It’s a shade of another Mr. Potter who makes it to the homes of many TV viewers at least once a year around Christmas time.

You’ve seen “It’s A Wonderful Life”. You remember when the bank examiner is looking for the “missing” $8,000? George is desperate and he is listening to Mr. Potter as our “villain” continues to belittle him.

I’m talking about all of the Mr. Potter’s out there that I’ve tried to cash in the life insurance policy with – every time I needed direction.

Mr. Potter’s interest is the domination of George Hatch. And George is buying it as he chooses to see himself as Mr. Potter describes him—instead of the view from his heart. George, in a moment of desperation, turns not to his friends but to Mr. Potter for help. He forgets that he has a world full of beautiful friends that would be there in an instant if they knew something was amiss.

I sometimes feel like that. Like the gifts I have are of little value on this earth. And I look for other ways to cash in the policy; cashing in pursuing other business ventures primarily. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for multiple streams of income, but not at the expense of forsaking our greater purpose in life. If that doesn’t come first—well it’s like the sounding brass without love.

The thing is – I, we ask for the Mr. Potter’s of this world to TELL US we’re worthless. They only have the power to affect us because we give it to them. So the next time someone tries to steel your dream, tell you you’re in the wrong business or not good enough, puts you down because you’re “different” … whatever your “Mr. Potter” is telling you—remember this—it’s your choice to stay and listen. Make a choice to remember just how loved you are today.

1. Do you find it challenging to answer the question, “What’s your Unique Selling Position (USP)?”
2. Do you talk about the features of your product or service verses addressing the benefits by answering (before they ask) “So what’s so good about that?”
3. Do you discount your actions or accomplishments with statements like, “Oh that, it was nothing”?
4. Do you believe it is vanity to think you are something special – that you have a talent or gift unique to you and no one else can do exactly what you do?

If you answered yes to any one of those questions – keep reading.

In business it’s important to highlight those things that set you apart from others in your industry. In the past 30+ years I’ve worked with hundreds of individuals, in many different arenas, getting them to see how they are “unique”.

I had a revealing dream wherein I was hanging out in an old shanty looking at photos of several of our female relatives and they were in full dress green Marine Corps uniforms. I remember thinking, I know this person and she hadn’t been in the Marines, so I asked when she had enlisted. The person I was talking with answered me “she went in just a few years ago”. Hmmm.

The problem was she was a grandmother. I woke up reviewing. In reality, none of my female relatives served in the military. Yet, there I was, going through these dream pictures looking at them as Corporals’ and Sergeants’ doing things that I, a Former Marine had done myself.

The dream was about the desire to discount what I do. The “oh that was nothing” statement when someone delivers a compliment. There have been times that I was extremely uncomfortable with the question “what makes you unique”. Over the years I have realized that I was NOT unique in that “discomfort”.

Often times in the discomfor of expressing our uniqueness we fall back to these template driven statements – the elevator speech, or Audio Business Card, that sounds like one of these:

“Hi I’m Jane/John Doe and I am a therapist / coach / chiropractor..”
OR
“Hi I’m Jane/John Doe and I paint houses / design websites / teach computer skills…”
OR
“Hi I’m Jane/John Doe and I sell health / skin care / home care products (by brand name if they feel the brand is a strong hook)…”

We then proceed to tell every feature our product provides. And even the slowest elevator isn’t enough time to get…e v e r y t h i n g…in.

I know. I’ve done this too. In truth, our reaction is , “So what?” You provide “quality service”, “excellent products” . . . and so do a thousand other people.

We still have avoided the key element – what makes YOU unique for promoting that product.

In Deepak Chopra’s book, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, he writes that the 7th Spiritual Law is the “Law of Dharma”. In short, that law says when you combine your unique talent with service to humanity you make full use of the Law of Dharma. Your actions, coming from a place of your unique talent(s) bring about wealth. This wealth is manifest in various ways including health, spirit, relationship, and financial.

