“Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.” – August Wilson

As a parting gift at the end of one of my projects, I wanted everybody to walk away with their list of personal strengths.  Not just a list that I made up, or their own list, but a list of strengths through the eyes of the team.

I wanted everybody to know exactly how the other team members valued them.  I wanted each person to have a new lens on their strengths that they could carry forward for their future adventures.  I’m a fan of focusing on strengths, but part of that means knowing what your strengths are, as you see them, and as others see them.  I know too many people with hidden talents, simply because they just don’t know how valuable their skills and strengths are to the situation or to other people.

I kept the process simple.  I sent an email to my distributed team around the world, and then compiled the results, and shared with the team.   It was nothing fancy, but it meant a lot to each person on the team because it was real.

The Request
Here is the simple mail I sent to my team:

For today … Take 15 or so minutes to …
… send me 3 unique strengths for each person, you’ve seen demonstrated during the project.

The Results
Here are the results:
(I’m included in the results, but for privacy I used “teammate” as a place holder for each team member)

J.D.

• Driving project forward
• Providing vision for the end result
• Making decisions quickly and efficiently
• Effective leadership
• Drive to execute
• People management
• Vision for customer impact and results
• PM ability to manage multiple threads and bring them together at the right time
• Framing out new areas, new chapters, guide structure, etc. So that the team can follow behind.
• Management
• Vision
• Architecture
• Keeping things on track
• leadership/ mentoring
• Political interference for team
• Visionary
• Great networking skills
• Good mentor
• Always knows what he wants. Driven by a vision.
• Has a positive vibe that infuses confidence in the team
• Very vocal

Teammate 1

• Reliable
• Consistent
• Pragmatic
• Seems to be knowledgeable about architecture
• Consistently working on updating docs
• Work ethic and speed
• Persistence
• Discipline
• Technical
• Feedback
• Writing
• Good at reviewing and asking questions
• Good at filling out documents to get something to start with
• Eye for details
• Committed
• Strive for Project Goals
• All round performer.
• Does a good job with the tasks assigned to him.

Teammate 2

• Fast
• Reliable
• Consistent
• Writing skills
• Accuracy of details
• Team player
• Video creation
• Ability to learn new tech areas
• Familiarity with MS and p&p
• Editing
• Writing
• New Technologies
• Rewording and editing
• Starting documents.  Getting something going.
• Video creation
• Fast in execution
• Resourceful
• Focused on task at hand
• Very articulate.
• Knows how to express practice in words.

Teammate 3

• Fast
• Results focused
• Solution-oriented
• Managing project when required
• Steering others and confirming tasks and requirements
• Technical skills
• Perfectionist
• Technical
• Writing
• Architecture
• Pruning down text
• Security experience
• Team leadership
• Knows to reduce the flab (compressor)
• Quick at task in hand
• Great sounding board
• Frames crispier sentences from long-running paragraphs.
• Driven by vision.
• More or less knows/expects a given outcome from a task.

Teammate 4

• Knowledge and experience of architecture
• Fluent writer
• Willing to provide assistance when required
• Robust thinking
• Great experience
• Open to new ideas
• Technical skills
• Influential
• Problem-solving ability
• Architecture knowledge
• Patterns knowledge
• Technical ability and information in head
• Application development experience and wisdom
• Standing up for useful over “marketing speak”
• Good at technical knowledge
• good reviewer
• can talk in architecture lingo
• Highly knowledgeable.
• High motivation.

Teammate 5

• Managing day to day activities
• Planning and executing the plan
• Producing and refining content
• Hard working
• Results focused
• Solution-oriented
• Motivation
• Interpersonal skills
• Big picture thinking
• Understanding of the quality bar
• Driving releases
• Retains knowledge of old areas and can synthesize new knowledge into his existing framework
• Collaboration
• Writing
• Technical
• Only doing what needs to be done
• finishing and shipping
• positive attitude on how to deal with pressure
• Gets stuff done one way or another.
• Prioritizes tasks well.
• Precise. Doesn’t like beating around the bush.

