William E. Mayer Chairman of Aspen Institute Asks Leaders to Find There Special Strength

William E. Mayer is the Senior Partner of Park Avenue Equity Partners, a private equity firm, formerly professor and Dean of the College of Business and Management at the University of Maryland. When Bill gave his closing address at the Aspen Idea Festival, he said that it dawned on him several years ago that “one needs to find that one thing that makes them special and do that every day all day.” He found it difficult, as most people do, to discover this unique quality because he does it on auto-pilot without effort and gives it no attention to this strength. His attention, like most of ours, is spent on those things that we don’t do well. For himself he found coaching others was his special gift. He had been doing it most of his life. It was someone else that needed to help him become aware of this skill he gave to those he connected with – because it was so common he didn’t even know he did it.