Defining Your Purpose–The Certainty of Uncertainty

My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness. - Michelangelo

I truly believe that everything that we do and everyone that we meet is put in our path for a purpose. There are no accidents; we're all teachers - if we're willing to pay attention to the lessons we learn, trust our positive instincts and not be afraid to take risks or wait for some miracle to come knocking at our door. - Marla Gibbs

The #1206 “fiction” series continues …

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Geri crawled into bed next to Will.  It had been a busy but fruitful, fulfilling day.  She kissed Will and snuggled lovingly into him.  Sleep came fast and easy for her …..

…. and then she awoke with a start.

She was no longer in her bed but sitting in a chair in a darkened, softly lit room empty of anything but the comfortable chair she found herself in.

She looked frantically for Will but he was nowhere to be found and for a moment, panic began to seize her.

A voice from nowhere, everywhere and within her spoke softly and gently to her.  “There is nothing to fear here, Geri”, it said kindly.

The voice paused for a moment before continuing.

“Before you move on in your journey, it is normal that your journey-to-date be reviewed.  Hopefully you will find the review to be useful”, the voice said.

Images appeared around Geri, movies floating in the air about her.  She recognized them all.  It was her Life in all of its early struggle.  One moment she was observing being bullied in school, another time she saw abuse at the hands of someone who sought to relieve his pain by pushing it on her.  She watched her younger self struggle with her career and a Life of personal difficulty.  Years of frustration, unanswered prayers and a sense of being lost in Purpose were replayed and she felt painful, all-too-familiar emotions welling up inside her as she remembered those days.

“How do you know this?”, Geri asked in bewilderment.

“This is not the time for questions”, replied the voice, “Observe.”

Geri watched the movies in silence, tears rolling down her cheeks.  Small, personal victories and moments of happiness were interspersed with long stretches of difficulty.  She relived her feelings of fear, failure and a strong sense of unworthiness that she had experienced then.

And then the movies disappeared.

Geri sat in silence, digesting what she had just watched.

“This was your Life story”, the voice said.

She cleared her throat and spoke.

“That wasn’t my whole story”, she said quietly.

“True”, replied the voice, “We spent a long time preparing you for your real story.  Sometimes, difficult things were sent your way to prepare you for your Purpose.  Other times we sent gifts to you in the form of opportunity but you resisted them, choosing the difficult path when an easier one was available.  Some lessons were necessary.  Some were voluntary on your part.  All of them were important.”

The voice paused.

“Observe”, it said.

Another movie appeared.  It showed a meeting she had had with a long time friend many years ago.  They were talking about her struggles as they had done in the past and he was encouraging her to stop being fixated on what had gone wrong in her Life. He implored her to see her difficulties as preparation for something greater and to allow herself to be guided towards her real calling instead of driving towards what she believed that calling to be.  He was reading to her from his Bible, quoting Ecclesiastes  3:1-11 and how everything mattered in its own time.  The time had come to use her talents and gifts in the way she was meant to and not in the way she thought she was supposed to, he had implored.

“I remember this meeting”, Geri said, “Hank was telling me something I already knew.”

“Perhaps”, replied the voice, “Hank, or Gabriel as we know him, was telling you something important that you had ignored for your entire adult Life.  So while you claim to have known this all along, it was your failure to take any action that kept you trapped in the Life that you hated.  Gabriel’s task when you met him that day was to get you to think differently.  Do you remember what happened after that meeting?”

“Yes”, Geri replied, “Will and I decided to trust our instinct more.  I gave up on my dreams of running a big, fancy, impactful company and we settled on a bed and breakfast that we had had our eye on for some time.  It was kind of a silly dream I guess but I always like it was something that kept calling me and so we gave in to the feeling and followed it.”

“A silly dream?”, asked the voice, “Observe.”

Movies again began to play in the air around her.  One movie showed a successful artist proudly exhibiting his art to an admiring audience in a large art gallery.  Another movie showed a couple lying on a beach, intertwined in each other as they watched the sun go down.  In another, a young man was saying goodbye to his father as he lay dying in a hospital bed.

Other movies played all around her.

“Who are these people?”, Geri asked as she watched them all in awe and bewilderment.