Teammate 6

• Consistent work on improving content
• Pragmatic
• Ability to be wrong / no ego
• Solution-oriented
• Detail oriented and thorough
• Customer focus, understands the right quality tradeoffs for customer impact
• A good writer, his suggestions and changes are almost always very high quality
• Feedback
• Technical
• Architecture

Teammate 7

• Finding and maintaining contacts with reviewers and advisors
• Maintaining consistency and eye for detail
• Willing to help when required
• Due diligence
• Teamwork
• Eager to learn
• Networking
• Team player
• Willingness to do whatever is necessary or needed of him
• Growing SEO knowledge
• Interaction with and management of reviewers/contributors outside the team
• SEO
• Collaboration
• Writing
• Great passion and energy
• Good marketing skills
• Striving to improve himself
• Great team player
• Wants to be involved in everything.
• Process based.
• Loves Visio and drawing figures.:)

Some people were surprised by the strengths that others saw in them.   Some were deeply touched.  Everyone felt stronger with a clear picture of what they brought to the table and how they were valued for their contribution.

Photo by kevinpoh.

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.

The first time I did this exercise for myself, it was eye-opening.  I was spending way too much time  in my weaknesses and not enough time doing what I do best.  A little awareness can go a long way.  Once I knew the problem, I refocused, reprioritized, and reorganized my weekly schedule to spend way more time in my strengths, and a lot less time in my weaknesses.  It’s not an easy battle, but it’s a worthwhile one, and if you don’t fight the good fight, nobody will fight this one for you.  It’s all you.  Even if you have the best manager in the world, you first need to do your homework.  You need to know which activities make you strong, and which ones makes you weak.

Why a Strong Week?
A strong week is one where you spend more time in your strengths, and less time in your weaknesses.  This will boost your energy and results.  When you don’t spend enough time on your strengths, you gradually get drained.  It’s a slow emotional drain.  By spending more time in your strengths, you renew yourself, rebuild your energy, and unleash your results.  The big deal is that by consolidating activities that make you weak and adding activities that make you strong to your day, you have more energy throughout the day, and throughout the week.  Rather than end your day or weak drained, you are continuously recharged.

Summary of Steps

• · Step 1 – Map Out Your Weaknesses.
• · Step 2 – Map Out Your Strengths.
• · Step 3 – Design a Strong Week.

Note – In the following steps, we’ll focus on just Monday through Friday. You can include Saturday and Sunday too if you want, but I suggest first getting a handle on the core week days, before worrying about the weekend. The exception is if your work week starts on a Sunday, then I would start there.

Step 1 – Map Out Your Weaknesses
In this step, think of the activities you do during the week and identify the ones that make you weak.  Trust your gut.  You can use a whiteboard or a sheet of paper.  Think of it like a heat map and scan your week quickly, along with key activities, and identify whether they drain you.  If that doesn’t work for you, then walk each day and determine which activities make you weak.  Chance are, when you first do this, it will look like a scatter chart.  Your weak activities will be all over the board.

Example of Mapping Out Your Weaknesses
Here is an example of a map of activities that are weaknesses throughout the week:

Note that “W” in the table above represents “weakness”.

Checkpoint

• Can you identify the top 3 activities that make you the weakest?
• Can you identify the types of work that make you weak?
• Can you identify the patterns of people that drain you?

Step 2 – Map Out Your Strengths
In this step, think of the activities you do during the week and identify the ones that make you strong.   These are the activities that come easy for you and you enjoy doing.  When you first do this, chances are, your strong activities are like a scatter chart, just like your weaknesses.  Awareness is the first step.

Example of Mapping Out Your Strengths
Here is an example of activities that are strengths throughout the week:

Note that “S” in the table above represents “strengths.”

Checkpoint

• Can you identify the top 3 activities that make you strong?
• Can you identify the types of work that make you strong?
• Can you identify the patterns of people that catalyze you?

Step 3 – Design a Strong Week
In this step, you design a strong week.  You do this by eliminating weaknesses, adding strengths, and consolidating your weaknesses that remain.

Eliminate Your Weaknesses
If there are activities that make you weak that you can get rid of, do so.  You need to make room for your strengths.  For a lot of people, this means eliminating some meetings.  This also means re-negotiating some of the tasks they do.

Consolidate Your Weaknesses
For the weaknesses you can’t get rid of, try to consolidate them.  If you adopt a “worst things first” practice, you can try to get your weaknesses out of the way, first thing in the morning.  This creates a glide path for the rest of the day, especially if you can add more strengths.

Add Strengths
Add activities that make you strong.  This may require negotiation with your team, your manager, or your family, but this will be one of your best moves for renewing your life and getting more from your day to day.  You might find that it’s tough to add activities that make you strong.  Start simple.  For example, you might schedule a weekly lunch with a mentor or a friend that lifts you up.  You also might find some simple ways to adjust the work you are already doing to play to your strengths.  Get creative.  The more focus and energy you put on playing to your strengths, the more you’ll amplify your results.  While you might get some quick wins under your belt, it’s really a winning strategy for the long run.  You can continuously improve your weekly schedule by adding more strengths, and eliminating more weaknesses.

