helping them zero in on what they do best so they can be more productive, creative, and fulfilled. Julia has joined us on this incredible episode describing the evolutionary dynamic process of Unique Ability. She explains how we each have a hidden, unique ability that is generated through energy and passion.
She teaches us what it means to find clarity in your mind so you can discover true freedom, productivity, creativity, and results. Julia uncovers her experience, skills, and passion for helping people maximize their special talents to achieve better results. “Looking behind the curtain and diving deep into people’s talents is a great honor,” Julia says, describing how Unique Ability has helped people align their lives and live in exponential growth!
Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to learn more from Julia Waller, and be ready to discover your unique recipe for being you!
In This Episode
- What is Unique Ability? How do you discover it?
- What is the Kolbe test and how does it work?
- Julia’s biggest insights on Unique Ability.
- Julia’s personal development practice for better success.
Hey everyone, and welcome to today’s show on Wealth Strategy Secrets.
We have a special guest joining us today—Julia Waller. Dedicated to developing others’ talents and skilled at puzzling out how the different parts of a person fit together, Julia creates paths for people to grow and fully express who they are by connecting the dots between their experiences, talents, and passions. She’s also deeply appreciative of what makes people unique.
It all started in 1997 when Julia listened to Dan Sullivan talking in a workshop about something he called Unique Ability—the idea behind focusing on your unique talents and passions. The more she learned about this intriguing concept, the more fascinated she became. It just made sense.
For more than two decades now, Julia has been having one-on-one Unique Ability meetings with coach team members, helping them zero in on what they do best so they can be more productive, creative, and fulfilled.
Julia has also authored Unique Ability: Creating the Life You Want and Unique Ability 2.0: Discovery Book and Notebook.
She lives in Toronto with her daughter, Vivienne, and takes pride in watching her develop, grow, and discover her own uniqueness.
Julia, welcome to the show.
Thanks so much, Dave. It’s great to be here.
I’m so excited to have you on the show!
Ever since I learned about Unique Ability myself—five or six years ago now—it’s just been such a game changer. To have you on the show and be able to talk to our audience about how they can discover their own unique abilities, I’m really grateful for that opportunity.
Well, it’s one of my favorite topics—other than my daughter, probably—and she doesn’t like me talking about her anymore! So, I’m always happy to talk about Unique Ability.
I do think it’s such a valuable way to look at yourself, to look at the world, and to operate. Redesigning your life around Unique Ability isn’t really the way it’s done in the rest of the world. I don’t know why sometimes. But in our entrepreneurial community at Strategic Coach, it’s really the core concept of our coaching program.
I’ve been a Strategic Coach for 25 years this year, and you’re right—right from the beginning, I latched onto this whole concept. I think I have a natural passion and interest in helping people grow, develop, figure out their strengths, see their uniqueness, and do what they love. It just makes so much sense to me.
Why would we force someone into doing activities they hate? They’re not going to do a very good job. They’re going to get drained of energy, be unhappy, and end up frustrated. That doesn’t seem like a logical way to run a business or a life—for yourself or your team members.
As an entrepreneur, your organization is built around your Unique Ability—your unique set of talents and strengths. The more you can focus on that, the greater value you’ll create for your clients, the more meaning you’ll have in your life, and the better results you’ll achieve. You’ll have more fun, be happier, and make continuous improvements. Any of the things you want most in life, I believe, come from focusing on your Unique Ability.
Then, it’s about building a team around you—passing the baton so others can take on the tasks you find annoying but that they actually enjoy and get energy from.
It does require more teamwork, skill, cooperation, and communication than some people may want to invest in because it’s not always easy. Now, you have to work well with others and develop those talents. But it’s so worth it.
Yes, I know it’s been a journey. I credit Dan and Unique Ability. What I learned at Coach helped me experience it all. It might seem foreign to some. Let’s break down Unique Ability. Where did it come from? What’s the Colby score? Tell us about Kathy Colby. How did this all start?
