Truth be told, my life’s journey has been a tad unconventional after a very conventional start. I thought that once I finished university and started teaching, I was pretty sure that I would spend a few years travelling before ‘settling down’ and getting married.

Well the travelling happened on schedule followed with some teaching. Until one lunch time, I took one look around the staff room and made a decision that teaching kidlets wasn’t going to be my future

Within a few months I had sourced a new job in the private sector and I stepped out of reliable secure paycheck world into private enterprise world. And for a few years this was my day game – office roles, sales roles, organisational roles. You get the drill.

I had more creative and intellectual freedom than I did in a classroom but after a while, I was really just going through the motions. Now don’t get me wrong – I always gave my job 100% but the juice wasn’t there for me. There was always a restlessness for more.

Not for wanting more, but for creating more.

With hindsight, the switch to my inner entrepreneur had been activated. I started working as a consultant. Then, with a friend, I started a small business. After about five years of rocking the small business world, that ended and I needed a break from managing a staff of 30. Valuing the freedom of time, I went back to working as a consultant, and also wrote a sex column for an online men’s lifestyle magazine. Ahem.

It was at this time that the intersection of my passions really took off. I had arrived a place which I found out since is known as Onlyness.

What’s Onlyness?

Nilofer Merchant* defines “Onlyness” as “that thing that only that you can bring to a situation, the collective combination of all your experiences, hopes, dreams, achievements, setbacks, meanderings and accidents of birth. It is not a philosophy or a made-up theorem. It’s a catalyst of ideas, in human form. And, until you unlock your Onlyness, you are not fully alive. And, collectively, until we honor Onlyness, we are limiting our selves, our organisations and our economies.”

In other words, Onlyness is what only I bring to the table. 

Wow! Instead of ‘fitting in’, I was able to integrate all of my life’s experiences into a uniqueness that I could now call my own.

Your Onlyness is the revolution that called you here.

To know intimately the Onlyness of your journey, gives you the capacity to bring your uniqueness to the marketplace. In a competitive marketplace, your Onlyness not only defines you, it differentiates you from the crowd. Onlyness ensures that your brand is unique.

Onlyness speaks to the truth and authenticity of your life experience.

The seeds to building a revolutionary business lay in integrating your Onlyness. Courage is required to share the story of your Onlyness and move beyond the facade of postponement and perfectionism into visibility and vulnerability.

Sharing is integral in not only finding your tribe, but in accelerating the growth of your revolution. It allows you to serve others in letting them know that you’ve walked a similar path.

When you integrate your Onlyness you allow yourselves to be seen in your difference. Living your Onlyness ensures that you stand out.

My invitation to you is to Be different. Embrace your Onlyness. Embody your Onlyness.

Leave a comment below and share the revolution. Thank you x

Kathryn x

*Watch Nilofer Merchant’s Ted talk on Onlyness.