Example of a Strong Week
Here is an example of a strong week by design:

Notice that weaknesses are consolidated and there are strengths throughout the week, and throughout the day.  In fact, one key way to improve your energy later in the day, is to add activities that make you strong.

Guidelines

• Consolidate your weaknesses as best as you can.  For example, you might use the first hour of each of your days as a timebox for activities that make you weak.
• Add more activities that make you strong.
• Start with something simple.  You don’t need to make it all or nothing.  Simple wins add up.  Just by eliminating a few of your weaknesses, can really lift a weight from your shoulders.  Similarly, adding a few strengths can really help you renew your energy and make things happen.
• Pair up with people.  You might find that pairing up on things that make you weak, helps you enjoy them more.  You might also find that you get more from your strengths when you pair up or team up with others.
• Test your results.  Rather than try to predict every possibility, test combinations and evaluate your results.  Pay attention to how you feel.  Simply making a few shifts in your weekly schedule can dramatically impact your energy.

Checkpoint

• Have you eliminated as many of the activities that make you weak as you can?
• Have you found a way to add a few activities that make you stronger?
• How you consolidated your weaknesses as best as you can?

My Related Posts

• A Language of Strengths
• Strengths and Talents
• Why Strengths?
• Strengths and Weaknesses

Photo by Incase Designs.

I like learning the language around a given topic to build precision and depth.  When you have a language for something, it helps you to think, organize, and share knowledge more effectively.  The 34 themes of strengths listed below represent an attempt to create a common language for strengths and talents.  To find, study, and explore your strengths, you should know the language of strengths.

The power of the 34 themes of strengths is that they represent recurring patterns from talent-based interviews.  They give you a lens to see your own strengths and the strengths of others using very specific names (such as positivity, empathy, harmony … etc.).  You will be more effective at developing your own strengths or the strengths of your kids, or teams, or friends.

In Strengths Quest Discover And Develop Your Strengths In Academics, Career, And Beyond , Donald O. Clifton and Edward Anderson share a language for strengths, talents, and abilities.

Key Concepts
Here are some of the key concepts to keep in mind when you are studying strengths:

• Strengths are the key to success.  Your ability to know, understand and develop your talents influences your success in school, career, and life.  To put it another way, your strengths are your edge.
• Talent.  According to Clifton and Anderson, a talent is a naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied.
• Ability.  According to Clifton and Anderson, ability is “what a person can specifically do.”
• Strength.  According to Clifton and Anderson, a strength is “the ability to provide consistent, near-perfect performance in a given activity.”  In other words, it’s your ability to perform a given function extremely well.   You start with dominant themes of talent and then you refine them into strengths through knowledge, skills and experience.

34 Themes of Strengths and Talent
According to the book, Strengths Quest Discover And Develop Your Strengths In Academics, Career, And Beyond , the 34 themes of talent are organized into 4 quadrants: relating, impacting, striving, and thinking:

In Quadrant 1, Relating, the themes are interpersonal about bonding and connecting.  In Quadrant II, Impacting, the themes are interpersonal about your impact and influence on others.  In Quadrant III, Striving, the themes are about motivation and energy.  In quadrant IV, Thinking, the themes are about information and perception.

34 Strengths Explained
Here are summaries of the 34 signature themes of strength based on Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton in the book, Now, Discover Your Strengths :

Finding Your Top Five Strengths
There are 33 million different combinations of Signature Themes.  One of the recommended practices in the strengths literature is to find your top five strengths.  If you can identify your top five themes, you can use the information to start cultivating your strengths for personal excellence and stop focusing on weaknesses.  Your top five Signature Themes is your unique combination.   You can use the Clifton StrengthsFinder to identify your top five strengths.  (Note that you’ll need an access code from one of Gallup’s books, such as Strengths Finder 2.0 or Now, Discover Your Strengths .)

If you don’t easily identify your strengths yourself, ask your friends who know you best, what they might think your top five are.  Compare with what you think your top five are.  Also, consider taking the test and see what the Clifton StrengthsFinder thinks your top five are.  Remember, this exercise isn’t about identifying what you want them to be — it’s about identifying where you currently are.  A strength is something you do extremely well, consistently, and builds on your natural patterns for thinking, feeling, or doing.