Absolutely. There’s a backstory. Dan Sullivan, in the 1980s, before Strategic Coach, did a government study in Canada. He studied people with disabilities. He looked at who was successful. He realized those who focused on abilities did well. He realized he had “disabilities” too. It was an awareness that we all have strengths and weaknesses.
When he teamed up with Babs and built Strategic Coach, she told Dan to let someone else handle checks. He should talk to clients. He was good at that. She took things off his plate and maximized him. CliftonStrengths is another assessment. Your top strength is Maximizer, like mine. Maximizers notice strengths and focus on them. We don’t want to do what we’re bad at. We like excellence.
Focusing on what you’re good at leads to exponential growth. We want things to be the best. At Strategic Coach, Dan and Babs help entrepreneurs focus. Dan’s concept was: “Delegate everything except genius.” Keep your genius, delegate the rest. It evolved into “Who Not How.” Find someone already good at something.
Let’s define Unique Ability. I’m process-oriented. I took Dan’s tools and existing processes to the next level. I go one-on-one and dig deep. I want to know the talents behind the curtain. What makes you tick? I’m fascinated by that. If I can help people connect with it, they can do more. We make the unconscious conscious.
One definition: Unique Ability is your unique set of natural talents. We help you articulate them. We pull apart the threads, the ingredients. They all work together. We boil it down to a sentence: “My unique ability is doing X to have Y result.” That’s the deep dive.
We also look at Unique Ability by analyzing activities. List your activities: checking email, meetings, strategizing, etc. Analyze them using four categories. The key for Unique Ability: Does it give you energy? Do you love it? Are you good at it? Passion and energy are key.
The next category is Excellent. The difference is passion. You’re good at it, but not as passionate. Many are trapped in excellent activities. They’re talented, but don’t love it. Many are trapped in “shoulds.”
Then there’s Competent and Incompetent. Fire yourself from incompetent activities! Some hold on to them. I’ve seen it with email. Get an assistant who’s better!
That goes into teamwork. Pay attention to energy and passion. That’s Unique Ability. Over time, it’s a process. Shave off non-Unique Ability activities. Then tackle the excellent ones. Put that time into Unique Ability. Your results and energy will skyrocket.
Dan and Babs are about freedom. I give people clarity about Unique Ability. It’s unique. Nobody else has your talents. Anyway, that’s me rambling about Unique Ability.
No, that’s a great explanation. When I think about it, the words I love are fascinating and motivating. Right. So, if you were to quantify your unique ability, these two words really capture it. And you’re right, this is an evolutionary, dynamic process. You won’t recognize these things unless your mind is looking.
When you go through your day, you can do this activity inventory. Think about what you do in a day and a week. What is fascinating and motivating to you? Right? What creates the most value for your clients? And the things you like to do and contribute to?
Once you get a hold of those, it is amazing. Not only how efficient you can be and drive more value. You talked about this, but it’s underrated. It’s about fulfillment and happiness. Right? You’re not going against the grain anymore. You’re doing what’s natural. You get up energized.
Last Friday, I had 15 client calls, back-to-back. I loved it. I was energized. At the end of the day, I was ready to keep going.
So it’s like at the end of a coaching day.
Exactly.
You’re pumped up. It’s fascinating to have those conversations. You listen and help maximize their results. It’s fun. It’s fulfilling at a deep level, I think.
Exactly right. And I think, you know, this is the ethos of what we talk about. We talk about holistic wealth strategy. It’s being fulfilled holistically. Not just freedom of money, but freedom of time, purpose, and relationships. Unique Ability is at the core. Help the audience understand how to discover their Unique Ability. What process do you recommend?
We have a Strategic Coach process. Get our book and notebook. Visit uniqueability.com for a beginner’s guide. We have people send a letter to eight to ten trusted people. Ask what they think your Unique Ability is. What characteristics do they count on you for? How would they describe you? What are your positive attributes? How do you create value?
