This post is an experiment on multiple levels. First, I’m testing how well I can get feedback on content for my book, by sharing content on my blog. Second, I’m testing how well I can share a techniques that’s easy for me to do live, but tough to write down. This is the same exercise I go through with my mentees at Microsoft to have more energy, have more fun, and get more done. It’s about spending more time in your strengths, and less time in your weaknesses.

I like learning the language around a given topic to build precision and depth. When you have a language for something, it helps you think, organize, and share knowledge more effectively. The same is true for strengths. Your strengths are among your greatest assets. Simply put, they help you give your best where you have your best to give. To find, study, and explore your strengths, you should know the language of strengths.

As I’ve been studying strengths and helping people find their super powers, I’ve realized that some of the strengths literature is very specific in describing strengths versus talents. What’s the difference between a strength and a talent? Simply put, a talent is your natural pattern for thinking, feeling or doing. It represents your potential. A strength, on the other hand, represents an ability that you’ve developed into a consistent, near-perfect performance.

In this post, I’ve collected the most significant data points I could find to help answer the question “Why strengths?” Simply put, you might just be the world’s next best, you name it, but we’ll never know. Why? … Because we don’t spend enough time in our strengths. Worse, very few of us even know what our strengths are.

If you’re not good at something, is it a weakness? If you’re good at something, is it a strength? No, it’s not that simple. There’s a difference between natural talents or strengths, and things that you learn over time by building skills and knowledge. There are many things that when you start out, you will be unskilled. That’s not a weakness. I’ll pause right there, to let that sink in. It’s a key concept when you’re trying to figure out your strengths and weaknesses.

Everybody has a super hero power (or at least I haven’t found anybody yet who doesn’t.) The funny thing is, not everybody knows what their super hero power is (or at least not off the top of their head.) The people that know their super hero power and use it, find work more rewarding and they get more rewards. Why? Because they are giving their best where they have their best to give. They stand out.

The 20 percent spike is a distinctive strength. It’s unusually powerful. Using your 20 percent spike generates exponential results. It’s a way to amplify your impact and maximize results. My 20 percent spike is information artistry. I use this skill to create, organize, and share complex information in a simple way. At work, it helps me write more effective books. At home, it helps me learn faster and turn insights into action. From a service standpoint, it helps me unleash the best in others.

This is a follow up post to my previous post, Living Your Process. I’ve had enough folks ask me how to map out their success process that I’ll share some more prescriptive guidance. It’s a work in progress, but it’s enough to share for now. The big idea with living your process is that it helps you make the most of what you’ve got. It’s about living with passion and playing to your strengths. It’s also about living your values whether it’s at work or at play. It’s about knowing what fulfills you and what sparks you each day. It’s about living from the inside out and leading yourself first.

I’m a fan of “living your process.” To put it another way, this is about “approach over results.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of results. The problem is you can’t control all the events in your life or what happens to you. In life, you control your attitude and response … and it’s not what happens to you, but how you react.

Can you reconfigure your brain for empathy, competitiveness, or strategic thinking? Maybe. You might be fighting an uphill battle though. Your brain shrinks as you get older. As it shrinks, you get smarter. Your brain shapes around your key strengths. By the time you reach your mid-teens, your brain is mostly shaped. I think what this means is that you gain more by focusing on your strengths and playing to your strengths, than trying to improve your weaknesses. If you’ve got it, flaunt it.

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Is your personality nature or nurture?  Studies consistently show 45 to 50 percent is nature.  The surprise though is that the other 50 percent is not nurture.  It’s not your birth order.  It’s not whether you were in day care.  Most surprisingly, 0 percent of the remaining 50 to 55 percent is  determined by how your parents raised you.  Don’t worry, you can still blame your parents for lots of specific aspects of your behavior, but you can’t blame them for your personality.  What is it …

 
Strengths and weaknesses are not the same as personality labels.  Personality profiles are your strongest patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior.  Strengths are those activities that you do well and have a natural passion and ability for.   The key is to go beyond any personality labels and identify your specific, real world activities that are your strengths and invest your time in those areas.  In Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance, Marcus Buckingham writes about going beyond personality profiles to identify your …

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Activities that are all appetite, no ability are hobbies. You might feel drawn to these activities.  You might even grow from them and feel good afterward.  But if you are not successful or effective, they are hobbies, not strengths. If you recognize the difference, you can move on to explore finding your strengths. You can still make time for your hobbies, but the key is to keep exploring your abilities until you find your true strengths.  That’s how you go from good to great. In Go …

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When an organization says people are its greatest asset, what they really means is their people’s strengths are their greatest asset.  When you focus on strengths you get the best results, whether its an individual, a team or an organization. If you focus on weaknesses, you bring yourself down, the team down and the organization down. If you’re not spending your time in your strengths, you’re not doing justice to yourself, your team or your organization. Your strengths are the organization’s most important assets. Your strengths …

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What’s right with you?  If somebody asks you, what’s wrong with you, you might have a quick list of weaknesses you can rattle off.  But if they ask what’s right with you, can you rattle off a list of your strengths?  Chances are, you might have a fuzzy idea about your strengths, but you might not have a label for them.  In Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance, Marcus Buckingham writes about labeling what is right with things.    
Label What …

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How do you give your best where you have your best to give? You’re special. You’re an individual with a unique set of strengths, weaknesses, and experiences. Maybe only your closest friends know your true strengths. Maybe you don’t show your strengths at work. Why not? No matter what the task is, you can leave your mark. You have your signature strengths. Use them. In Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance, Marcus Buckingham writes about giving your …

Spend 75 percent of your time on your strengths and 25 percent on non-negotiables. If you’re like most people, you spend the majority of your time on activities that make you weak. Worse, these activities that make you weak, are interspersed throughout your day or throughout your week. Instead, put a time limit on how much time you will spend each day on activities that weaken you. It’s your timebox. Make this timebox a maximum of 25 percent of your day. Next, consolidate the activities to …

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Want to feel strong and alive each day?  Put your strengths to work.  You have some skills that just make you feel powerful and engaged.  They grow you.  You could spend all day doing these activities and still want more.  These skills come easy for you and you look forward to using them.  Maybe you don’t know what they are yet, but you just notice that some days feel better than others.  Then there’s the activities that drag you down.  They make you weak.  Just the thought …

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What are your best abilities?   Not just what are you good at, but what are your core strengths that run deep.  These are the activities where your passion, your talent, and your ability collide.  The more you do, the stronger you get, the more jazzed you feel, and the more you grow.   Do you know your own strengths?  Many people don’t.  They’re too busy trying to fix their weaknesses.   In Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance, Marcus Buckingham writes about …

Want to lead a life of strength?  Well, what holds you back?  Chances are … you do.  You’ve been trained to focus on your weaknesses.  At school, it’s not how many you got right.  It’s how many you got wrong.  At work, chances are you spend more time fixing your weaknesses than growing your strengths.  Want to make the shift?  Well, you need to know how to bust your myths.  In Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance, Marcus …