Additional Resources

• Action Ideas for the 34 Strengths
• FAQ for the Clifton StrengthsFinder Profile
• Cheat Sheet of the 34 Strengths (PDF)
• The Gallup Organization’s StrengthsFinder Instrument (Career Trainer)
• MP3 Files of Each Strength

My Related Posts

• Why Strengths?
• The Strengths Movement
• 3 Myths About Strengths and Weaknesses

Photo by Klearchos Kapoutsis.

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.  So you start with your talents, and from them, you develop your strengths.  Of course, you could start from your weaknesses and try to develop those into strengths, but it’s ultimately an investment decision, and, in many cases, a losing battle.  The key is to unleash your best, based on what you want to accomplish.

In the book Strengths Quest Discover And Develop Your Strengths In Academics, Career, And Beyond, Donald Clifton and Edward Anderson write about strengths and talents.

Key Take Aways
Here are my key take aways:

• A talent is a naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior.  It’s something you naturally do.  It’s the way that you naturally think or naturally feel or naturally behave.  It’s your defaults.   While you can train yourself to think, feel, or behave another way, it can be like going against the grain and you’re no longer leveraging your natural talent.
• A strength is the ability to provide consistent, near-perfect performance.  Your strengths are your abilities that you’ve developed and can count on.  You can consistently demonstrate peak performance.
• A strength begins with a talent.  You discover, develop, and apply your talents to build your strengths.   Your talents are a breeding ground for your strengths.  By starting with talents, you can accelerate your learning curve and get more return for the time and energy you invest.  It’s making the most of the hand you’re dealt.

A Strength Begins with a Talent
You can think of this as smart, selective strength growth.  Clifton and Anderson write:

A strength begins with a talent … a naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. A great number of talents naturally exist within you, and each of them is very specific … Your talents empower you. They make it possible for you to move to higher levels of excellence and fulfill your potential. … A talent represents a capacity to do something

Strengths are Discovered and Developed
Your strengths are the refinement of talents with knowledge and skill.  Clifton and Anderson write:

A strength is the ability to provide consistent, near-perfect performance in a given activity. … strengths are produced when talents are refined with knowledge and skill

Fulfill Your Personal Destiny
You can think of growing your strengths as a lifelong adventure and fulfilling your personal density.  Clifton and Anderson write:

In a sense, the development and application of strengths generates a feeling that you are fulfilling your personal destiny. Your strengths quest is a lifelong adventure. Each of the three aspects — discovery, development, and application — will continue throughout your life. This exciting and fulfilling process should bring you a lifetime of great satisfaction and joy.

My Related Posts

• Why Strengths?
• Strengths and Weaknesses
• Spend 75 Percent on Your Strengths
• SIGN – The 4 Signs of a Strength

Photo by hoyasmeg.

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. I’m talking about natural talent here, not skills, knowledge, or experience. Your natural talents are your default thinking, feeling, and doing patterns. Luckily, there is a language for talking about these. The Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment is a language of the 34 most common talent themes, based on Gallup’s 40-year study of human strengths.

Why do we even care about care about our strengths, though? Because spending time in your strengths unleashes your best, gives you more energy, helps you find your flow, and gives you an advantage in the market place. Your strengths are your differentiators. Perhaps, the most important point though is, you grow more in your strengths than in your weaknesses. To clarify this, you grow more where you have natural talent. Why? Because talent is the multiplier.

Even if you know and can name your natural talents by heart, none of this matters if you don’t actually spend time in your strengths. Knowing and doing are two separate things. When it comes to strengths, it’s the doing that makes the difference.

Key Take Aways
Here are my key take aways:

• Only 17 percent of us play to our strengths most of the time. We spend more time in our weaknesses than our strengths. Our natural talents and passions last a life time, and yet our talents go untapped. We spend more time in activities that make us weak, than activities that make us strong.
• Strengths are the key to improving life. Focusing on strengths improves engagement, job satisfaction, and quality of life. It’s how you find your flow and get your groove on and unleash the best version of yourself. It’s how you realize and put into practice your authentic self. It’s ultimately about your core and most enduring personality traits – your passions, interests, and talent.
• Talent is the multiplier. If you put the same time and energy in a place where you have no talent, you’ll burn a lot of energy for less return on investment. If you apply that same time and energy in a place where you have natural talent, you’ll amplify your impact.
• Map out your strengths and weaknesses. When you know your strengths/weaknesses, you can invest more time in strength activities and less time in weakness activities
• You’re wired for some things more than others. You’re able to get better results by growing your strengths (the stuff you’re wired for) than by fixing your weaknesses.

The pattern I see time and again is be more of yourself with skills. A core part of who you are, or, your authentic self, is your natural talents and strengths.  Knowledge and skills are amplifiers for your natural talents.