Send it to family, colleagues, or neighbors. Get that feedback. Some find it hard to read. Others love it. We’re used to telling people how to improve. We don’t give enough positive feedback. Even kids’ report cards focus on bad grades. We look at improvement.
Take the feedback seriously. These people value you. They’ve told you how you create value. You might think being kind is a soft skill. No, it’s not. Even you, Dave, are personable. You create relationships and connect with people.
You create a space where it feels easy to connect to you. I would say that’s part of your unique ability. That’s one of your best habits. Sending out the letter is a great way to open your eyes and open the door to some self-awareness. It’s not just me being me; it’s me actually making an impact on those people around me.
When we wrote the second book on unique ability, I thought, well, I’ll go through the process again because I’d already done it years before. I sent the letter out to my neighbors, who had only known me for a couple of months, and I’d only see them once in a while. Our kids play out front, and the stuff they wrote back in their letters surprised me. I strive to come across in that way, but the fact that they noticed those things about me was mind-blowing.
We are way more transparent than we realize. We think that people don’t notice how we’re thinking, feeling, and doing things. There are a lot of things they don’t see, and I do think there’s a lot behind the curtain that people don’t know about. Maybe they judge just on looks or whatever, but it was very eye-opening for me to do that again and get that feedback. That would be one thing that anyone could do right now to start the process.
We have the whole activities path as part of our process, where you do an activity inventory. Like we were just talking about, you list all the ways that you spend your time. In the book, there’s a personal list too—doing dishes, groceries, home accounting, and all that stuff. Unique ability lives everywhere. It’s not just you at work; it’s you with your family, as a father, a mother, an uncle, whatever.
You can do the activity inventory and then categorize your activities. Which ones give you energy? Which ones do you find fascinating and motivating? Which ones are you good at but don’t love doing? Which ones do you barely meet minimum standards for, where lots of other people could do them better? Which ones are you terrible at? For example, fixing mechanical things around my house—I’m terrible at it. I need to find someone who’s good at those things. I recently had someone help me hang pictures in my house and redesign my living room. I was so happy afterward. I had procrastinated for a long time before finally getting someone else to do it. It’s not my unique ability.
I actually let my daughter do more of that stuff. She’s only ten, but I let her go nuts, and she rearranges things a lot. She likes to do that kind of thing. Give your kids the freedom to do things the way they would naturally do them. Once you’ve categorized your activities, you can come up with one improvement you could make. Maybe you hate grocery shopping, so you order your groceries if you have that option. Sometimes, you still have to do the activity because you don’t have a way to get rid of it, but you can reframe it in your mind. How could you see it differently? Some people do that too.
If you can, get someone else in your family involved. One of my friends at work has a daughter who loves planning parties, but she doesn’t like planning them at all. So, she gave that job to her daughter, who is a teenager and now plans all the parties. Use the people around you. Swap tasks with a neighbor, get someone else to do it, or hire someone if you can. Investing in people is the same as investing in team members, yourself, your freedom, and your time. If you can get someone else to mow your lawn, now you’ve got more time to hang out with your kids. Base it on your priorities. Most of our clients have the resources to invest in these types of people. Plus, you’re giving that lawn mowing person an opportunity to create value for you.
You’re giving them employment. Some people love mowing lawns. You’re actually giving them a chance to do something they love. If you think of it that way, it’s a give-and-take relationship. That’s the simple way to look at it.
If we want to go deeper, we can talk about how to uncover and describe unique ability. What are my talents? Do you want to talk about that, Dave?
Sure. This is where we use some assessments to help us. You mentioned something called the Kolbe. The Kolbe Index is a really awesome unique assessment created by theorist Kathy Kolbe. Her father actually created a different profile—an intelligence profile called the Wonderlic. She was always seeing what he was creating and telling him, “Wait a minute, you’ve missed this.” He finally said, “Well, you’ve got your own idea. Why don’t you create your own thing?” So, she created this amazing index called the Kolbe Index.