“The young artist stayed at your bed and breakfast when he was struggling to find his way in his vocation.”, replied the voice, “The couple were experiencing the death throes of their marriage when they decided to give it one last try by spending a romantic weekend at that same bed and breakfast.  The other young man and his father had become estranged over the years and had decided that it was important that they reconnect and they did so at your bed and breakfast shortly before his father died.”

The voice paused for a moment.

“All of these people were struggling.  Their lives changed when they met the owners of the bed and breakfast.  As their Life Journey took them through your bed and breakfast, they were transformed.”

The voice paused again before continuing.

“As were you and Will”, it said gently.

“I don’t understand”, said Geri quietly.

“We spent your entire Life preparing you for your real Purpose.  You fought us and resisted us the whole way.  When you finally acquiesced, the Purpose we had for you was allowed to come to fruition.  You wanted to serve people but you kept getting in your own way.  Impactful service was much easier to achieve and closer at hand than you realized.”

Geri sat in silence, tears once again rolling down her cheeks.

“I didn’t know”, she said quietly.

“Nor were you meant to”, replied the voice, “You would have attempted too many shortcuts had you known.  Human beings cheat if they know the answers in advance.”

“What about Will?”, she asked, “Where is he?  Can I see him?”

“He still has a small part of his Calling remaining”, replied the voice, “You will see him soon.”

There was a moment of silence.

“You once had someone important that you lost”, said the voice gently, “Tell me about her.”

Geri choked down the sobs that wanted to well up within her and she looked down at the floor.

“My mother was everything”, she said, “When she died, I felt like I had lost my champion.”

“What would you tell your mother if you could speak to her right now?”, asked the voice, “What do you think your Champion would tell you about all of the people whose lives were changed when they met you and Will at your bed and breakfast?”

Geri shook her head for a moment and then looked up to answer the question.

As she did so, she was stunned to see her mother standing in front of her.  Behind her, others stood, people that she had recognized as having helped her over the years or whom she had helped.

She opened her mouth to speak …..

To be continued.

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© 2016 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Background

This blog post is a long distance dedication to someone I can not identify.

Perhaps the person is you.

You know what it means.

Someone is waiting for you.

What are you waiting for?

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy advisor and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” (note the quotes) and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

A Purpose-Filled Life–Applying Your Strengths

Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses. - Marilyn vos Savant

Figure out what you really love doing and use your strengths on a daily basis. - Tom Rath

I spend a lot of my day helping people and organizations figure out how to do things better, whether it is in the area of strategy definition and application, extremely large-scale IT architecture, team collaboration or whatever other need serves those who interact with me.

When establishing or attempting to understand the foundation for the project, I always ask the people I am interacting with questions such as “What do you do well?  What are your strengths?” and even in the 21st century, I continue to be amazed by the people and organizations who cannot answer the question at all.

For those who can answer the question by parading their Myers-Briggs test, Strengths Finder 2.0 result, Teamability report or any other test, most can’t answer my obvious follow-up questions – “What do they mean to you?  How are you applying them?”

They seem to have taken the test (or tests) and having ascertained that they are an INTJ, a crouching tiger, a blend of red and blue, a squirrel or whatever other result their specific test told them, they move on without applying the important information that was just handed to them.

Information without application is mere entertainment but when one applies information, it becomes knowledge, which when applied produces results, which when learned from produces wisdom.

When people or organizations apply the information provided to them, they discover a number of things, including but not limited to what make a person most / least productive, what makes a person a better or worse contributor / collaborator, what turns them on / off, etc.  Since the net of these attributes, the good and the bad, roll up to produce a strong or poorly performing organization, knowledge of these attributes is essential to creating a healthy, strong organization.

Awareness of this information also provides individuals with a filter by which they can evaluate the cacophony of information, requests and demands flowing in their direction, thus allowing them to choose what they allow to enter their spheres of influence and to decide what is worthy / necessary for them to respond to - for their betterment and for the betterment of those who interact with them personally or professionally.

A Personal Illustration

My Myers-Briggs profile is INTJ (the Mastermind profile).  Specifically, the four letters mean the following:

• Introversion – I prefer to be quiet and reserved in interaction.  Quiet observation allows me to learn more than walking in with a swagger that suggests I know it all already.
• Intuition – I prefer abstraction and big picture thinking (i.e. “where is this project / intention going?”).
• Thinking – I prefer data over emotion / rhetoric to make decisions and to measure results.
• Judgmental – I prefer plans and predictability over “winging it”.

