Since my coaching practice is based a process and tools I developed for uncovering a client’s innate gift—their genius—many wonder if they are wasting their time and money coming to me only to find that they do not possess such a gift. Initially at least, during the process of helping my clients verbalize that gift in ways that allows them to both, position themselves for a job they want to pursue by differentiating themselves from others, and to change the direction of their career in a major way—reinvention—many wonder how is it that they have maundered through their life heretofore without recognizing their genius themselves and how is that through a structured process such a discovery can be made?!

Hmmmm!

There is a two-fold answer to this quandary: First, it is our mindset that gets in our own way of thinking of ourselves differently after years of “living” with ourselves with our experiences, imprinting, and how we are being treated by the circumstances that define us; and secondly, uncovering your own unique talent—for most people—requires a process that works and that is credible. To the latter point it is easy for the rock stars in their respective professions to see such talent themselves because of the environment created by how they manifest their talents and how that environment treats them. But, to the everyday person such an insight requires discovery through diligent hard work and a belief that, given the right tools, such a discovery is not only possible, but realizable.

Learning to verbalize one’s underlying magic is life’s work. In my own view it starts with one’s engagement in their work. Engagement in any endeavor is a serious matter and defines how you are able to apply your total energies to a task at hand—putting your soul into what you do. This now becomes magical. Once you unlock the mystery by which capturing your magic becomes a confident process your repertoire can expand to allow you movement in new directions as well as it can give you access to new vistas within your own field, previously deemed out of reach. So, it all boils down to uncovering your genius, verbalizing it, and packaging it in ways that showcases your magic!

So, what is the mystery behind uncovering your genius and verbalizing your underlying value proposition—magic? Here is the process that I use in my practice:

1. Uncovering when you “Flow”: One person contributing to the cause of engagement in what you do is the author of Flow, the secret to happiness!, Croatian-born Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Mee-hi Chicsen meehaii), a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. His work focuses on how you find joy in your work through experiencing Flow and has developed a working model of what it takes for one to achieve Flow in their work.

In Mihaly’s world the Flow that he refers to is the one created by getting totally lost in one’s task, oblivious to the world. When one’s skills and abilities in their task challenge them to reach out beyond what they think is possible and is able break through to create an Aha! outcome, they are in the Flow. We often refer to it as doing something with reckless abandon. Here, the object and the person engaged in that object become one. This has nothing to do with the everyday phrase “going with the flow,” a concept somewhat counter to his thesis of engagement.

Most people engage their talents and abilities well below the “challenge” point and hence are not able to see the power of their own talent and the outcome (Aha!) it can create.

2. Learning to tell that story: Once you are able to capture your moments of engagement and Flow the next step is to learn how to tell that story of engagement and the outcome you created in way that resonates with the needs of your target. So, in this step of the process you must have some sense of how you want to pursue your next calling (job, career, or whatever) and how you want to fashion this story so that anyone in that pursuit of an endeavor will be able to relate to your story with some resonance.
3. Pulling the stories together: Once you are able to narrate one story of “Flow” in your past work it is much easier to dig for other such stories and write them to showcase your special talent for creating such a “Flow” in different aspects of the job or career you want to pursue. It is much easier to look at the job description for a job (or a career) you want to pursue and then figure out what stories are meaningful and then how to shape them to showcase your value in that line of work.
4. Aligning with the need: The need of what a job of interest expects from you is clarified from the job description that is available to you. Your message must be not about you (as most résumés convey), but about how you are able to deliver value in the job that you want to pursue. So, this is a thought process backwards from what is normally used in pursuing a job; you do not start with what you have done, rather, you start with the end in mind—matching your talents to the job.
5. Making it all work for YOU: Once you have the overall message with your various Aha! stories in alignment with the job you want to pursue then you have your act together. This means that your résumé, your LinkedIn Profile, and any other messaging tools you may use (your overall branding) must be coherent and must be able to broadcast the same message, no matter how it is viewed or how it is channeled. When you have this coherence then you are ready to conquer the job you are after.

   If such a job does not exist and you want to prospectively pursue something by sending a message to a decision maker about your idea or proposal then the same rules apply. Except, in prospecting an opportunity you define how YOU want to fashion that job and then advance a proposal that presents value to the person willing to hire you, by making a business case for it.

So, there you have it! Although when it is structured this way and articulated in simple terms of this blog, this is not an easy process. Why, because most do not put much thought to the process by which they engage their genius in what they do. But when forced to present their “stories” in a structured way and finding their moments of Flow, most are able to dig into their genius and uncover their true gifts that then can be verbalized for a strongly branded message.

Good luck!