What it describes and helps you articulate is how you take action. There are three parts of the mind. First, your intelligence—your IQ, your skills, and your life experiences, all the things you’ve learned. Second, your affective part of the mind. A lot of people are familiar with assessments here, like the Myers-Briggs or the Clifton Strengths. These are personality-based profiles. But Kolbe fits into the third part of the mind—conation, which deals with striving, will, and instincts. It answers the question: how do you naturally take action?
We use Kolbe with our team members and even for hiring. When I first got hired at Strategic Coach, they did my Kolbe first. I was like, “What is this thing? What are you talking about?” You fill out this assessment, and it tells how you naturally operate. Again, we want to ride the horse in the direction it’s already going. We don’t want to put Julia in a role where she won’t succeed. We want to help her succeed. They wouldn’t have put me in a role that wasn’t a good fit for how I naturally take action because I would have had to twist myself into a pretzel.
Now, I could have overridden my natural instincts using my intelligence, learned experience, or sheer will to get things done. I’ve seen people do that. After a year, they totally burn out in that job. They can’t keep going. It’s not a good recipe for fun. You can grind someone for long enough, but after a while, their natural way of doing things is going to take over. If you put someone in a role that requires a high level of follow-through—super organizing, scheduling—and they score low on that scale, they can do it for a while, but they’ll make mistakes, hate it, and eventually quit.
Kolbe is a really interesting starting point. I always start there to learn how someone takes action and then fit that with their role. You’re a mediator Kolbe, which is a little harder to explain. We always say that when you find a mediator, you want to hire them immediately because they help teamwork function. You’re responsive and accommodating across all four modes. You’re willing to jump in when it comes to fact-finding, organizing, going along with risks and change, and balancing implementation. You also bridge people who are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
For example, my sister and I are opposites in how we operate in terms of Kolbe. We need a mediator to sit between us in order to have a conversation.
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Interesting! I mean, why do you think—it’s really fascinating, right? In traditional academia, as people grow up, we hear about things like Myers-Briggs, and we think, okay, that’s a way to learn more about yourself, discover your traits, and find where you best fit.
But this concept—this cognitive ability and natural wiring of the brain—is so powerful. I watch my kids, who are in their 20s, and I see how important it is as they try to figure out what they want to do.
In our household, we talk about unique ability all the time because it’s crucial to ask: What is your instinctive wiring? How can you truly maximize it? That’s where real fulfillment comes from.
But why do you think this isn’t part of the education system today? It took me a long time to find this.
I know, it’s a really good question. I think it’s the best-kept secret around. I know Kathy Kolbe and Kolbe Corp have done a lot of work in schools, and some schools in the States have adopted it. There are people who take Kolbe into schools in their neighborhoods or healthcare systems. Kathy also worked with sports teams, including the Phoenix Suns years ago, and other teams.
The more you get your team players working in their areas of unique ability and doing things the way they’re naturally wired, the more successful your team will be. You’re going to win. I don’t know why it’s not more widely known, but I think we just need to keep spreading the word. We use it extensively with all of our clients and team members. Our clients then latch onto it, introduce it to their teams, their spouses, and their kids.
I agree with you—if kids understood this, it would make a huge difference. I’ve started introducing it to my daughter’s school, and I’m hoping they’ll be open to it. Not everyone is, and not everyone is willing to make the investment, but parents usually are. If you find the parents, they’re the ones who will invest in it for their kids. Maybe the school systems won’t, but parents who want their kids to succeed will.
I did my daughter’s Kolbe years ago. There’s a different version for younger kids, and I needed to know how to interact with her because I knew she wouldn’t be like me. Some parents assume their kids are little clones of them, but they’re probably not. I was quite the opposite of my mother and sister. If we’d known about Kolbe when I was little, it would have explained a few things. My mom used to say, “Just make it up,” while we were cooking in the kitchen, but I’m not a “make it up” person. I needed to know the recipe—how much to use, whether it was a half cup or three-quarters, what the measurement was, or how many minutes to set the timer for. Other people just wing it, guesstimating, but I couldn’t. My mother probably wondered what was wrong with me, but it wasn’t an intelligence issue.
