Recognition of Personal Strengths

Today was a fantastic day in my life (Surpassed only by a handful of days), so this log entry will be very long-winded.

I honestly don't know where to start because everything is so exciting in my opinion and it all means so much. In that case I'll start with a short comment I made to my wife this morning. I told Whitney that "I think today is going to be a really good day". I don't feel prophetic because there were signs in my life that pointed to it being a good day. I already gave it away that it was a fantastic day, darn, I should have left you in suspense.

Since my last journal entry I have spent about 5 extra hours a day at work looking for an elusive software bug. The issue was severe and complicated, and every lead that I found was a dead end. I spent a total of 57 hours looking for it, but today was finally able to pin it down. That was one thing that helped start the day off right.

Thirty minutes later I checked my grade for Marketing and every grade turned in was an A. That guaranteed the final grade I was looked for in my first Masters class. Awesome. Fifteen minutes later, my boss stopped by with even more great news that I won't go into. I'll revisit a part of my conversation with him here shortly. Without all the details of this scenario it may not sound amazing, but I assure you it was fantastic for me.

Backtrack to last week. Last week was full of stress because of the second econ test that I hadn't really studied for. All my attention has been so focused on Marketing that I really hadn't gotten a full understanding of the econ concepts like on the first exam. With work keeping me late each night, Friday rolled around and I was panicking about studying for the test. So, I sent a shout out to John Griffin and another classmate to see if I could join their study session on Saturday. Of course they were gracious enough to let me join them, and I think we all benefited from the session. Paradigm Shift is their team name (they even have a logo, overachievers). I invited Paradigm Shift to attend Team 1's (my team) review session to reciprocate the favor. Paradigm Shift made review sheets and prepared a great study guide for the test including videos and webpages with graphical displays that were quick, concise and not confusing. I am very thankful for their efforts. All in all, I felt prepared by the time that we had to take the test.

Ironically, that was the abridged version of my thoughts toward the study session. Needless to say, I will be joining forces with Paradigm Shift again, soon. I really enjoyed opening up to another group and starting to operate as a team with the entire cohort and not just my team. Previously, I had been working with one other classmate, but not another group.

Leadership class - To start the course, we were required to take an online assessment that accompanies the book Strength Finder 2.0. This helps readers to identify the areas that they are particularly talented at. They are identified as areas that are likely your natural strengths. There are 177 questions to answer and each must be answered in 20 seconds to make sure that you answer with your gut and don't over think your answer. My gifts were the following with a brief (biased) description:

Learner - I find it easy to learn new information and am always trying to attain knowledge
Achiever - I like being busy and getting things done
Significance - I need to feel important in other people's eyes
Strategic - I can quickly come up with solutions, and have a good sense of logic
Communication - I like to talk a lot

So those aren't exactly the descriptions that go with these as a talent, but they were what I saw when I read the results. I was actually very upset with one because I thought that it wasn't something to consider as a strength. That one I had an issue with was Significance. I have always been very humble and never try to be important to others. This leads to a conversation we had in our leadership course.

Dr. Ford asked for our thoughts on our strengths and I spoke up to say mine pretty much stunk. It sounded so selfish. Then she asked everyone to quickly review significance. There was a roar from the class, and others were saying I wish I had that, and I was completely puzzled. Who, in their right mind wants this gift. Then, the craziest comment came from my teammate. She said "You're a poet". I replied "What?" She whipped back with "You wrote your wife a poem to propose to her." Again, puzzled I said "How is that ... oh". She finished my thought by saying "You obviously wanted that moment to be important for your wife." This was a revelation. Her comment flipped my perception of the word. So much so, that I have spent all day focusing on how awesome this is. It made so much more sense. Also, I'm now realizing that my work is the quality that it is, because I honestly believe the things I do in life have meaning. I'm very excited to think about my gift in this way.

Learner and Achiever were givens and everyone would get that after a 15 minute talk with me, but I'm more interested in learning more about significance.

This week in class was a moment where the whole class came to my defense so that I could embrace my gifts. Also, through my transparency, displayed through this blog, and my communication gift, others were able to help me grow as a leader. This was a priceless moment. My wife and I agreed that already the cost of tuition paid off in that one evening.

Back to my discussion with my boss. I handed my boss, Toby, a list of my strengths this week and he quickly glanced at the meanings before we spoke today. He had the same thought about significance that I had, but after sharing what I learned in class last night I was able to explain how this is truly a gift that will help to mold me into a great leader. This is important to note, because while I have a mentor at work, we tend to have a similar perspective since we are a part of the same work culture and we are engineers by trade. This is a great reason to surround yourself with different types of people with different talents.

I look forward to any thoughts you may have about talents and strengths. If you know what strengths you possess, I'd love for you to post them in the comments. If you don't know your strengths I recommend buying Strengths Finder 2.0 ($10) and taking the online test. It's easy. Thanks for hanging in there to read the whole post.