Exceptional

Sharing my learnings from the book, Exceptional by Dan Cable

Exceptional by Dan Cable

In Exceptional, London Business School professor and expert social scientist Daniel Cable reveals how building your own personal highlight reel — a collection of positive memories about you from your network — is key to accessing your potential. Cable has worked with tens of thousands of people to create their highlight reels and make the most of their gifts. Using the latest science and proven research behind best-self activation, his three-step process will help you improve your life by teaching you to:

• Focus on what you do best
• Craft a life around your strengths
• Increase your confidence and resilience

• everyone has weaknesses and limitations. To avoid making a fool of yourself, it’s good to be aware of them. However, you make your best impact when you lean into what you naturally do well
• research shows how powerful it can be to focus on your strengths instead of your flaws. Positive feedback about your abilities fills you with a sense of accomplishment, pride and purpose. This inspires you to keep up the good work – and to do even better
• Social norms prevent us from discovering our strengths.
  • eulogy delay – most of the time, we don’t let people know what’s special about them while they’re alive. That’s because our society still treats pride as a deadly sin.
  • transcuence aversion – we don’t like to think our eventual death. We pretend that we have infinite time to develop new skills, reach our goals and become better people
• to overcome the barriers, try this exercise: take 20 minutes to write your own eulogy. What would you like people to say at your funeral? This will already bring you a lil closer to recognizing what makes you special
• Tragedy is often traumatic but trauma doesn’t have to be tragic. Positive trauma (pleasant life experiences), just like horrible experiences, can make you feel a shock of strong emotions. trauma reminds us how precious life is, which brings us closer to the people & things that are really important to us
• by creating a personal highlight reel, you can harness the power of positive trauma. How does this work? Ask the people close to you to write down their fondest memory of you – times that you were being your true, authentic, best self. Before you ask your friends and family to do this for you, do it for them. This will let the people in your life know how much you appreciate them. It’ll also inspire them to give back
• a highlight reel is not about asking people to tell you how great you are. it’s about finding what makes you you. The stories that the people in your life have to tell will help you pinpoint your unique character traits and skills. This will completely change the way you see yourself.
• If you want to reach your full potential, make a habit of using your signature strengths regularly. Even if your strengths come easily to you, changing your life to maximize them will require constant effort. Visualization can help you make a habit of using your strengths
• Design your job to bring out the best in you by work crafting. Every week, try out a new activity that reflects your strengths. You can also try to reframe dreaded tasks to make them more appealing.
• Design your day-to-day to incorporate your strengths. Doing more of what you love creates a positive energy that will inspire those around you. That, in turn, will uplift you. Life crafting is all about creating these upward spirals of energy & inspiration