Exceptional Book Summary - Exceptional Book explained in key points
Listen to the Intro
00:00

Exceptional summary

Daniel M. Cable

Build Your Personal Highlight Reel and Unlock Your Potential

4.6 (123 ratings)
19 mins

Brief summary

Exceptional by Daniel M. Cable explains how individuals can thrive in life and work by pursuing and leveraging their unique strengths and talents. It provides evidence-based insights and practical tools for unlocking our full potential and finding fulfillment.

Table of Contents

    Exceptional
    Summary of 7 key ideas

    Audio & text in the Blinkist app
    Key idea 1 of 7

    To be at your best, you need to build on your strengths.

    Imagine you could turn on the TV every morning to watch the best moments from your past week. Perhaps you’d replay a great presentation you gave at work. Maybe you’d get a glimpse of yourself helping out a neighbor. You’d experience yourself at your kindest, most inspired, and most productive. Wouldn’t this make you feel amazing?

    Unfortunately, unless you’re a superstar athlete, your personal best-of won’t air on TV anytime soon. And if you’re like most people, the clips playing in your head are more like a blooper reel – an endless rerun of past mistakes and failures. What would happen if you trained yourself to focus on your best qualities instead?

    The key message here is: To be at your best, you need to build on your strengths.

    Everyone has weaknesses and limitations. To avoid making a fool of yourself, it’s good to be aware of them. But simply mitigating your flaws is hardly a source of excellence. Just like a superstar athlete, you make your best impact when you lean into what you naturally do well.

    Research shows how powerful it can be to focus on your strengths instead of your flaws. One study from the University of Auckland followed a group of teenagers with physical disabilities over a one-month workshop. In the first two weeks, the teens learned to perform several assembly tasks. Then, one part of the group watched their personal highlight reel – a video of themselves working on the tasks, but with all the mistakes edited out. The second group watched an unedited video of themselves. Guess which group performed better over the next two weeks? That’s right – the teens who’d watched themselves excelling. They became a full 15 percent more productive than the others.

    That’s because positive feedback about your abilities fills you with a sense of accomplishment, pride, and purpose. This inspires you to keep up the good work – and to do even better.

    Of course, you can’t go through life filming every great thing you do. But there’s a way to create your personal highlight reel without a camera. These blinks will teach you how to do just that. But first, let’s have a look at why it can be so hard to find your unique strengths.

    Want to see all full key ideas from Exceptional?

    Key ideas in Exceptional

    More knowledge in less time
    Read or listen
    Read or listen
    Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
    Find your next read
    Find your next read
    Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
    Shortcasts
    Shortcasts New
    We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.

    What is Exceptional about?

    Exceptional (2020) shows you how to discover your strengths and build on them to become the best version of yourself. By creating a personal highlight reel of your life, you’ll learn how to spot your talents, build confidence, and unlock your full potential – both at work and at home.

    Best quote from Exceptional

    The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The work of life is to develop it. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.

    —Daniel M. Cable
    example alt text

    Who should read Exceptional?

    • Self-deprecating people who wonder where their talents lie
    • High achievers who feel like they’re stuck in a rut
    • Anyone curious about what people will say at their funeral

    About the Author

    Daniel M. Cable is a professor of organizational behavior at the London Business School. His consultancy, Essentic, has worked with companies like Twitter, Coca-Cola, and IKEA to help employees discover their unique strengths and talents. He’s written two other books on his methodology, Change to Strange and Alive at Work.

    Categories with Exceptional

    Book summaries like Exceptional

    People ❤️ Blinkist 
    Sven O.

    It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.

    Thi Viet Quynh N.

    Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.

    Jonathan A.

    Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.

    Renee D.

    Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.

    People also liked these summaries

    4.7 Stars
    Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
    29 Million
    Downloads on all platforms
    10+ years
    Experience igniting personal growth
    Powerful ideas from top nonfiction

    Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 7,000+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.

    Start your free trial