Despite my thoughts about playing to your passions no matter what, I have found great value in the Strengthsfinder 2.0 assessment. Truth be told, I’m a big fan of assessments because of the value they add to our self-awareness even as we are self-reporting in our responses. We can gain insights on our behaviorial styles (DiSC), personality preferences ( MBTI® ), and in the case of the Strengthsfinder, our top five themes of talent.

If you have conversations with each of the experts in those respective fields about your results and then synthesize that data, it can be a really powerful tool to enhance your productivity levels not only in business or professionally but in your daily lives.

My friend and colleague, Kim Beasley and I started talking about benefits of the Strengthsfinder again last month and we were both driven to write about how it plays a role in our lives–particularly in business. After reading about my top five talents which are the Learner, Input, Activator, Ideation, Maximizer themes, I realized consciously what could benefit me even more as well as consciously thinking about my own communication and productivity styles as I live my life and run my business. My report also showed how my talents might relate to one another.

So I encourage you to buy Tom Rath’s book, and find out about your top five and see how you can also consciously benefit in your business and in life. I could end the post here. It’s certainly long enough as blog posts go but in the spirit of transparency, I thought I’d share excerpts of my own results to show the assessment’s power.

In fact, how about I break this down into parts and use myself as a Strengthsfinder case study as described in my report. The following are brief definitions and Carol-specific Personalized Strengths Insights excerpts from each of my top five themes:

Those with the Learner theme talent are on a continuous learning and improvement path and love the journey. “By nature, you have little difficulty giving intense effort to projects, problems, or opportunities that capture and keep your attention.”

People who have the Input theme love to know more and archive all kinds of information. “Driven by your talents, you can simplify the most complex, convoluted, or intricate procedure. People usually rely on you to offer clear and easy-to-comprehend explanations.”

Those with the Activator talent can make things happen by turning thoughts into action. “Your forthcoming nature might enable some people to share their thoughts and feelings with you. By nature, you are somewhat comfortable talking about yourself. You may also enjoy listening to people describe their talents, limitations, goals, worries, or successes. Perhaps these insights help you discover what someone thinks or feels. Maybe you acquire information about the individual’s style of thinking, learning, working, playing, problem solving, or studying. Because of your strengths, you periodically stir people’s emotions by motivating them to take action.”

People who have talent in the Ideation theme are able to find connections between seemingly varied phenomena. “Instinctively, you might channel some of your energy toward what you can accomplish in the coming months, years, or decades. Periodically your mind churns out new and inventive ways of reaching your desired goals… Driven by your talents, you regard yourself as logical and reasonable. You spontaneously reduce mechanisms, processes, proposals, ideas, or formulas to their basic parts. You figure out how the pieces interrelate. Your discoveries tell you why something does or does not function the way it should.”

And last but certainly not least, the Maximizer theme folks seek to transform something strong into something superb. “Instinctively, you customarily figure out what makes each person special. You talk to, observe, or study individuals who produce nothing less than excellence to identify what inspires them… You strive to honor everyone’s uniqueness and preferences. Understanding a person’s ambitions gives you insights into the type of support, training, experiences, partnerships, and nurturing he or she needs to thrive.”

So there you have it! If you have read this far, picture me cheering and thanking you profusely! I recognize that this post is longer than usual. And I hope my case study will inspire you to check out the tool for yourself so you can consciously focus on what you know makes you shine!

What!??!

Okay, let me explain what I mean by that and you are welcome to disagree! Many who know me have heard me say that you should outsource those tasks that you hate to do and don’t do well (or even those tasks you do well but hate to do).

But what if something you’re really passionate about doesn’t turn into a strength until you give it the discipline, effort, and devotion to turn it into something you’re eventually great at? After all, many people like this quote:

“People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don’t know when to quit. Most people succeed because they are determined to.”

–George E. Allen

While I applaud the Strengthsfinder 2.0 assessment–the first one that was outlined in Now Discover Your Strengths was great, but this one is much better!–I read something in the accompanying book by Tom Rath that actually hit a nerve.

Do you remember the story of Rudy Ruettiger, the young, groundskeeper at Notre Dame’s stadium? His physique wasn’t quite the football flavor, and he certainly didn’t have a natural talent for football. He spent most of his days overcoming a weakness by practicing and practicing and practicing and eventually triumphed.

Rath implies that those days could’ve been better spent focusing on strengthening a strength rather than overcoming a weakness. His maxim is: “You cannot be anything you want to be–but you can be a lot more of who you already are” versus the familiar, “You can be anything you want to be if you just try hard enough.”

But what about the psychological benefits during the journey–especially if you’re passionate about the end result?

Here’s why what Rath said hit a nerve with me: The entrepreneurial bug hit me at 10 years old and I had a ball and made some cash doing all sorts of fun activities using my “kid charm” to get it done, and then took a hiatus in terms of true implementation until 2003.  I didn’t make a ton of money as a 10 year old, but I was having the time of my life!

Truth be told, when I got back into the entrepreneurial fold in 2003, I made more mistakes than money and didn’t really get into a groove until after I hired a coach in 2004 to show me where I was blocked (one big culprit was the “M” word…no, not ‘marriage,’ silly, ‘marketing’! ).

I was always awesome at academics, technology, teaching, and creating.

Marketing? Not so much. 

But marketing is such a pivotal part of being an entrepreneur. And I’m still not a master at marketing compared to some, but I do know it’s something I have to have my fingers in even if I would prefer to outsource that task.

There were other things my coach and I discovered together back then that was making my road to entrepreneurial success a real challenge–despite entrepreneurialism being a huge passion of mine–and those things are worthy of another blog post some other time.

But let me ask these two questions for now: Should you detach completely from something that is not a natural strength in the overall scheme of things even if you’re really passionate about it (my lack of entrepreneurial mojo in 2003 as an example) or go for it anyway because you’re so determined to succeed at your passion?

And if you decide to go for it (i.e., being an entrepreneur) and find out that the weakness you have is something many experts say you should be a part of anyway–marketing in this case–do you farm it out completely, or do you have a role in it?

What say you?

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