Meanwhile, my Strengths Finder 2.0 strengths are:

• Futuristic – I am focused on long term outcomes – yours, mine, your organization, etc.  I never stop thinking about this.
• Strategic – I prefer focusing on strategic planning around measurable outcomes and goals over tactical execution or setting out without a measurable destination in mind.
• Connectedness – I believe everyone has a role to play if we can ascertain what their strengths are commensurate with what we need and we can find a way to leverage their strengths.  Too often we don’t do this and end up with “problem children” on our project, blaming them for something that they can’t prevent because they are hardwired to do what they are doing.
• Achiever – results are everything.  If we can’t measure them, we don’t know if we have achieved them.
• Learner – the constant acquiring, application and sharing of knowledge is essential to my well-being.

My Teamability report suggest that I am a Founder, binding vision and action together and acting as a “conductor / orchestrator” to produce results that improve the lives of people, organizations and the world at large.

Most people, having acquired their “official list” as noted above nod and smile and then move on with their Life, not applying what they have just discovered.

They also miss the importance of understanding the relationship between their strengths and to see how they support / feed each other.  Observe how my strengths support each other in the following diagram (click on the diagram for a larger version).

In the diagram above, ideas feed my futuristic strength (where my brain casts a vision), the vision flows to my strategic strength (where measurable outcomes, goals and plans are defined), the measurable outcomes are sent to my achiever / connectedness strengths where collaboration with others becomes critical to achieving the desired result and the strength of learner is used to measure progress and adjust where necessary.

Meanwhile, my INTJ attributes tell myself and others how I will apply these strengths and my Teamability role drives my need to inspire others and to orchestrate the desired result.

The impact of my strengths on my behavior and results is easily observed.  For example, one can see that if I am given gory details to accomplish, I will not like doing it and I am unlikely to produce a useful result.  While I am an empathic person, if you give me a role where I need to be empathic all the time, my need for data application (on their side and mine) will eventually overrule my sense of empathy, which may not be desired.  While I am considered a strong communicator, if you make communication my primary role, I may get frustrated if I don’t have a role in casting the future, designing strategic plans, etc.  If you give me a role where I am an order taker, my Teamability role as Founder will cause me to resist.  I can follow direction – just not day in and day out.  If you invite me to an agenda-less meeting, I always say no since a predictable, effective use of my time and contribution cannot be defined.

The list goes on and on but if one understands my strengths, how I react to the request of another in fact becomes quite predictable!

And so, if I am asked to participate in something where I cannot see a way to leverage and apply my strengths and attributes, then I will usually decline the opportunity since I will likely not be happy with the project, those around me will likely be unhappy with me and what I / we produce will likely be less than ideal as a result.

Some people think this makes me aloof.

I think it optimizes my result (and theirs).

Applying the Illustration

A senior executive of an organization reached out to me the other day because he wanted to speak to me about something I had written on my blog.

The request was somewhat vague, where he indicated that he wanted to discuss “general stuff” with me.

Think of how this request gets processed by my strengths (which are hard-wired inside me and are non-malleable and non-negotiable).

• Futuristic – I don’t know what vision he has and he is not asking me to cast one so I can’t apply this strength.
• Strategic – I am not being asked to evaluate or create a plan with measurable outcomes and goals so I can’t apply this strength.
• Achiever – I am not being asked to produce a result nor evaluate one so I can’t apply this strength.
• Connectedness – There is no sense of collaboration present as I am not being invited to collaborate or leverage my network to collaborate so I can’t apply this strength.
• Learner – I may learn a few things in the interaction but I am not being asked to apply or share that learning, thus the knowledge nuggets are more for entertainment purposes than anything and don’t really serve the need of this strength.

Then consider how my Myers-Briggs attributes evaluate the request:

• Introversion – I prefer to be quiet and reserved in interaction.  He has attempted to condescendingly “talk down to me” in the past and while I never back down from a fight if required, his past performance suggests that his future intention will be much the same, something I have no interest in.
• Intuition – I prefer abstraction and big picture thinking (“where is this going?”) but he doesn’t want to tell me in advance, so likely my thoughts on “the big picture” aren’t desired.
• Thinking – I prefer data over emotion / rhetoric to make decisions and to measure results while his intention is to “talk down to me” or influence / intimidate me with nothing other than emotion so my desire to apply data usefully will not be satisfied.
• Judgmental – I prefer plans and predictability over “winging it” but he prefers a meeting with no agenda (which could produce anything but most likely nothing of value).