It’s About Results
Do what you do best … every day.  According to The Marcus Buckingham Company:

• … the single best predictor of a consistently high-performing team is the answer to this question: “At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best everyday?”
• Teams with individuals who do massively outperform teams with people who don’t-they’re more profitable, more productive, less likely to quit, less likely to have accidents on the job…the list goes on.

Avoid the Path of Most Resistance
You can follow your weaknesses.  That’s the path of most resistance.  You can also choose to follow your strengths and make the most of your innate talents.  Before trying to turn your weaknesses into strengths, explore where you’ve made the most of your talent or if you’re missing an opportunity.  In the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths , Tom Rath writes:

• Avoid the path of most resistance.
• We celebrate those who triumph over their lack of natural ability even more than we recognize those who capitalize on their innate talents.

The Story of Hector
In the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths , Tom Rath writes how Hector increased his results three-fold, by spending more time in his strengths and less time in his weaknesses:

Hector had always been known as a great shoe-maker.  In fact, customers from such far-off places as France claimed that Hector made the best shoes in the world.  Yet for years, he had been frustrated with his small shoemaking business.  Although Hector knew he was capable of making hundreds of shoes per week, he was averaging just 30 pairs.  When a friend asked him, Hector explained that while he was great at producing shoes, he was a poor salesman — and terrible when it came to collecting payments.  Yet he spent most of his time working in these areas of weakness.  So Hector’s friend introduced him to Sergio, a natural salesman and marketer.  Just as Hector was known for his craftsmanship, sergio could close deals and sell.  Given the way their strengths complemented one another, Hector and Sergio decided to work together.  A year later, this strength-based duo was producing, selling, and collecting payment for more than 100 pairs of shoes per week — a more than threefold increase.

The Greatest General of All Time
In the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths , Tom Rath writes about Mark Twain’s story of opportunity lost::

Mark Twain once described a man who died and met Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates.  Knowing that Saint Peter was very wise. the man asked a question that he had wondered about throughout his life.  He said, “Saint Peter, I have been interested in military history for many years. Who was the greatest general of all time?”  Saint Peter quickly responded, “Oh, that’s a simple question.  It’s the man right over there.” “You must be mistaken,” responded the man, now very perplexed.  “I knew that man on earth, and he was just a common laborer.”  “That’s right my friend,” assured Saint Peter.  “He would have been the greatest general of all time, if he had been a general.”

People Change, But Their Natural Talents Stay the Same
While people change over time, some things are more durable than others.  Research has shown that your interests, passions, and natural talents tend to be enduring.  In the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths , Tom Rath writes

• Although people certainly do change over time and our personalities adapt, scientists have discovered that core personality traits are relatively stable throughout adulthood, as our passions and interests.
• More recent research suggests that the roots of our personality might be visible at an even younger age than was originally thought.
• A compelling 23-year longitudinal study of 1,000 children in New Zealand revealed that a child’s observed personality at age 3 shows remarkable similarity to his or her reported personality traits at age 26.
• This is one of the reasons why StrengthsFinder measures the elements of your personality that are less likely to change – your talents.

Increase Employee Engagement by Six Times and Have an Excellent Quality of Life
You can dramatically improve your engagement at work, as well as your quality of life, by playing to your strengths, instead of focusing on your weaknesses.  In the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths , Tom Rath writes:

• Over the past decade, Gallup has surveyed more than 10 million people worldwide on the topic of employee engagement (or how positive and productive people are at work), and only one-third “strongly agree” with the statement:  “At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.”
• … and for those who do NOT get to focus on what they do best – their strengths – the costs are staggering.  In a recent poll of more than 1,000 people, among those who “strongly disagreed” or “disagreed” with this “what I do best” statement, not one single person was emotionally engaged on the job.
• In contrast, out studies indicate that people who do have the opportunity to focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general.

When Your Manager Focuses on Strengths, You’re More Engaged
In the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths , Tom Rath writes:

• if your manager primarily ignores you, the chances of you being actively disengaged are 40% .
• if your manager primarily focuses on your weaknesses, the chances of your being actively disengaged are 22% .
• if your manager primarily focuses on your strengths, the chances of you being actively disengaged are 1%..