It all comes down to brain wiring. Your brain is wired to operate in a certain way. When you’re forced to work against your natural wiring, it creates dithering—a term Kathy used in a study. People became paralyzed, unable to take action, even though they were highly intelligent. They were simply being forced to operate against their natural grain.
For example, ask an initiating Fact Finder to have a conversation without mentioning a single fact, and you’ll hear silence. They can’t do it—it’s impossible.
Yeah, I can see that. Let’s unpack the teamwork piece a little because I think that’s the next level of this whole thing. For me, my journey started with figuring out what unique ability really is, how it applies to me, and how I can use it at work. Then, I started applying it to my personal life, and it has been amazing.
My daughter is a high Implementor—she’s super organized. When we have home projects, I put her in charge, and she takes over. The harmony with which your family can operate once you understand unique ability is incredible. We have four kids, including triplets, so there’s always a lot going on in our household. The more we’ve uncovered unique ability and let people work in their natural strengths instead of fighting against them, the more harmony we’ve created. We’ve also become more productive. When we’re traveling, for example, Adelaide is in charge of certain things, and it just works.
I’m really excited because I’m signed up for the Couple’s Connection this year. My wife and I are celebrating our 25th anniversary, and we’re looking forward to doing a deep dive into unique ability together. That has been a real discovery in our marriage, and we’re taking it further into teams as well. We’ve been hiring that way, and I think as entrepreneurs, we often feel guilty when we delegate tasks we don’t like to do.
The amazing thing about unique ability is that when someone is in their unique ability, they love to do what you hate to do. When you start putting that together in a team, it’s like putting nitrous oxide in your business.
Totally. Things really do explode when you get everybody aligned. Our whole context at Strategic Coach, when I first started—happy anniversary, by the way, I’m really excited you guys are going—was about finding a way to bring people’s most important relationships into Strategic Coach thinking tools. Not just for business, but for life, because it’s a very holistic program. Unique ability shows up everywhere, like you said, with your kids.
I’m really glad you have an initiating Implementor. For those who don’t know, that means using tools and implements—hands-on work. That’s not my talent or yours, right? My daughter, for example, fixes the bike when it’s broken. She’s only ten, but she can do it better than I can. That’s great because kids feel accomplished, they’re contributing, and they feel like part of the team.
Going back to teamwork for entrepreneurs—our goal at Strategic Coach is to help people create a self-managing company, and eventually a self-multiplying company. When someone like Julia joins the company, we don’t ask, “How do we make Julia fit in?” Instead, we ask, “What are Julia’s talents, and how do we help her be the best version of herself?”
My sister Shannon, who helped hire me, was already at the company. Nobody tried to turn me into her—thank goodness, because I would have failed and quit. We are total opposites, but I filled a gap that the team needed at the time: documenting systems that were all living in people’s heads. I naturally wanted to do that—it was self-driving.
If you want a group of self-motivated people, you don’t motivate them—you create an environment where they come motivated. You can inspire them with a great vision. Dave, you have that unique ability—vision for your company, for your clients’ success, and wealth growth. I don’t have that ability. Bob and Dan do, and they’ve collected amazing people, creating an ecosystem where we work more and more in our unique ability over time.
When you create space for team members to be creative, the results are unbelievable. You mentioned harmony, productivity, creativity, results, and fun—those all happen when people are in the right positions and given the freedom to be themselves.
You also have to get over the guilt. Let me absolve everyone of guilt right now. If you think about it, by holding on to responsibilities yourself, you’re depriving someone else of the opportunity to use their talents, grow, and develop. You’re actually helping people by delegating to them.
