Chapter 1

Meet Individual Advantages

"Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one."

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Let me begin by sharing the story of how Individual Advantages (IA) became what it is today. Individual Advantages has been the name of our company since 1996. The inspiration for the name has escaped many people through the years, including my wife René. In fact, she recently told me that she misunderstood the name for the first 21 years of our company's existence. This revelation came during one of our morning coffee conversations while we were discussing this very book.

While I have always passionately understood the meaning behind our company name, we have often struggled to have a clear public identity because of it. Countless people have said to me, "Why don't you come up with a better company name than 'Individual Advantages'?" Even more frustrating was the confusion when I explained what Individual Advantages was: A company that helps other companies understand the correlation between people, process, and technology, and the advantages each of these (I)individually has within the workplace. Looking back on this explanation, it still makes sense to me, though now I understand why people would look at me with confusion in their eyes for so many years.

In those early years, I found it difficult to create our best public image while still keeping the true meaning of IA. For me, Individual Advantages was never about a name but about my belief in what actually makes companies viable: the (I)individual and the influence each has. Through the years, I played around with names and logos that I hoped would help our clients and potential clients realize who we are and what we do. In doing so, we continued to apply our tried-and-true approach to solving the (I)individual business problems posed to us by clients and influencing them in a positive way to the end result.

The other names we tried never captured the true message of IA; in fact, I felt those names lost a certain amount of who we were as an organization. In the mid-2000s, we tried Business Efficiency Group. That name said who we are and that we help businesses but it did not express our beliefs about (I)individuals or the influence they have. In 2009, we again tried a new brand: YourBizDr.Com. The success of this brand was amazing and paved the way for me to share the true value of who we have always attempted to be: a positive influence to the many (I)individuals we have been blessed to work with.

The name YourBizDr.Com came from my close friend Kevin, who called me the "Biz Doctor" and suggested that we apply our practices via virtual services to more people. So, we did. From 2009 to 2014, we helped over 18,000 business owners, managers, and employees realize their (I)individual influence through our virtual services. However, each time I found our company coming back to our foundation of work: helping (I)individuals realize their influence. Working with people to better understand themselves, their organization, and their teams often necessitates deep human interaction. To understand and advise on the complexities of people and organizations requires more than simply answering questions through a chat box or email. So, I reverted my individual work to face-to-face and conventional brick-and-mortar consulting services.

In 2014, when we had the opportunity to sell our virtual consultancy, I was relieved. It's hard to consult with such a large group of clients and influence viable change over the internet through hundreds of disconnected (I)individuals. As an advisory firm, I prefer IA to work shoulder to shoulder helping our clients understand their (I)individual influence and that of their individuals, departments, divisions, or company. That sale has positively influenced our ability to bring The "I" in Team series to the world.

In 2017, I finally listened to my team and we changed the name of our consulting operations group from Individual Advantages to IA Business Advisors. For years, our clients referred to us as IA, and I appreciate the simplicity it offers our team and our clients. Today, IA is an organization that influences thousands of (I)individuals around the world while being comprised of hundreds of (I)individuals whose primary goal is to positively influence our clients.

Professional (I)individual influence, as you can see, has been a journey for me, my family, and the (I)individuals who have worked with me these past 30 years. Defining your individual influence will be a journey for you, too. Our goal is that you will take away from this book a plethora of individual advantages, the most significant being that you are the single most important individual in this world; your influence matters. It is through you that other individual influences are created.

What are (I)individual Advantages?

So, what exactly are individual advantages and how do they create influence? Well, each of us is individually part of something that is also Individual. (Remember earlier when I discussed the use of lowercase i and capital I "individual?") For example, a group of individuals creates one Individual family, a group of individuals creates one Individual country, and a group of individuals creates one Individual world. One individual is part of multiple Individuals; a child is part of one Individual family, but that child is also part of one Individual class at school.

As individuals, we each have our own advantages, and through the influences in our life, we can create advantages for other (I)individuals. Our influence creates advantages for everyone we interact with. For example, I am particularly good at mediating complex disagreements, which is an individual advantage to me and to anyone who asks for help resolving complex interpersonal issues. This individual advantage is a result of the influences of my past and the people who contributed to that influence. Other advantages can be your ability to learn, communicate, or perform physical tasks. Individual advantages are our strengths, awareness, areas for growth, and more. Advantages are what we know to be true about ourselves, but we may not realize all our advantages; they are the things we inherently own and can work to improve in order to give our best selves to our work. An example of not realizing our advantages is when we influence others or a situation without actively trying to; often times, we don't know what influence we have or if it's advantageous to others. When we work with others, we become an Individual working toward achieving a singular goal. Each day is made up of interactions between and among many (I)individuals, and it is this choreographed task of communications, decisions, and actions that creates the individual advantages that propel us in life.

In this book, we will help you to identify your internal advantages and how they produce opportunities to influence and create external advantages for other (I)individuals. Advantages and the influence they have are the culmination and result of who we are in any given moment. So, if advantages are innate or created by us, either individually or collectively as an Individual, what are they?

Are advantages something we can use physically? Yes. Like being tall or strong.

Are advantages something we can trade? Yes. In part, that is what all work is; we are all trading our skills-our advantages-to complete goals, tasks, or other various jobs for team members or clients. In a way, you barter your advantages.

To simplify: If you are empathetic and someone needs help navigating a tough emotional situation, you can coach them to be positive using your skill of empathy while also helping them learn. Your act of kindness may influence that individual to share their strengths with you or others when the time comes. However, should we fail to find those who have the advantages to supplement our areas of weakness or learn in a timely manner what we need to succeed, we may find that we fail ourselves.

Failure can also be an advantage. Failure is something we learn from, and it teaches us lessons about whatever caused the failure and what comes next. Failure creates opportunities, which can become our advantage. Failure is a way to learn, grow, and not repeat the past. Learning is an external advantage that we must look out for in order to continue growing our strengths and understanding our room for improvement. In this way, failure is an advantage because it demonstrates our ability to try, grow, and try again. Advantages can propel us forward in life, but they can also hold us back when we do not choose to learn from them as opportunities.

Think of advantages as capital to be used with other (I)individuals. Some people are born into money; one of their advantages is that they do not worry about how to pay for things like education or material items. These individuals may appear to have more advantages than a child who is born into a family who is experiencing financial struggles. However, the lives of these perceptively advantaged and disadvantaged people are not necessarily defined by money. Money can be a benefit, just as lack of money can be. It all depends on how the individual chooses to use their influence to grow and be who they want to be. Additionally, not all advantages are identified by generally perceived...