My friend, Chellie Campbell, a well-known author on creating weath, could be classified as a Financial Coach. If you saw her as just that you’d miss the mark. Looking deeper into her USP, Chellie helps thousands with her unique, insightful and heartwarming approach to money, different than any other financial coach. She is abundantly successful today by being honest and totally “Chellie” down to her gold and jeweled tennis shoes, in addition to serving others with her “USP”.

It is not vanity to know that you are special. It is not ego (Edging God Out) to move through life as if you are unique. Even Christ said “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Somehow, along the way, I like many others, massaged that statement into the idea that I am to abase myself. I must be sure that others see every good thing I do as a “work of God” and every bad thing I do as a result of my humanity or “humanness”. I am not advocating the “glorification of man” just that we were told to let OUR light/work shine. In that simple act – God is glorified. It is in this “uniqueness” that we are all the same.

Spend some time today, tomorrow or as long as it takes, getting to know what makes you unique. What is it that you have to offer, from the inside out, that makes you different from everyone else?

When you do that first – all of the beauty and success you desire will be yours.

About the Author
Kira Wagner lives by embracing choices and getting results. Born to blind parents, she knows the only handicaps are those we place on ourselves. Co-Founder and President of Global Connections Networking learn more at http://www.globalconnectionsnetworking.com and http://www.yourfreedomguide.com.

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The party is aboard a ship and as I was standing here looking over the back at the water you could see the slight churning but the was no real sense of movement – until I looked at the horizon.

I think life is like that – a lot.

When we’re. doing our purpose – we’re in the moment and we may not see or feel the progress…but it’s there.

Just keep your eyes on the horizon, stay the course and you WILL arrive at your destination.

Remember – when you are doing your HEARTWORK it will never become hardwork.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

The question I continue to ask myself is why? Why am I afraid to move through certain things to get to the Freedom – and yes there are still parts of me that are stuck. The blessing is that as I choose to see each one I can process and let go of it.

It’s exactly what happened the other day doing an excercise for business. I was at a workshop and having a difficult time articulating my brand/business purpose. Given 60 seconds I would freeze knowing that I could talk about it if I didn’t feel the pressure of time (and by now I had already asked about that issue too).  In the excercise my task was to say – “I am powerful” and just before it was my turn I was getting ready – essentially saying it with each person before me – and as I said the statement I followed it with “that’s obnoxious”. A little while later I had some time to look at that and when I put all of the pieces together and saw where it had come from it was gone – the rest of the workshop was completely different and today I feel like I own who I am and the power that I have to “be”. I know that there are a lot of programs and premises out there that advocate just “saying something differently” or simply saying the power statement over and over again but that’s “overwriting” and I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that it will simply show up somewhere else. I like the freedom to continually drop these fears away and be more of who I am meant to be. To live in a state of becoming. To be able to own all the beauty of life. That’s what the formula is all about.

One of the things that I have written in the book is that there are many different interpretations on dreams – the most important thing that I have come to discover is that it has to be what comes from the inside with respect to the meanings.

Last night I had a couple of dreams that I recall parts of —

The first one was that I was some kind of winged creature – similar to the “bird” that I saw the other day in the documentary “Walking with Dinosaurs” and there were these people who kept picking at my wings with sharp objects trying to tear them.

The second was that I was at an international rehearsal for SAI and I was … coaching?

The third was that I was taking a picture of Dan and he is standing on a slope somewhere and it’s very green and pretty – somewhere that I would imagine Ireland or England would look like and in the background there is someone behind him sleeping in a cage or behind bars.

In reflection: It seems that the one about the wings is my fear of what others will think and do as my business grows. In the second – maybe there is something specific to do with SAI – I just have been away for a while and I don’t see how I can fit it into my life right now. In the last one it feels like it has to do with the kids and things that are going on with them. I’m not sure about the slope though.