Meanwhile, my Teamability role of Founder calls me to orchestrate results that positively impact people around me, something I will not be provided the opportunity to accomplish here.

Now a yes-person, a person who has no understanding of their strengths and attributes makeup or a person who doesn’t value their own time would likely have said yes, either feeling intimated to attend, feeling a need to feed their ego with “I’m in demand / I’m important” or hoping to produce “a result” (any result) but instead they produce a meeting with little results of any value but potentially a lot of frustration (or worse) amongst the participants in the room.

I on the other hand, understanding how the request feeds into my strengths (or not) decline the request since I see myself as offering no value in regards to the things that “turn me on” or serve others.

Some people get indignant when their requests (or demands) are turned down.

I prefer to honor who I am, what I bring to the table and what value I bring.  If I don’t bring value, I don’t show up.  If you don’t bring value, I don’t invite you.

Again, some people think that this attitude is aloof or “stuck-up”.

I disagree – I think I am honoring and respecting one of the most important gifts that exists – your time and mine.

Where it really bends people’s brains is when I obtain their strengths profile in advance of a meeting (which I often do).  I use to maximize collaboration and results but more devious people use it to manipulate participants who don’t know how to honor their own strengths.  Knowing your strengths, defending how they are used and knowing how to apply them can protect you from such miscreants.

The Bottom Line

Most people I interact with cannot identify their strengths and even if they have done so, have no idea how to apply them, how to use them as a filter for information coming their way or how to use them as a lens by which others can see how to interact with them effectively and appropriately.

When we learn to honor, apply and communicate our strengths, we find that our results improve, our interactions improve and our future (as well as the future of those around us) improves both personally and professionally.

Are you aware of your strengths?

Do you understand how they work together?

Do you know how to apply them?

Do you apply them?

Do you honor and respect them (especially their hard-wired nature)?

Do you communicate them to others to enhance interaction with you?

Are you sure?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS I am not overlooking the importance of values, ethics, morals and faith since knowledge and application of these are essential components of a healthy, purpose-filled Life.  However, because I consider these to be essential, foundational components that underlie everything we think, say and do and because we all define these a little differently, I didn’t get into a detailed analysis of them here.

Also note that many self-improvement programs fly in the face of our natural, hardwired strengths, making a one-size-fits-all approach very difficult to apply successfully.  For example, people who say you should end your day with your inbox empty and your desk cleared may have something that works for them but it doesn’t work for me.  That is why awareness of one’s strengths is essential if one is shopping for such programs to make sure they work together effectively.

When the Student is Ready ....

... the teacher will appear.

So they say.

I'm sitting in a coffee shop, listening to people speak about the problems that confront the world - the economic crisis, poverty, disease, the homeless, depression in people, failing healthcare and education systems, crumbling infrastructure, global warming and whatever else they can think of that strains our confidence and faith in a positive future.

As I listen to this litany of concerns that would challenge some of the greatest optimists that have ever walked the face of the earth, I started to think about how well we apply what we have learned from the most impactful teachers and guides that have entered our respective spheres of influence.  I'm wondering what those teachers would say to us now if they were sitting at the tables around us, challenging us to apply our gifts to take on these global concerns.

From my own perspective, I'm not referring to the obvious list of teachers that come to mind:

• our parents, siblings, spouses, children or other members of our family
• God / Goddess / Allah or other supreme deity we worship
• Gandhi or any other brilliant mind that has walked the earth
• good friends who have been significant in our lives in other ways (that's a series of blogs in itself).

I'm thinking of the people we have encountered in our lives who, with no obligation to us as strangers, took the time to teach us by sharing their knowledge, life experiences and insight in a meaningful and impactful way.

We all have those teachers who arrived at pivotal points in our lives, made a long lasting impression and possibly moved on (or passed on to what follows after our time on Earth is complete).

Sometimes the lessons they taught us have had no perceived impact until we acquired enough life experiences to finally understand the lesson.

I'll share some examples from my life.  As I do so, I invite you to think of your own examples.

