What's Obvious About You Is Invisible to You

Which is why the one brand you'll never see clearly is your own.

Last Issue, I Made It Sound Easy

Last issue I told you that your value is already there. That you don't become someone new — you uncover who you already are.

And I can hear what some of you said next: Fine. Then this shouldn't take long. Let me just sit down and figure out what makes me unique.

So you sat down. And nothing came.

Here's what I want you to know.

That's not failure. That's the oldest problem in the world.

Every Culture on Earth Has a Proverb for This

Shakespeare wrote that the eye cannot see itself, only its reflection. The Scottish poet Robert Burns begged for the gift “to see ourselves as others see us.” A thousand years ago in China, the poet Su Shi stood on a mountain and wrote that he could not see its true face, because he was standing on it. In Japan they say it is darkest directly beneath the lamp — the light shines on everything except the spot it stands on.

And then there's the one I've taught for years, because it's the truest of them all:

You can't read the label from inside the jar.

Now stop and think about that. England. Scotland. China. Japan. Every culture, in every century, built a proverb for this exact problem.

Because cultures don't build proverbs for rare problems. They build them for universal ones.

Nobody can read their own label. Not you. Not your business. Not anyone in twenty-five centuries.

The Greatest Christmas Movie Ever Made Isn't About Christmas

It's about this very idea.

It's a Wonderful Life is the story of George Bailey, a man standing too close to his own life to see it. From inside the jar, George can see every failure in perfect focus. The trip to Europe he never took. The college he never attended. The drafty old house. The $8,000.

What can't he see? That he saved his brother's life. Saved Mr. Gower. Built Bailey Park. Kept an entire town out of Mr. Potter's hands. His value isn't small. It's enormous. And it is completely invisible to him.

Here's the part most people miss. George doesn't think his way out. No amount of soul-searching on that bridge was ever going to work. What saves George is the one thing he could never give himself: a view from the outside.

And in the final scene, the whole town crowds into his living room and tells him, out loud, what he means to them. His brother raises a glass: “To my big brother George. The richest man in town.”

George spends the entire movie unable to say his own value. And in the end, everyone else says it for him.

In Nearly Forty Years, I Have Never Met the Exception

Here is my proof, and it's the only proof I need.

In nearly forty years of doing this work, I have never once met a client — not a business, not a leader — who could see their own value clearly when we started. Not one. Every single engagement begins with someone standing too close to something remarkable.

So if you sat down, and nothing came, hear this: That's not your fault. It's not a character flaw. It's not a lack of effort. You have simply joined the oldest club in human history. The ancient Greeks carved Know Thyself into stone at Delphi because it was the hardest thing they could ask of a person. (Unfortunately, the Oracle is not in The Odyssey movie.)

The work is hard. It is also doable. And it is so worth it.

One Last Thing

George Bailey needed an angel named Clarence to see his own life clearly. You just need to ask.

So remember this.

Everyone else can see your value. Your only job is to finally see it too.