The key to happiness and success lies within you. Why work harder to get what you want when you can work smarter and achieve the same or more in less time? Imagine if you and your employees were all working smarter and thus producing more in a day. How would that affect your business and make your work more enjoyable?
Rather than looking at yourself as a boss or manager and your employees as staff, think of yourself as a company, You Inc. Just replace You with your first name, so for me it would be Stephen Inc. In this sense, you are a supplier to your company. What do you supply?
Assets
Every company has assets. We use our assets to produce results and those results create benefits. Results are sales, profits, customer satisfaction, innovation etc. and the benefits are how you enjoy the generated results. Benefits could be the home you live in, the vacations you take, the hobbies you enjoy etc.
Talents and Abilities
Our assets are made up of talents and abilities that we use every day to produce the results 
and gain the benefits we enjoy. Here is an inventory of our talents and abilities that we all use in our work to produce results.
- Know-how and skills
- Time
- Concentration
- Decisions-making
- Energy
Go through the above list and evaluate your level of satisfaction for each of the talents and abilities on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest level. How satisfied are you with your knowledge requirement for the job and the skills you have to perform the job? How well do you manage the time available to get things done? How is your ability to concentrate on the task at hand and control distractions? How well do you make decisions considering both timeliness and striking a balance between intuitiveness and being rational? Finally how much energy drive and passion do you bring to your work?
After you have scored yourself for each of the talents and abilities, pick one that would have the most impact if you improved in this area.
Now imagine if I had a magic wand that I could wave and instantly give you your full capacity in that talent and ability. Close your eyes, relax and think about how things would be different. What do you see, how do you feel? Write your answers down. How would this translate into results? How would it improve your benefits?
Full Potential
Science tells us that the average person uses only 5 to 9% of their total potential. Let’s say your above-average and you use 15 to 20% of your total potential. This still leaves 80 to 85% of untapped potential.
Set a Goal
What goal can you set for yourself to develop the talent and ability that you identified in this exercise? How could you start tapping into your untapped potential? Start by taking a first step. Focus on one talent and ability at a time.
Continuous Growth
The key message here is to keep growing and develop the mindset for continuous improvement. If you learn to apply this on yourself it will extend to everything you do. If you can teach this to your employees not only will they be grateful to you but they will perform better and stay loyal.
Stephen Goldberg