When I was in grades 1 to 3, Margaret R. introduced me to the love of reading and learning.  She created a joy of acquiring knowledge within me that burns strong to this day.  If a day goes by where I haven't learned something, then I try twice as hard the next day to make up for the opportunity missed.

Margaret also taught me something else.  One day when I would not stop talking, she asked me to come to the front of the class.  I was terrified - these were still the days when a nice "yardstick across the knuckles" was the common punishment for children who misbehaved.  When I quietly walked to the front of the class, she made me face the class and then informed the class that my punishment would be 5 kisses - the class deciding where the 5 kisses would be planted.

So after the enduring the tremendous embarrassment of being kissed on the forehead, the nose, the top of my head and on each cheek, I sat down quietly and was silent, my ears burning bright red with embarrassment.

It was a far worse punishment to a 7-year old than a whack across the hand.  I would have endured the whack across the hand, felt like somewhat of a hero and moved on.  To be kissed in front of my fellow classmates was dreadful.

Looking back on it as a 43-year old, I realize it was the best punishment I could have ever received.  In that simple lesson, she taught all of us that to make a point through violence was far less effective than to do so with love and humor.

The lesson is more enduring as well.  I may not have remembered the yardstick.  I do remember the love.

Some of the primers that we used back in those days had a lot of content written or edited by Emily H.  The flow of her work and the way it touched my mind and heart without being complex in nature sticks with me to this day.  Her work, which I still enjoy reading (both her new material and the material I read when I was 6, 7 or 8 years old) reminds me of the power of words to inspire, to motivate and to leave a life-long impression on the reader.

When I was in high school, I had a math teacher named Newton M.  Newton had a few simple rules - no gum chewing, no looking at your watch ("It's a lazy man who watches the clock", his voice would boom if he saw you) and if you were done with all of your work, you were to sit up straight and twiddle your thumbs.  If your thumbs got tired, you reversed direction and twiddled them in the opposite way.

Newton taught us that your culture and heritage are integral parts of who you are and that you must learn as much about your cultural history as you can.  "If you don't know where you come from", he reasoned, "how do you know where you are going?"

He also embraced the notion that respect is earned and not demanded.  While many of our school teachers at the time demanded that we respect them because of their title, he treated us like the young adults we were and we loved him for it and gave him equal respect back.  The toughest teacher in the school was one of the most loved. 

I found out after he passed away that he spent every spare dime he had on the kids whose families didn't have sufficient money for clothing, shoes or school books.  He did it without the need for recognition (in fact, he avoided it), he did it frequently and did it even when he had little to give.  He was despised by many teachers for doing it but did it for many years anyway.  This lesson of anonymous, unselfish service to those who need it (but don't request it) and against the beliefs of others who condemned him for it lives with me to this day.

Richard G. was a business associate and mentor of mine during part of my career on Wall Street.  I previously wrote about Richard back in November of 2008 - you can find this blog entry here.  Before he passed away, Richard taught me that even in the cutthroat world of business (and New York is as tough a place as any), good guys don't have to finish last.  He and Bruce P., who I had worked for a few years earlier, both lived by the same philosophy - "Take care of your people, take care of your customer and everything else takes care of itself".  Richard and Bruce also reminded me many times that successful people don't need to be callus, ruthless or cold.   To be successful, Richard and Bruce both insisted on:

• being in tune with your team members individual strengths, skills, talents, knowledge, passion and purpose
• knowing where your team members are in their life journey
• understanding how to find the best fit for each team member within the context of who they are and the needs of the organization they work for - failure to find a place where a team member fit properly was oftentimes more a failure of the leader than the team member
• knowing when to delegate and when to step in to guide (not to take control)
• living with transparency, honesty and humor
• not being afraid to ask for help or admit that a leader has made a mistake.

Richard would say that "applying these thoughts without fear can only produce positive results".  Knowing how to apply this correctly is a a gift that harvests the greatest results personally and professionally for an organization, its teams and the people and organizations they serve.  It's still the model I use when I help organizations rebuild their teams.  Jim, a friend of mine, reminded me recently that this model is not welcome in the corporate world.  He is right but I do it anyway. :-)

When I was working on some goal setting programs for inner city youth a few years back, I was extremely gung-ho to get out there and get stuff done.  I was in a hurry to make an impact, the need was great and so I reasoned that there was no time to waste.

