After six years of coaching clients around their strengths, I am still tickled and surprised when I acknowledge them for some amazing thing that they do and they say, “What do you mean? Doesn’t everybody do that?”
Last week I was with my friend Gina walking a lovely neighborhood retail area with shops and restaurants. We were hanging flyers for my upcoming StrengthsFinder™ workshop. And, I got the pure joy of seeing all of her strengths come into play.
Each of our unique combinations of strengths causes each of us to shine, to be strong in the way that only we can!
In the first three restaurants she told me about something on the menu that she knew I specifically would love. At the bookstore she held the door open for the shopkeeper carrying in boxes of books. Then she offered to help her unload the car. At the next restaurant, they didn’t have a place for flyers and she said in her gracious, sing-songy voice, “No is a perfectly acceptable answer.” At the next bar, she told and the bartender that we were coming back for one of their specialty tequilas. At the paper store she told the owner how the workshop could help her and her employees. In the mobile fashion truck, she talked to the girl about bringing the truck to her birthday party.
And so Gina went for 5 or 6 more shops. When we were walking to our cars, I said, “That was amazing. I have hung many flyers in my life and never like that. It was like you gave everyone we talked to a gift, or several gifts. And, you knew exactly what to give each one of them.” She looked at me so quizzically and then said, “doesn’t everybody do that?”
Ah . . .
We are so strong in our strengths that we don’t even know they are strengths. They’re “just what I do.”
When I told Gina she could make very good money with her strengths she couldn’t understand why anyone would pay her to just hang some flyers!
Feel free to post your comments, insights and experiences with your strengths below.
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