What Makes Me Unique?

Who You Are

  Your potential, made up of things such as your gifts and talents, describes in detail who you are. And that description is so detailed it defines how you are unique on this planet.

Just as no two snowflakes are alike, you are like no one else. You are the only one who has your exact combination of the 30+ ingredients that define your potential ... known as your bliss or dream job.

So that is why there has been only one Beethoven, one Michelangelo, one Churchill, one Da Vinci, one Gandhi -- and why there will be only one you.

The Paradox of Uniqueness

Our potential is a paradox that makes us at the same time both a part of the human family and unique within that family. We are united by our having gifts, talents, life callings, and dreams of an extraordinary life. But we are each unique because all of our gifts, talents, life callings and dreams are different.

Take a moment and think about this.

How many people on the planet have the talent to figure out how to make rocket fuel from the soil on Mars?

How many people have a gift for tracking, monitoring and deciphering whale songs so they can save the species?

How many people have the talent to recognize how native medicinal plants growing in the Amazon can cure cancer?

How many people have the talent to crack the code of DNA or invent an artificial kidney?

Most Talents Are Rare

And here we are only talking about one gift or talent. If you look around and take a close look -- you will see for yourself that everyone has at least 5 to 10 things they excel at. If you can sing, calculate odds, track bird migrations, or know which direction is north better than 100 random people or your high school class -- your gift puts you in the top 1% of the population.

When you start calculating the odds as you add in more of your gifts and talents -- your combination of 5 skills means you are one in ten Billion likely to have that combination. That is more people than are alive on the Earth today. And when you add in the other 25 + ingredients of your work potential, you get numbers that are astronomical.

A Unique Living Expression of Life

These types of odds make you a unique expression within the universe -- and yet you are just one of the billions of expressions of life on this planet. And this is the crux of this paradox -- you are both truly unique and one of a countless multitude at the same time.

Along with this knowledge of uniqueness comes responsibility. For if you are a truly unique expression of life, then only you have the gifts, talents and potential to excel at the unique tasks which define your destiny and your life calling. No one else can fulfill the life calling you are uniquely qualified for. If you do not do it, it will go undone, or done by someone else in a very different way.

The Human Race*

We often refer to the human race as a contest and focus on who is winning and who is falling behind. But perhaps the race also is not just about winning, but who shows up to run it, and the type of race they run. Many times, the victor is the person who makes the race their own.

In your race through life, do you have all the information and tools you need to express your unique potential and live an extraordinary life before you run out of time, health, love and wisdom?

Being Unique

You & Snowflakes

Curious about what makes you different? Are you asking yourself"What makes me special and unique?" You are like many of us who want to know ... and science's answer of focusing on body parts and fingerprints or DNA strings just doesn't fit our needs.
A good answer to this fundamental Question of Life needs to be more meaningful, more useful, more empowering.
So where can you turn for a way to find an answer for yourself?

Fitting Into Life's Equation

For many of us ... we are becoming a number. Where that is a social security number, a credit card number or a membership number. But each number in life is unique ... and like the number Pi, it is our special qualities which show us where we fit into the equation of life.
But before you dig into life's biggest questions like a bag of cookies ... maybe it makes sense to figure out ...

What will I do with the answer?

Will I use it to change my life?

Make different decisions?

Feel better about myself?

Think of myself differently?

If you know you are searching for the an answer that will help you figure out what you are supposed to do with your life ... or where you belong ... the answer you seek will be a lot more powerful.
If you feel like you don't belong ... then your answer should guide you to where you will. If you feel horrible about yourself, the answer should help you understand why you think and feel that way ... and help you to see yourself in a new light.

The Tough Thing a Bout Being Unique

Standing out and being unique can make it hard to fit in, especially if most of the people around you are pretty much the same as everybody else. You may get noticed, but not in the right way .. a way that honors who you are and what makes you unique.
Sometimes it gets you ostracized.. or leaves you feeling like you do not fit in ... and never will. And if it started in grade school, that feeling can hit high gear when you get into high school, move into a college dorm, start working at a humdrum company or join a community where everybody takes pride in the fact they are all the same.

The Ugly Duckling

So, like the story of the ugly duckling ... you can feel like you are at the bottom of the heap ... unwanted ... when in fact the problem may be that you are not around "people who get you". People who value your uniqueness and the special qualities you have that set you apart, and make you who you are.
The good news is that ...

what makes you unique is a hint
at what you can excel at

And when you know what you excel at, it is easy to identify the places you belong, the people who will appreciate you and the professions you can excel in.
Your unique sense of fashion can be the start of a career ... your eye for detail a critical skill in surgical procedures .... a dark-comedy sense of humor the perfect ingredient for a screen writer ... a runaway imagination the right tool for an innovator ...