I discovered that being in a hurry and seeing an urgent demand does not necessarily guarantee that things will happen quickly.  My belief that urgency of need guaranteed that everyone would climb on board with the same sense of urgency rapidly hit a brick wall.

At that time, Bret D. arrived in my life, bringing his business knowledge in the space, his passion for education and youth, his love for people and his life experience in the same arena I was working in.  With careful coaching, he was able to reset my expectations without quenching the fire that burned within me. 

He challenged every assumption and assertion in a manner that taught me how to refine my promotion and implementation, all the while increasing my passion instead of diminishing it.  It takes a real gift to guide someone without them feeling that they might as well give up because their initial assumptions needed strong refinement.  It also takes an incredible gift to encourage and teach without crushing the ego of the person who feels that they have it all figured out.  I had been successful in everything else, I thought - how tough could this be? :-) 

Today, I am making a transition from the business world that has provided me with incredible friendships, memories and abundance in many aspects of my life.  My Life purpose is drawing me towards a Life of deeper faith and service to humanity.  As I would expect, another teacher has arrived when I need it.

Dr. Carmel D., who is a chaplain and professor at the theology school where I have been studying theology part time for the past 8 months, brings an incredible calming presence and insightful mind to her students.  Her techniques for guiding students through a discernment process for defining a new path in Life are powerful.  Her strong faith in God and her belief that every person is important and brings God-given, God-inspired talent to Life is inspiring.  Her way of providing the student with the tools to discern for themselves how to bring their gifts to bear for the benefit of themselves and others is life-transformational.  Her relationship with her students is built on respect, love and God's purpose for each of us.

So when I think of these teachers and return my thoughts to the challenges I hear people discussing around me, a few things come to mind.

The teachers I described have taught me some significant things that have strong relevance to today's challenges and the role I can play with others in addressing these challenges:

• Know who you are and where you come from and love yourself for it.  If you can't get past this step, everything else can be very challenging and complicated.
• Loving others can help us overcome our apathy or indifference to what's going on around us - if we truly care for someone else, we know that we must help them.
• Love works better and faster than violence, distrust or dishonesty.
• Fear has no place in our life - we must push forward and expect positive results.  We live in a world conspiring to shower us with abundance - we will never partake in it if we are afraid to lift ourselves and others to share this abundance.
• Knowledge is important to solving many of the challenges before us - we must endeavor to be in a position that provides for constant learning.
• Sharing your knowledge unselfishly and in a way that moves the minds and hearts of others to action produces profound results.
• Give respect to earn respect - demanding respect for any reason is setting yourself up for some incredible disappointment.
• Give unselfishly to others and don't expect payment or recognition.
• Build your life around collaboration, honesty and transparency - it produces much more profound results and is much less complicated.
• Don't try to do everything yourself - there's lots of room to share the credit and provide for opportunities for growth in others. Besides - it's a lot more fun and more gets done when we work together with our respective gifts.
• Put your ego away - we are all equal in Life potential. 
• During times of struggle, listen to what your inner Spirit, your instinct or your faith tells you to do.  Move towards your Purpose without fear.
• Build up the confidence of others.  Breaking others down not only sets them back, but doing so brings you down as well.

In class yesterday, my classmates and I were asked what we would identify as the most impactful story or theme from the Bible.

Mine comes from 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Stand fast in your faith.  Be brave and be strong and all that you do, do it in love.

I think this quote succinctly ties together the themes taught to me by the teachers significant in my life.  If I can live by this creed, I can proudly say that I did my best for myself and others during my time on earth.

Now it's your turn.

Think about the significant teachers in your life.  If they were with you right now, what knowledge or insight would they share with you about your life or the world we live in?

What would they see in you that needs gentle correction or refinement?

What gifts and talents within you would they praise and draw your attention to?

What action would they encourage you to take regarding challenges in your life, in the life of someone else or in the world?

What insight from them can you share with others, to continue the legacy of learning, sharing and loving?

What indeed .............

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

Are you using your strengths?

I recently had an opportunity to work with a colleague to help explore her strengths and weaknesses and as a template, we used Marcus Buckingham’s Go Put Your Strengths to Work. It was an enlightening experience for me as it also provided me with an opportunity to examine my own strengths and weaknesses from an objective standpoint. In doing so, I had a few AHA moments that I knew existed but they really stood out this time as I helped my associate establish her own attributes.

