Traits of distinctive people
First of all, stop to think that talent matters to reach distinctiveness. Secondly, by all means continue to think that it for you, your team or your organization truly requires time, dedication and hard work to achieve distinctiveness. But these things are not enough. The decisive part has to do with establishing truly smart habits in terms of behaviors and responses to the stuff the happens within you and around you. 

Furthermore, distinctiveness is all about the strive to continuously develop and raise the bar in terms of performance. This ambition is actually an end in itself since it makes life so much more rich and the world so much more manageable. Life actually becomes pretty simple, although not at all free from drawbacks and challenges; quite the opposite. But you will welcome them as opportunities to grow and flourish as a person, team or organization. 

In this section Stefan introduces you to what he has found - based on extensive discussions with distinctive people and analysis of biographies, published interviews and other relevant material - to be some of the common traits among truly distinctive people:

“Boring is not in my vocabulary when perform in my domain   

I know that when I view a task as boring my mind starts to work slower as well as tend to wander and think of other things I rather be doing, which means that I will perform the task even worse. Hence, this will make the task extraordinarily boring! Over time I have learnt that there are virtually no boring tasks, only boring ways to think about tasks. This way of thinking is now part of my intrinsic thought pattern so I automatically - and with no additional effort – manage to identify all exciting aspects of the tasks I am facing. I realize that this aspect of my developed character is one of my core assets."    

"Attention to details and hygiene factors
keep me alert

Things like keeping promises, being on time, and to always make sure to deliver what is agreed upon, are important principles for me. It creates a natural tension and attention when I operate in my domain. So even if a particular day don’t contain any significant challenges or decisive moments, these principles make every day an opportunity to stretch and feel good about myself and my capabilities as well as my contribution to people around me."    

"I get my never-ending energy from my everyday development and learning    

The feeling that I am progressing as an individual every day, and by that becoming a little bit less incomplete, is the highest level of satisfaction and energy booster a human being can experience.  This all-embracing feeling helps me to overcome any set-backs in terms of actual results. Rather, it inspires me to understand the root causes behind any potential set-back and by that develop even more.

 I kind of think that this feeling is created within us by purposeful design since developing and learning more about oneself, one’s domain and environment, is instrumental for the survival of our species."