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The What: “Subconscious gifts” are the insights, skills, and abilities that we possess that make us unique. We might be born with them or develop them over years of operating in a particular area. In either case, we don’t recognize them as uncommon because they’re simply integral to who we are.

The So What: Because these gifts are so baked into who we are, we just assume everyone else sees financial models or tennis or operating in the construction industry or whatever the same way. And, because we don’t recognize those gifts as special, we don't know how to flex them effectively, or, crucially, how to teach them to other people (or even that we need to pass along those skills).

And, most of us are walking around without a clear, quantifiable way of seeing what our subconscious gift is. In fact, a lot of these remarkable skills (knowing how to operate in a market or brand a product or deal with a particular person one-on-one) aren't quantifiable – which is why they’re so difficult to recognize and teach. That intangibility is also why they can be kryptonite for an organization that relies on them without knowing they’re there.

At best, you might get tiny snippets from friends or coworkers or family members about how what you take for granted is actually vanishingly rare. It might sound like, “I wish I could do what you do” or “I just don’t know how you’ve been so successful at this.”

The Now What:

1. Look for and acknowledge the gifts you see in the people around you — including yourself.

• Be introspective and reflective. If you’ve had a great day or hit a flow state or unlocked a problem or a sticking point, that might be an indicator that you were deep into your unconscious gifts.

• Engage in self-discovery. Ask the people closest to you where they see you particularly engaged or productive. Someone who understands you can lay out what they’re seeing for you.

1. Recognize when interpersonal frustration and team friction stem from different ways of seeing the world. If you’re moving along in the zone of whatever your subconscious gift is, you may find that the people around you aren’t keeping up. That might be because they’re not wired to see the problem or the project or the next steps the way you are.

2. When you start to feel that frustration, take it as an opportunity to lean into the possibility that you can learn more about your subconscious gift — and transfer it to others. That transfer also doesn’t have to be formal teaching. Sometimes one of the best opportunities for learning comes from externalizing your thought process, giving the people around you a glimpse into how you’re processing the problem. Let people ride along and make it safe for them to say when they’re not following your thought process and to ask questions along the way.

3. Remember that your weaknesses aren’t that weird. Subconscious gifts are inherently rare. The opposite of that is conscious weaknesses — that are also common. We have many and varied ways that we’re uniquely gifted, but our struggles and challenges boil down to a few things: a lack of confidence, overwhelming anxiety, pride… The problem is that we think about them in reverse. We think, “My weaknesses are special and unique to me.” So we don’t share our gifts because we think everyone has them. We don’t share our weaknesses because we think we’re the weird ones.

Recognizing subconscious gifts and helping people see and harness these skills that might otherwise go unrecognized can level up the individual and the organization. It’s also critical to fighting problems like imposter syndrome (that feeling that you’ve experienced success that’s undeserved) and owner reliance (you won’t teach or mentor on what you think everyone already knows or can already do). You’ve got to be able to see and understand those abilities to know that you deserve the success you’ve found and that others might need access to your insights to be able to do what you do.

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