Day #8 - Strengths Finder Facts

In the book "Strengths Finder 2.0" there are 34 different talents outlined for review. When you buy the book, you get a code so you can take the test and find out what your top 5 strengths are.

The overall idea of this book is to focus more on developing your talents rather than overcoming your weaknesses. I know I am constantly setting goals to do better at "this" and "that" and I don't often set goals to make my good parts better - I have always just assumed those good parts are already good and probably don't need much work like my lesser parts do. This test is designed to help recognize your strengths so you can build your job and life around those instead of forcing yourself to constantly strive to overcome your weaknesses.

My top 5 talents are:

1) Strategic - quickly spot relevant patterns & issues to create alternative ways to proceed.
2) Connectedness - have faith in the links between all things, believe there are few coincidences and every event has a reason.
3) Learner - desire to learn and continuously improve - the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.
4) Input - crave to know more, often like to collect & archive all kinds of information.
5) Ideation - fascinated by ideas, able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.

At first glance all these words seemed pretty similar to me, but there are differences. Taking this test and reading about the traits that go along with the "talents" makes me want to have my brother's and sisters and my husband take the test just to see what their words are. I bet Trav and I would probably not have very similar words - his would be something like:

Competition, Activator, Significance, Athletic, Discipline...? I might have to buy him a test...hmmm. I wonder if you can just buy another code for the test. I will check it out.

I think about my Dad and how mad my Brother gets when they talk about politics - Jason recently stood up in the middle of my Dad "sharing strongly" about something, said "good bye" and walked out of my parents house. I can't understand why my Brother always reacts so strongly...sure, I don't always (ok almost never) agree with my Dad and his political views, but I am always able to listen without reacting too strongly. I think this is a direct reflection of my strengths listed above and it makes me wonder what Jason's talents look like.

Crazy, Stubborn, Joker, Angry, Crazy (yes, Crazy is there twice...there are many kinds of Crazy!!) - but I kid, of course.

The best part of this whole thing is I get a copy of all the other Staff's Talent Reports. They figure it is a good way to get to know each other and find ways to work together more efficiently since we all have varying talents and different ways of relating to the world. I can't wait to read the Boss's Talent Report.

I Am Grateful,
HB

Diva Quote: "All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.”  ~Martin H. Fischer