Today I can say that I'm one of the two out of 10, today, this point in my career I can say I'm one of those people that plays to my strengths most of the time. I know how lucky I am. I've been lucky to have met a bunch of really good people along the way and lucky to work with them, lucky to have got some of the right breaks at some of the right times, lucky for many reasons, but I think most of all lucky to have met a guy by the name of Don Clifton back when I was 16 and he was 60. Basically, I'd just finished high school and through this happy combination of circumstances, I'd met him, we hit it off and actually heated up to such an extended after my time at university, I high tailed it from England all the way to Lincoln, Nebraska and wound up just working with this company for 17 years, working for the Gallup organization actually for 17 years. It was he who actually showed me that strengths do exist, and that if you want to see the best of yourself, you're going to have to capitalize on those strengths. It was he who introduced me really to that notion, and while he didn't really tell me what I should do with my life, he did show me what a strong life should look like, what it should feel like. Which was lucky because few years ago I found myself slowly but inexorably veering off my strengths path. Basically what had happened is that a project had gone well. And since no good deed goes unpunished, it had managed to morph itself from one into 10 different projects that all needed to be managed perfectly. All moved forward in concert, something that I quickly realized I was rotten at and loathed. Basically when the first signs of my own frustration and weakness began to emerge, the constant stress, the inability to find relaxing time relaxing, the loss of any joy really or humor in my work, frankly, the inability to be creative or smart when all of that happened, I knew some things. I knew that what was happening was that my week at work was beginning to fill up with activities that weaken me. I knew too that I couldn't just work my way out of it. I knew that I couldn't work my way out of it with more effort or more hours or better organization. I knew that what I really needed to do was zero back into those few activities that strengthen me. Like writing, like researching, like preparing and giving a formal presentation, like following one project for a client all the way through to its end. Once I've done that, I knew I needed to then take it upon myself and it wasn't easy, take it upon myself to go share that information with my manager and my teammates so that together we could gradually, over a number of months veer me back onto my strengths path. Which is in the end what happened. Yeah, I was lucky to have my mind prepared; prepared first to know that our strong life as possible, and second, to know how to stay on a path toward it despite all of the opportunities, all of the possibilities, and all the successes trying to drag me off there. Are you familiar with impostor syndrome? That feeling that maybe you're not quite as good as everyone says you are? That maybe if they turn on the lights really bright and they shone them in all the corners that actually find out that you're faking it, that you're making it up as you go along, that you've sought had been pulling the wool over everyone's eyes all these years. Well here's the bad news. On one level, you're right to experience impostor syndrome. Because the chances are there's somebody better out there. There's somebody better than you at building relationships with guests or making sales or organizing projects or finding patterns in data or whatever it is your job is, chances are there is someone better. But here's the good news. It doesn't matter, because you can't control how good someone else is at their job. You can't control what anyone else is thinking about you. All you can control is how you choose to spend your time at work. As you strive to spend that time wisely, there are three things you can be certain of. First, you have a wonderful and powerful strength. Second, no one else has quite the same configuration as strengths as you, and third, you'll make your greatest contribution. You'll be most productive, you're most resilient, you're most creative, you're most innovative when you figure out a way to play to those strengths most of the time. Whenever you hear that little silly imposter voice whispering in your ear, asking those darn questions. I'm I as good as I think I am. Am I really living up to my potential? Am I doing what I'm supposed to do with my life? Am I my making the biggest contribution? Then stop. Please stop, and remember those certainties, rally around those three certainties. You have wonderful and powerful strengths. No one has quite the same ones as you, and you will make your greatest contribution when you figure out a way to play to them. I'm not saying that this is always going to be easy to stay in your strength path. Other people often well-meaning people are going to try and pull you off. You will experience some success. You'll have some achievement and then new doors will open, new opportunities will present themselves, some of which will play to your strengths, but many won't. I believe that it's your responsibility to make the greatest possible contribution while you're here, and I believe that you now know how to do that. I believe that you know how a strength feels and how a weakness feels. I believe you can sort through all the activities of your weaker work and pick out those strengths and those weaknesses. I believe you can start to take your strengths seriously. That you know how to stop trying to fix your weaknesses. That you know how to take control of your weaker work and veer it toward your strengths and away from that other stuff, I believe you can offer up your strengths to those around you and that when you do, everyone wins your colleagues, when your company wins, your customers win, everyone will win. I believe all of those things. But it doesn't much matter what I believe. In the end, it matters only what you believe. Make tomorrow a different day than today. Make tomorrow a stronger day than today. Make tomorrow the day that starts off with you saying, what are my strengths and how can I bring them? Make every day thereafter that day? You've always known what the best of you is. You've always known it so trust it. Believe it.