Of course, you need to delegate to the right people. At Strategic Coach, we focus on elevating. You want to find someone who’s way better at it than you—like your daughter. You don’t need to know how to build things; she does. You don’t even have to train her. That’s the goal—finding someone so good, you don’t even know what they’re doing.
You give them direction and define the success criteria for what the result should look like. You’re providing the vision they can engage with, creating a bigger purpose for them. Dan talks about this a lot—entrepreneurs create the bigger purpose, and team members engage in it.
That’s why I’ve been with our company for 25 years. I don’t take it for granted. I consciously choose to stay because I’m always growing, working on new things, collaborating with great people, and adding value. Those are my criteria. As long as they remain true, I’ll stick around.
At Strategic Coach, we have an extraordinary number of people who’ve been here for 25, 20, 10 years—people really stick around. If you care about team longevity, this is the ticket.
Yeah, for sure. What would you say is your single biggest insight from Unique Ability?
Wow. I think that we’re all unique—which sounds really obvious—but I don’t think I truly saw that in myself before. Maybe this is part of my quest in life, to see how I am special and how I make my own unique difference. I’ve always taken myself and my talents for granted. And now, meeting all these successful entrepreneurs, I see they do the same thing.
I don’t think we’re wired to truly understand that we are unique. We don’t believe in our uniqueness. And when you don’t believe in it, you don’t lean into it. You hold back. Dan always talks about ambition—pushing the boundaries, seeing how far you can go. If you really bet on yourself and your Unique Ability, that’s how you’ll go the farthest.
But we don’t always bet on it. First, because we’re not even clear that we have a Unique Ability. Most people don’t realize they are different from everyone else. We make the faulty assumption that others think the way we think, see the world the way we see it, feel the way we feel, and do things the way we do. But they don’t. They just don’t.
If everyone could just get the message that you are unique, that alone would be powerful. Even if you only looked at your life experiences, without even getting into talents or assessments like Kolbe or CliftonStrengths.
Now, we also use PRINT, which talks about your deepest why. My why is different from your why. We may show up in similar ways, but we are driven by completely different motivations. That’s unique to me. You have your own unique motivation.
So yeah, I think my biggest insight is simply this: We are all unique.
Great, that’s great. So if you could give just one piece of advice to the audience in terms of discovering their own Unique Ability and really applying this in life, what would it be?
Take me seriously. Take yourself seriously. Take your Unique Ability seriously. Take one step towards figuring out what it might be. Follow your nose, follow your heart, because your energy and passion will guide you in the right direction.
Most people are already doing things in their Unique Ability—they just don’t realize it. If they started to observe with a new awareness, they’d see it. Do it with your kids, if you can’t do it for yourself at first. Do it with the people around you, your team. You’ll start to notice that others do things differently than you do. And then, you’ll start to take yourself more seriously.
I want to mention one more thing—if you don’t mind—because one of my biggest insights in coaching over the past few years is this:
The way we create value for others is by helping them be like us.
What I mean by that is—we help them see the world as we see it, feel as we feel, do as we do. Dan is all about freedom and happiness, right? He has attracted ambitious people who want greater freedom, happiness, and success. And he’s really good at achieving that because that’s how he’s wired.
Through being in Strategic Coach, people start thinking and seeing the world like Dan. When you fill out one of his thinking exercises, you start thinking like Dan. When I do my Unique Ability process, people start thinking like me—because I help them make the connections that I see.
It’s the same for you. When you help your clients achieve greater success, guess what? You’re really good at achieving success. You keep improving because you’re ambitious. So you attract ambitious doctors, lawyers, and executives who also want greater success.
You’re also really good at organizing things—with integrity, responsibility, and ethics. And because you’re good at that, you attract others who benefit from your framework. They may not be good at creating it themselves, but they get the benefits of being in your system.
In a way, that’s what I mean—you help them think like you, take action like you, and do things the way you do. You rub off on them. That’s how we create the most value for others.
