This Is as Important as the Top 5 Strengths

Which of the top 5 strengths are in which of the 4 domains?

Of the 34 strengths, 17 of the strengths relate to people and 17 relate to task. The people strengths are 9 relationship-building strengths and 8 influencing strengths. The task strengths are 9 executing strengths and 8 thinking strengths.

All combinations of strengths have equal capacity for contribution. And those contributions will vary wildly based on how many strengths are in which domains.

Mini Case Study
Janae: two Executing Strengths and three Relationship Building Strengths.

Keith: all 5 strengths are Thinking Strengths.

What kind of contributions might Janae make?
What kind of contributions might Keith make?
How would they work well together?
What might be areas of conflict?

While we could answer these questions more specifically if we knew their exact strengths, we can also understand what’s important to them just by looking at the domains.

What Makes This a Good Life for You?

Recently, I noticed something that might seem obvious.

When we get to be ourselves, we tend to be happy.

This struck me after I coached two clients back-to-back. The first client is doing work she loves that really engage all of her strengths doing work she is passionate about. The second client is doing too much of the back office work in his business instead of the creative work he loves.

Both at work and at home, the more all of our strengths and interests are engaged, the more life feels good to us. When our strengths are frustrated, overused or underused, well, we just aren’t very happy.

What Makes this a Good Life for You?

The simple act of taking this photo makes my own top strengths super happy.  Maximizer loves the symmetry I captured.  Empathy feels the artist.  Connectedness feels the connection of art, artist, nature and art appreciator.  Activator just had to take the picture.  Individualization chose to photograph only two pieces and this was one of them.

What about you? If you know your StrengthsFinder strengths, please do share your ideas and insights below.

If you’d like more direction for your good life, take the Gallup StrengthsFinder assessment. And, if you’d like some strengths coaching, I’d be happy to help!

Join the conversation – comment below.

Waste of Time or My Strengths at Play?

Yesterday as I was preparing my fruit for breakfast, I took a spontaneous detour. I like my fruit room temperature (Individualization and Empathy toward myself) and I’d forgotten to take cuties out the fridge.

So I peeled a cold one and decided I wanted it warmer before I ate it. I started laying out the segments so they could warm quickly with air circulating around each individual segment. Activator and Strategic at work.

Waste of Time or My Strengths at Play AStrong

As I was doing that, my Maximizer, Connectedness and Strategic noticed a fun pattern. So, I created an amusing art piece for me, and now for you! And, after a few minutes, I ate it.

So fun!

What say you: waste of time or my strengths at play?

Join the conversation – comment below.

What If It Is the Voice of God?

I made a big financial business mistake last year. I joined a program to teach me THE system for developing my own program without taking the time to understand the fine print and without noticing that several aspects of the program didn’t fit my values.

My StrengthsFinder Activator strength in its raw form has taken me to places like this before. I thought I had grown her up better than that. So humbling to still be so human. Oh my goodness.

Reflecting on what went wrong and how to go forward, I realized that I had forgotten to ask my Connectedness strength for input as I was deciding about the program. Several years ago, I had made Connectedness the Goddess in charge of all my strengths.

Connectedness tends to be much quieter than Activator. And she has direct, consistent access to God, Spirit, Source. If I listen.

Since getting out of the program, I have quit looking “out there” for the system. Instead, I’ve turned to my coach and to Connectedness to guide me to my perfect “system.”

It turns out my “system” isn’t a system at all. Instead, it’s instinctually following guidance. Specific, made-only-for-me, that I don’t even know I want or need guidance.

Following the impulse to clean up an awkward interaction with a previous client, which led to two new business opportunities.

Saying yes to going to the gym with a new friend when I had made a vow to never step foot in a gym this lifetime. Only to find out my body craves working out. I now love going to the gym faithfully twice a week. Who knew? For months, my family didn’t even believe I’d joined a gym.

My niece, Alisha, came to New Mexico to check it out for herself and had to take this picture of Ann in her new happy place.
My niece, Alisha, came to New Mexico to check it out for herself and had to take this picture of Ann in her new happy place.

Expressing a sadness to my ex-sweetie which led to a conversation neither of us can now remember how it went which led to us getting back together and creating an amazing new relationship that we fondly call 2.0.

None of these miracles happened because I asked God, “So, what do you want me to do today?” I simply followed my heart and intuition in the moment. Even when the guidance went against a vow I’d made, felt super uncomfortable or too vulnerable.

Ah, Connectedness.