Only 17 Percent of Us Play to Our Strengths Most of the Time
Even if we know what our strengths are, very few of us spend significant time in them.  For one reason or another, we end up spending most of our time in activities that are more of a weakness than a strength.  Imagine the world of difference when you start spending the majority of your time in your strengths? In the book, Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance , Marcus Buckingham writes:

• … only 17 percent of us have our strengths in play most of the time.
• The truth is, we are not our organization’s greatest asset, at least not nearly to the extent that we could be.
• Today, despite more than two million people taking the Clifton StrengthsFinder profile, when you poll people with the question “What percentage of a typical day do you spend playing to your strengths?” only 17 percent answer “most of the time.”

Talent is the Multiplier
Your natural talent is the multiplier.  When you invest your time in something, it’s your natural talent that can help you make the most of it.  If you don’t have any talent, you can thrash away just to break even.  That’s why finding and playing to your talents is so powerful.  It multiples and amplifies your impact.  It’s your personal game changer.  In the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths , Tom Rath writes:

• Adding raw talent is not the same as adding skill.
• Start with a dominant talent and add skills, knowledge and practice.
• Talent is the multiplier.

(Talent) X (Investment) = Strength
There is a simple formula for strength.  It’s talent times investment.  When you sharpen and hone your talent, you build your strengths.  These are your authentic strengths.  They are at your core and reflect your greatest gifts.  In the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths , Tom Rath writes:

• Talent X Investment = Strength
• Talent is a natural way of thinking, feeling or behaving.
• Investment is time spent practicing, developing your skills and building your knowledge base.
• Strength is the ability consistently provide near perfect performance.

How Talents are Expressed Varies a Great Deal from Person to Person
One person’s ability to inspire may be completely different than another’s.  You might have the same general talent, but entirely different approaches or “how”.  That’s why the key is to find what works for you.  Take your talent, but find your best way for unleashing it.  In the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths , Tom Rath writes:

While you and a few friends may each have Learner among your top five themes, the fine points of those talents and how they are expressed vary a great deal from person to person: One of you may learn from reading several books each month, while someone else learns primarily from doing, and yet another learns from an insatiable curiosity and Googles everything.

Managing Your Weakness
Don’t let your weaknesses be your downfall.  Your weakness is anyplace where you don’t have natural talent and you have to work extra hard at something.  In the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths , Tom Rath writes:

• In any occupation or role, it’s helpful to know your areas of lesser talent.  That’s especially true if the demands of your job pull you in a new direction, as your lesser talents can lead to weakness.
• As you study the descriptions of the 34 themes, see if you can identify a few areas in which you are clearly lacking in talent and have little potential to create a strength.  In many cases, simply being aware of your area of lesser talent can help you avoid major roadblocks.
• Another strategy is to partner with someone who has more talent in the areas in which you are lacking.

Be a Lot More of Who You Already Are
Be YOUR Best.  That’s the key.  First take inventory of what your core strengths really are.  From there, pick and choose where to play your best game.  In the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths , Tom Rath writes:

• The American myth – be whatever you want.
• A person who has always struggled with numbers is unlikely to be a great accountant or statistician.
• The person without much natural empathy will never be able to comfort an agitated customer in the warm and sincere way that the great empathizers can.
• Each person has great potential for success in specific areas
• The key to human development is building on who you already are
• You cannot be anything you want to be — but you can be a lot more of who you already are.

Where to Go From Here
When you’re on the strengths path, you have a lot of support.  Not only is there extensive research and bodies of knowledge to draw from, but there are heroes, and examples to draw from.  Here are some key books to explore and experiment with strengths:

• Read the book, Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance
• Read the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths
• Read the book, Now, Discover Your Strengths

Photo by fPat.

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.  While I wish there was one simple way for you to just figure out your strengths, in my experience it’s not that simple.  There are many great lenses, but at the end of the day, you really own figuring out what your strengths are.  Tests, lenses and feedback provide the clues, but you have to test what works for you.  You spend time with yourself 24×7, so the least you can do is figure yourself out, if you haven’t already

Key Points
Here are some key points that can help you identify strengths and weaknesses vs. skills:

