Investing In My Strengths

Posted by: Dan

Have you been living your life with a sense of pressure to improve your weaknesses? Browse your nearest book store and the size of the self-help section can shine a blinding light on a long list of weaknesses you should be working on. From a young age we are taught to invest time and energy in the things we are less than gifted in. How many times in your years of education did mom and dad sit you down, skim right past your A’s and B’s, and gravitate toward the one “C” on your report card? It didn’t matter that you had no natural ability or interest in becoming a chemist, the point being that chemistry was your weak subject that grading period. If you are weak in an particular area, that’s where you needed to devote all your time and attention. Or is it?

Thanks to @jimcota and a new book, I have a renewed perspective. One of the amazing things Jim has done with our team at Rare Bird, Inc. (@rarebirdinc) is ask each of us to read the book StrengthsFinder 2.0, by Tom Rath. This book took my understanding of how to invest in my individual talents (or lack thereof) and flipped it upside down. Instead of pointing out flaws and weaknesses, the goal of this book is to highlight what’s right with people. When I was a kid I wanted to be a NFL running back like Barry Sanders. In reality, I would have never been more than an average player for a mid-major college team (with zero chance of being a NFL player). I could have invested years of my life working toward a goal that would never come to fruition. Then what? What about the areas of life I was naturally gifted in? Seems like these areas would have gone undeveloped.

We are really looking at two different symptoms that contribute to the same problem. The first symptom relates to our poor allocation of time and effort. We devote more attention to our weaknesses when we should be strengthening our natural talents. Symptom #2… we often think we are gifted in certain areas when we really aren’t (run like Barry Sanders, really?). If you don’t like chemistry, should you blow off class? If you don’t have blazing speed, should you quit the football team? The answer isn’t avoiding the things you have lesser interest or ability in; that’s not reality. It’s more about shifting focus to invest in the areas you are naturally gifted in… the talents that come natural to you. StrengthsFinder shares a formula that made this concept easier to understand.

Talent is defined as my natural way of thinking, feeling and behaving… what I’m naturally interested in and drawn to. Investment is the time I spend developing my skills and building my knowledge base. The more I spend investing in my natural talent, the more I’m able to harness my strengths. I may have the natural genetic makeup to be a world class body builder… I might even be naturally strong. But if I don’t hit the gym and invest in developing my natural gift, I’ll never fully realize my maximum strength.

The book is a quick read (about 30 pages). After reading the book, you take an online assessment that identifies your top 5 strengths. I would say this is one of the more meaningful experiences of my adult life. I encourage you to take a look at my strengths report below. For those who know me well, do you think the report is an accurate description of who I am?