Maybe that mistake wasn’t a mistake at all. Maybe it was the quickest way to get me back to me. After many months of ruminating about the mistake, that’s the first time I’ve said that out loud. Thank you for listening.

Join the conversation – post your insights, feedback and experiences below.

Do You Have One of the 5 Powerhouse Strengths?

Recently, one of my coaching colleagues asked me about my observation of StrengthsFinder strengths that seem to have tremendous potential to both wreak havoc or make a huge contribution.

It was so much fun to share with her that I thought you might like to know – particularly if you have one, or more, of these 5 powerhouse strengths in your top 5.

Do You Have One of the 5 Powerhouse Strengths?

The 5: Responsibility, Restorative, Significance, Competition and Empathy.

The powerhouse effect can show up positively. Responsibility CAN be counted on. Restorative WILL solve the problem. Empathy DOES feel others’ feelings. Significance WILL make a huge contribution. Competition WILL win.

And, the powerhouse effect, can have negative results . . .

Let’s look at how your strength might go into overdrive and drain you . . .

Examples:

  • Responsibility being overly responsible to others at the expensive of your own health and/or well-being.
  • Empathy taking in everybody else’s feelings without an outlet. They then don’t pass through you, but rather take up residence inside you.

How might your strength be used immaturely?

Examples:

  • Restorative creating a problem where there isn’t one, so you can fix it.
  • Significance making a pest of itself by needing to be important, rather than contributing something important.

– How might your strength cause chaos or upset?

Example:

  • Competition not having something meaningful in which to compete, so you become depressed or make competitions about meaningless things and alienate those around you.

All 34 StrengthsFinder strengths can, and do, go into overdrive, show up immaturely and cause chaos or upset. All 34 also can, and do, make amazing contributions.

And, it has been my observation over the past 10 years, working with hundreds and hundreds of people around their strengths that these 5 strengths can feel particularly burdensome if we don’t stay on top of managing them properly.

For years, I wanted to give back my Empathy. While I was earnestly looking for the Returns Department, I had the good fortune to meet a coach who rocks Empathy in her top 5. She naturally receives the gift of Empathy without taking on the burden.

She has taught me so much. I no longer want to give back Empathy. And, I’m still learning how to be graciously detached!

As always, post your comments, experiences and insights below, especially if you have Rsp, Rst, Sig, Cmp or Emp in your top 5 …

How Do You Know If You’re Living Your True Nature?

“A fish cannot drown in water.
A bird does not fall in air.
Each creature God made
must live in its own true nature.”
~ Mechthild of Magdeburg

For us humans, we are the only species that has the joy and the burden of discovering, remembering, our own specific true nature. We each have free will to live or not live our true natures.

We can work a job that hurts our soul or spend a lifetime wishing we had different strengths. Or, we can courageously create work that celebrates our true nature and embraces our strengths.

One of my private coaching clients has Executing and Influencing strengths in her top 5 strengths. She used to wish she had some Relationship Building strengths. Instead of wishing, we began to coach her around how to create good relationships with the strengths she does have. The work has paid off beautifully because her desire for close relationships is part of her true nature.

Another client who has mostly Strategic Thinking strengths in his top 5 strengths spent much of his life feeling bad because he was considered the “crazy thinker” in a room of doers. Today he has started a company that embraces his Strategic Thinking nature. I have no doubt that his name will one day be well-known for the huge contribution of his true nature.

And, another client hired me to mentor her to become a business coach. She would have been an excellent business coach, but her heart wasn’t in it. Today she runs a non-profit that provides addiction recovery and education. She passionately writes and speaks about this issue that is so meaningful to her.

How Do You Know If You’re Living Your True Nature?
Ah, to live our true nature as effortlessly as these little loves! Might we be over-working it?

So how do we each know our own true nature?

By paying attention to what lights you up, what energizes you, what engages you.

When do you feel most alive? In what situations do you make contributions that feel effortless? Or that require focus and effort, yet feel meaningful and fulfilling to you?

When do you feel most you? When do you have the sense, “I was born for this”? When does time stand still for you? Or fly by? When do you feel connected – body, mind, heart and spirit?

How might the world shift if we all were living our true natures? Oh my goodness, that question gets me out of bed in the morning . . .

I’d love to hear your experiences . . . post them below in the comments section . . .

Might you like coaching
to discover, remember and live your true nature?

Let’s have a conversation to see if you and your situation would be a good fit for Strong from Within coaching. My gift to you.

I keep a few openings in my schedule for these important conversations – Access my calendar here now.

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for transforming stress and overwhelm into clarity and purpose”)