• Start with some simple self-awareness.   Some tools such as the Myer’s-Briggs Type Indicator or NLP Meta-programs can help you find your core preferences and patterns for thinking, feeling, and doing.   They’re just lenses, but they can help you see your durable and pervasive strengths.  For example, do you recharge by spending time alone or with others?  If you recharge by spending time alone, you might be an introvert.  Just knowing that can help you tease out some strengths vs. weaknesses vs. skills.
• Distinguish between strengths and weaknesses.  Strengths are your dominant thinking, feeling, and doing patterns that come naturally for you.  You grow stronger when you spend time in your strengths.  A weakness drains you and you no matter how much you work at it, you don’t really improve.  It’s like going against the grain.  Another way to think of this is, know what kind of bike you’ve got.  If you take your street-bike off-road, you can make it work, but you’re not making the most of it.  Keep in mind that one person’s strength is another’s weakness.  For example, I know some people that can do, but can’t teach, and others that can teach, but can’t do.
• Distinguish between weaknesses and skills.  Some things require skill, knowledge, and experience.  Don’t write things off as a weakness, just because you aren’t good right now.  Consider whether you’ve had the right training, put in enough right time, or have the right coach.
• Distinguish between strengths and skills.  Skills are a learned ability to do something with competence.  For example, I’m good at drilling into details in a spreadsheet.  It’s not a strength, it’s a skill.  It makes me weak and I don’t enjoy it.  On the other hand, I can whiteboard all day.  It’s a strength and I leverage my ability to share information visually.
• Distinguish between information, knowledge, and experience.  Information is just raw facts, figures, and data for a given situation.  Knowledge is putting that information to use.  Experience is you’ve been there and done that. Information transfer is easy.  Knowledge transfer is tough.  I’m a fan of mentoring, apprenticeships and first-hand experience for that.
• Distinguish between intellectual, emotional, and physical stages.  You can read about a diet and regurgitate the information.  That’s at the intellectual level.  You can experience it first hand, and have an emotional reaction to the information.  If you adopt new habits, eventually it’s burned in physically (your basal ganglia and muscle memory.)  Think about this when you first learn something new.  You have stages to go through before you’ve burned it in intellectually, emotionally, and physically.
• Know the continuum from unconscious incompetence to conscious competence.  When you don’t know what you don’t know, you have unconscious incompetence.  When you know what you don’t know, you have conscious incompetence.  When you can think your way through it, you have conscious competence.  When you can do it without thinking, you have unconscious competence.  For example, you can probably drive your car or ride your bike without thinking, but it didn’t start off that way.  This is similar to going through the intellectual, emotional, and physical stages of learning.
• Distinguish between motivation, skills and feedback.  There’s a difference between wanting to do something and having the right technique.  If you need to find your motivation, change the why or change the how, and that just might lead to your next break through.  If the problem is your technique, find a mentor that helps you find the right technique for you.  For example, everybody can take martial arts and learn how to punch and kick, but a great instructor can help you find and perfect the technique that works for you.

Examples
Here are a couple of examples that might make this real for you:

• Learning an instrument.  When I was younger, I took saxophone lessons.  I didn’t have the passion at the time.  I also had no idea how to practice right.  If I hit a note, I figured I was done.   Why practice if I already proved I could hit the note?  Well, it’s one thing to hit a note while concentrating, it’s another to hit it without thinking.  I never practiced enough to reach a flow state.  I assumed I had no talent, when really I never even gave myself a chance.
• Learning martial arts.  When I was younger, my Dad introduced me to a lot of martial arts and I picked up some heroes to model from.  One of them was Bill “Super foot” Wallace.  He’s kicking speed was clocked at more than 60 MPH, give or take.  I decided I would kick like him.  Long story short, after a lot of wicked stretching and leg training, I could kick my foot above my head and snap my leg against my upper chest in the fraction of a second.  It was as if I could make my legs do whatever I wanted.  I remember one incident really surprised me.  I was walking through a parking lot with friends.  I picked up a soda can, threw it up in the air, and with perfect timing, jumped in the air, spun around and sent the can flying.   I had unconscious competence and could just do it.

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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.  They go into a flow state more often.  They make more impact because they get leverage and they play to their strengths.

Your One-Liner Super Hero Power
I highly recommend expressing your super hero power as a one-liner.  I like helping people find their one-liner super hero power.  It’s fun to help people unleash their best.  In fact, one of my super powers is, I “make others great.”  Another one is, I “stand on the shoulder’s of giants” or “turn insight into action.”  One of my former manager’s is “take teams from good to great.”  One of my friend’s is “frame and name a problem.”  Another friend has the super power to “innovate at the speed of thought” and “turn ideas into working software.”  I encourage people to use it on their resume.  It makes them stand out.

It’s similar to having a one-liner vision.  For example, I think ITunes is “world’s best music store.”  I think Google’s might be “organize the world’s information.”  I think Starbucks’ might be “world’s best coffee.”  These one-liner tag lines make it really easy to stand out and stick in the hearts and minds of yourself and others.  They are empowering.  They are compelling.  They are simple reminders that give you lift off or get you back on track.