Driving Your Friends & Family Crazy

The stuff that makes you unique may drive your family and friends crazy -- especially if they do not understand it. (One thing Ebay has done for the world is made the collectors of odd and unusual stuff be appreciated and rewarded for their special point of view.)
Being unique isn't easy ... but it is made easier by understanding what makes you so unique and different from everyone else.

Figuring Out What Makes You Unique

What makes you unique is more than your gifts and talents. It is tied into your potential ... who you can become ... and the ingredients of your bliss.
So if you are looking for a way to figure out exactly what makes you unique ... the answer starts with .... finding you bliss. With it you can create a unique description of who you are.

Why AM I Unique?

The Things Behind Why You Are Unique

If you are wondering how to answer the question "How do I Know I Am Unique?" ... it all starts with understanding the things that make you unique, and then looking at how rare that combination is ... in the universe and on planet Earth.
What makes you unique ... what describes you and no one else ... are your gifts and talents ... and the things that you love. Summed up in a description of your bliss, this list describes you and only you.

The Basic Assumptions

Below are the assumptions you need to make and a step-by-step calculation of numerical uniqueness.

I assume there is no correlation between gifts. Being able to hit "high C" when you sing makes you no more or less likely to be able to sense when the weather is going to change, have a knack for carving ice sculptures, or being able to bake the perfect lasagna.

Some of the gifts do seem to be correlated to the activities and things a person loves, but there is such a large pool of these items to choose from that I think they are not significant enough to take into account. Just think ... someone can hit "high C" and may love music ... but think of all the types of music there are out there to love. My guess is that there are at least 100 different forms (from Reggae and Hip hop to Baroque, Elizabethan, Two Step Garage, Fusion, Acid Rock, Techno, Swing, Big Band, Cajun, and Bach ... just 2 name a few).

An Equation of Uniqueness

This calculation is based on a description of what makes you unique. To describe that, I create a unique list of the things you love (the people, places, experiences, activities and physical objects) that are unique to your personality along with a list of your innate gifts and talents.
That list has from 50 to 100 items on it ... on average (see samples). Since the gifts and talents are the most visible on the list, I decided to start the calculations based on having 5 to 10 of them.

Just Your Gifts & Talents

To be a gift or talent, a skill has to have a rarity of 1/100, which means that only 1% of the population has it. More common skills are abilities many or most people have, like being able to ride a bike or read a newspaper.
Gifts and talents can be even more rare, such as ...

• 1 out of 1000 (only one person in a college dorm has this talent)
• 1 out of 10,000 (only one person in a football stadium or at a concert has this talent)
• 1 out of 1,000,000 (which means only 308 other people in US and 6,799 people in the world have that same talent)

But let's start with the minimum scenario ... a person has only 5 gifts and they are at the lowest rarity level to be considered a gift or talent (1 out of 100). *

Rarity ( 5 at 1/100 each)

= 1/100 *1/100 * 1/100 *1/100 *1/100
= 1 /(100*100*100*100*100)
= 1 / 10,000,000,000
= 1 / 10 Billion

That means that with just 5 gifts and talents at the lowest level, you are already one out of 10 Billion. Since the world population right now is about 7 Billion -- you are unique on the planet.

A Minimum Uniqueness Definition

But that is just the first 5 items in the definition. What about taking into account the other 45 items in the definition? If each was at the lowest level (only 1% of the population loved that same place, activity, experience or physical object) ... how rare would that make you?
Well ....

Rarity ( 50 at 1/100 each)

= 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100* 1/100 * 1/100 *
   1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100* 1/100 * 1/100 *
   1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100* 1/100 * 1/100 *
   1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100* 1/100 * 1/100 *
   1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100* 1/100 * 1/100 *
   1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100* 1/100 * 1/100 *
   1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100 * 1/100* 1/100 * 1/100 *
   1/100
= 1 /(100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*
        100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*
        100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*
        100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*
        100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100*100* )
= 1 / 1 x E100
= 1 / 1 Trillion-Trillion-Trillion-Trillion-Trillion-Trillion-Trillion-
            Trillion-Million

        which is the same as 1 / Googol (the number of years
        a super massive black hole would take to evaporate ...         give or take, depending on how well you knew the
        black w.hole)

Having a list that describes you (what you personally love and what you excel at) that has a calculated rarity of 1 out of a 10 Trillion-Trillion-Trillion-Trillion-Trillion-Trillion-Trillion-Trillion-Million ... not only makes you unique on this planet ... but maybe in the universe.
And we are only talking about the minimum defining list -- the smallest number of items at the lowest rarity level. If you had a one-in-a-million talent and loved a few things that were pretty out of the ordinary (say the only one on a football stadium full of people) ... your number would be even higher. So too, if you had a description that had more items on it.

If indeed ... you are unique as One out of trillions and trillions ... you are as rare as a snowflake ... and that explains why there will only be one Beethoven, one Michelangelo, one Churchill, one Da Vinci, one Gandhi -- and only one YOU.