Find Your Strengths
Lissa Coffey
My son Brian is a business major in college and for Christmas he gave me a terrific book called “Strengths Finder 2.0” by Tom Rath. The premise is that when we know our strengths, or natural talents, we can better implement them in our work, and express ourselves more positively and effectively. Benjamin Franklin said: “Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?” Too often we focus on our shortcomings, on what we need to improve about ourselves. But this strategy shows us that our strengths can teach us a lot about ourselves. The system that Gallup has come up with lists 34 different themes and ideas for ways to take action. You have to get your own copy of the book, because each one has a code in the back that you use to take the online assessment. There are 170 questions that must be answered, each one in 20 seconds or less. You have to go with your gut instinct. At the end of the assessment you are given a list of your top 5 Themes. Mine were: Strategic, Relator, Connectedness, Maximizer and Empathy. If you have the book then you know what this means! My son told me that there’s so many combinations that there’s only a 1/500,000 chance that someone else will have the exact same five that you have. It’s very interesting to look at the theme descriptions and compare with others. Let’s make this a discussion topic on our CoffeyTalk facebook group page. I’d love to hear about everyone else’s findings!