So, the more you know what your Unique Ability is, the bigger your contribution will be. And the bigger the impact you’ll have on the people around you.
Wow, that’s really powerful.
Yeah, absolutely. I hadn’t really thought about it from that perspective, but that’s a really powerful insight. I appreciate you sharing that, Julia.
Since you are a superior coach in the program, is there anything else you could share with the audience in terms of personal development? Is there one single practice that has yielded the most success for you?
I think, in general, the most valuable practice we use at Strategic Coach—and some people have their own versions of this—is the Positive Focus.
Every day, I keep a running list of all the accomplishments and good things that have happened. For example, having a great podcast with you today—I would write that down. It’s about building an awareness of the positives in life.
A lot of us tend to measure ourselves against where we want to be in the future, or some high standard we’ve set. I know everyone on this call probably has high standards, right? So our eyes tend to focus on what we haven’t done instead of what we have accomplished.
That’s why I do Positive Focus—or some people call it Gratitude Focus—every day. It helps me feel confident, like I’m making a difference, like I’m achieving something.
A lot of those things I write down are related to Unique Ability—using my talents to make a contribution to others. I also try to teach this to my daughter. Over the summer, we spent time reflecting on what worked, what we learned from our experiences, and how we can connect with the positives and do more of those things.
By doing this, we create a more fulfilling, fun, and enjoyable life.
Outstanding. I love that, and I share the same practice as well.
From the first minute I get up, I’m reflecting on my wins from the day prior and focusing on gratitude. It’s interesting because it’s really a rewiring of the brain.
I love studying neurohacking, and it’s fascinating that, as humans, we’re wired to sense danger. It’s no wonder we’re always looking for what’s wrong or what’s about to go wrong. Our brains are naturally scanning for threats. But when you create consistency around Positive Focus, it actually rewires your brain to focus on what’s working instead.
We apply this practice to everything. When we have meetings with our employees, we start with a Positive Focus. When I go for a walk with my wife, that’s how we start the conversation—not with what didn’t work out, but with what did.
It’s amazing how powerful gratitude is. It not only shifts your mindset but also gives you the confidence to propel yourself even further.
Yeah, Dan’s number one rule is always to protect your confidence. Those kinds of skills and habits are essential.
You’re right—our brains are wired for survival, so it doesn’t come naturally. I know with my daughter, I really have to work on helping her see the positives. Some people feel uncomfortable at first because they struggle to find something good to share. I tell them, “Well, you better go and do something positive then, so you have something to share tomorrow.” Training your brain to focus on the positives makes a huge difference in all areas of life.
Absolutely, Julia. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I know the audience is going to love it. We’ll include links in the show notes to where they can find the books, including Unique Ability 2.0 and the workbook. I highly recommend checking them out. You can get them on Amazon—I’ve gone through the exercises myself and am constantly working on them. Are there any other resources you’d recommend, or if people want to learn more about Strategic Coach or Unique Ability, what’s the best place for them to reach out?
Yeah, strategiccoach.com is our main website for successful entrepreneurs. We have tons of free resources there—blog posts, podcasts, and all sorts of really valuable content. Everything we do is an extension of Unique Ability or other thinking tools designed to help people achieve greater freedom, success, and happiness. It’s a great place for anyone interested in our coaching program.
Our entire program is built around helping people work more in their Unique Ability. As for the book, like you said, you can get it on Amazon, or you can visit uniqueability.com. We have a little book club guide there, so if you want to go through it with a group of friends or colleagues, you can. The book and notebook together are like a workshop in a box—you’ll want to go through them a little at a time. Maybe take yourself to a coffee shop, meet up with friends, and work through it slowly so it doesn’t feel overwhelming.
We’ve got a few cool tools on uniqueability.com, but those are the two main places I’d send people.
Great. Really appreciate it, Julia, and I look forward to seeing you up in Toronto again soon. Thanks so much for coming in.
Oh, my great pleasure. Thanks for having me—I really had fun chatting with you, Dave.
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