I had to laugh at my own inability to notice what was right in front of my eyes. I’ve had two light-bulb moments recently which by rights shouldn’t have been a surprise to me at all but plainly obvious all along. The first relates to coffee which I drank a lot of until recently, well lattes anyway. I’ve always known that I don’t like coffee flavoured food – even chocolate – so I don’t know why it escaped me that I don’t actually like coffee to drink either!

Once I had made that connection, replacing it with a coffee alternative was easy enough to do. However, giving up milk was proving harder as that’s what lattes mostly are. I tried numerous milk substitutes, none of which worked. Determined to continue experiencing ‘a cup of coffee’ I persevered until I had exhausted all the options I could think of except one. If I like the taste of this alternative Chicory root drink then why don’t I try it without any milk or milk substitute at all – genius! It tastes much better than all the previous combinations put together. This is a classic example of not being able to see the wood for the trees when you are stood alone in the middle of a forest!

I experienced the same feeling when running a leadership seminar recently. I kept the content general because the audience was unknown to me and I thought that would be the safest thing to do. Strange really as I’m not one for playing it safe. My specialism is Inspirational Leadership which is one component of effective leadership. To profess to be an expert across the whole breadth of leadership would be nonsense – it is a vast and complex subject after all. I can, however lay claim to being an expert in Inspirational Leadership as I have a proven track record of doing this extremely well. Inspiring individuals is my niche area, my unique contribution – it’s why my Inspirational Leadership Programmes have that name! When I am helping individuals to become an inspiration to themselves and the people they lead, then I know I am doing good work.

A strong niche enables us to easily identify what we should be doing more of, and also less of, in our daily lives. Furthermore, it gives us permission to live our passions and our values in a lucrative, fulfilling way.

Helping success-minded individuals define their Niche is one of the ways I inspire individuals and I can do that well because I have taken the time to define my own. It’s a good job I practice what I preach!