How many of us REALLY know what our strengths are? Do we even know how to define strengths in general, as in what constitutes a strength? Do we perceive our actual strengths or do we have some filters on that cause us to identify things that are NOT our strengths but we think they are. Conversely, do we know what weakens us and how well do we avoid that which weakens us?

Many people feel that strengths are what you do well. However, Buckingham conjectures that strengths are not as much what you do well but that which you approach with energy and passion such that when you have completed a task that aligns with your strengths, you feel more energized than before you started. Sometimes what others perceive as strength in you may not actually be one.

I will share a personal example. Many people perceive me as a great mediator when two parties fall apart, since I am able to look at things from a different perspective, establish common ground between the parties and then use that common ground as a foundation to knit the parties back together.

However, truth be told that while I can do this very well, I get little satisfaction out of it outside of the good feeling that I met my social obligation as a human being helping another. I find the process somewhat frustrating since I see the silliness that brought people to that point in the first place and I find it draining to convince people to see what I believe to be OBVIOUS (and fight with them the whole way to help improve THEIR lives, although they see it as interfering while demanding my help at the same time). :-)

Now, if you ask me to get involved with people to help them learn the skills that they need to avoid being in that situation in the first place, that’s where you see my passion come alive. Sharing and learning proactive, collaborative living skills is a passion for me. I can go all day working with people on this subject and NEVER get tired.

In our day to day lives, we have opportunities to utilize our strengths, making every day powerfully fulfilling or we can cater to the whims and needs of others, doing things that either do not make use of our strengths and passion (or worse, appeal directly to our weaknesses – leaving us tired, bored and frustrated).

Crafting a role that aligns to your strengths takes courage. Many people could care less if what you do appeals to what makes you feel empowered. As long as they satisfy their own needs or they satisfy the needs of someone higher than them using what you provide, it is irrelevant to them whether or not you are using the skills, talent and knowledge that fuel your passion. However, it should be very important to YOU! If you don’t pay attention to this, it leads to mediocrity, poor results, lack of fulfillment and a whole slew of other issues.

What if you had a tool that showed you how to capture, clarify and articulate your strengths and weaknesses and to create a plan to execute more towards your strengths and less towards your weaknesses? Imagine if you were able to communicate to your peers and people above / below you what your strengths were and that by utilizing your strengths, the result of your work would be superior to what you are producing now and you would be a more valuable contributor to the needs of others.

Think how empowering that would be for you and for others that you work with and influence. Others would want to know your secret and as you share this process with them, they would also become more in alignment with their strengths; talents, knowledge, skills and passion for excellence and execution. More effective results would be produced and people would be far happier in the meantime.

Instead of relying on someone to do something for you even if producing it means they are at their wits end, you would find someone who actually derives self empowerment from doing it, freeing up the person you previously relied on to drive their passion in areas that make a more significant, profound impact on the team. Instead of blindly doing things for others because it is “what they want”, you can help them understand that you can provide better support if they request things in alignment with your strengths. It may be difficult to swallow at first, but it reaps huge rewards once people understand how to make each person a better contributor (based on their strengths).

You wouldn’t ask me to perform brain surgery on you. Would you ask a brain surgeon to operate on you if you know that while you are lying on the table, 95% of the doctor’s mind was on something else that REALLY fueled his or her passion? Either scenario would produce the same result.

How does one package this all together, to identify your strengths and weaknesses objectively, to create plans that use this information effectively to bring passion back to your personal and professional life and to communicate your new intentions to those around you? Start with Marcus Buckingham’s book Go Put Your Strengths to Work.

It is a powerful personal discovery process that will leave you excited (“I really like doing this and intend to do more of it”), angry (“Why have I wasted so many years doing this when I can’t stand it”), aware (“Aha, that’s why I never liked doing this before”) and self empowered (“The best way for me to contribute to those around me is by doing this”).

It’s a fabulous journey that I invite you to explore. If the process doesn’t produce deep conviction and emotion, you didn’t do it right. J If your work and your life are not producing passion to execute, to make a difference and to contribute to those around you, then it’s time to realign your Path!

Take care and be well.

Harry