Go From Ordinary to Extraordinary
Which is a better day at work?  Slogging through the day, or mastering your craft while flexing your super hero power?  I look for ways to test my strengths.  I grow more from it.  The more I grow my super power, the more valuable I become.  It’s a self-fulfilling loop and the beauty is working on my super hero power gives me energy.  I can do it all day … and then some.

Finding Your Super Hero Power
You might figure it yourself, but I recommend asking a trusted set of friends, as well.  What do they rely on your for?  What do you do better than anybody else?  For example, one of my friends has a knack for “orchestrating a group.”  He’s like a band leader and he doesn’t even have to try.  It’s wired in him.

Your super hero power might be a blind spot.  Here’s why.  It comes so easy to you, you might not value it.  Or, you might not have thought about it in the context of your current job.  A friend can help you see what you might not see in yourself (remember the Johari Window?)  You might have several super hero powers.  Look for the one that maximizes your passion, profit, and value.

So find it.  Name it.  Have fun with it.  Make your one-liner evocative.  And, when the going gets tough, whip out your super power.  If we all unleash our strengths, it might be just the boost the economy needs.

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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.

In the book, The 80/20 Individual: How to Build on the 20% of What You do Best , Richard Koch writes about the 20 percent spike.

Key Take Aways
Here’s my key take aways:

• The 20 percent spike is unusually powerful.  It’s a distinct and powerful strength.  You can leverage your 20 percent spike for extreme advantage.
• The great ones aren’t well rounded.  Any significant leader is not well rounded.  Superstars have lopsided traits.   They have a vital few powerful strengths and they leverage other people for their weaknesses.
• Balance your strengths with other people.  Be great at what you’re great at.  Spend more time in your strengths and honing your 20 percent spike.  Team up to round out the rest of what you need.

The 20 Percent Spike
Your 20 percent spike is your distinctive strength.  Koch writes:

What make a CEO, leader, or manager great is what psychologists call the “spike,” and I call the “20 percent spike.”  The spike is a distinctive strength in a person that is unusually powerful, so it’s in your best interest to train and develop your spike to Olympian standards.

A Few Fantastic Strengths
A few fantastic strengths are better than well-rounded.  Koch writes:

Do corporate psychologists, who determine whether you or another-short-listed candidate will get the top job, look for well-rounded team players or for oddballs?  Intriguingly, the latter.  The psychologist wants unusual characters who have a few fantastic strengths.  If you have these, the corporation couldn’t care less about a long laundry list of things you can’t do well or even do at all.

Any Significant Leader is Not Well-Rounded
Superstars have lopsided traits.  Koch writes:

Gurnek Bains, head of YSC, a leading firm of business psychologists, explains: “Any significant leader is not well-rounded.  They’re all quite different, slightly idiosyncratic characters.  The best directors have huge spikes and equally large downsides.  Psychoanalyst Michael Maccoby agrees.  He highlights today’s “superstar” leaders and draws attention to their lopsided traits: “Today’s CEO’s – superstars such as Bill Gates, Andy Groves, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Jack Welch – hire their own publicists, write books, grant spontaneous interviews, and actively promote their personal philosophies … [they] closely resemble the personality type that Sigmund Freud dubbed narcissistic.”

Productive Narcissists
Creative individuals compensate for weaknesses by leveraging other people who are skilled in those areas.  Koch writes:

Macoby says that such “productive narcissists” have tremendous vision and self-belief yet are anything but team players.  Most would not score well on emotional intelligence or the ability to listen to other people.  Not all 80/20 individuals are “productive narcissists,” but many of the new superstars are effective precisely because they are unbalanced.  To compensate for their weaknesses, these creative individuals have entrusted their business to other people who are skilled in those areas.

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I’ve been thinking of my life as a business.  Without getting too carried away with the analogy – after all, life’s way more than business – it gives me a helpful frame, along with patterns and practices, to draw from.  Rather than think of a business that makes money, I think of a business that creates value (the mark of an enduring business.)  In this case, value for yourself and others.
My life is my business.  I get to set the mission, vision, and values.  Through this lens I can decide who my customers are (myself, family, friends, community, employer, … etc.).  I can decide what my core capabilities will be, and how to invest my life force to flow value for others.  With this in mind, here are some guidelines for life inspired by business …
Top 10 Guidelines
Here’s my top ten to start things off:

• Live your values.
• Compete with yourself.
• Play to your strengths.
• Team up.
• Model the best.
• Productize yourself.
• Balance your portfolio.
• Follow the growth.
• Find a way forward.
• Flow value.

Life 2.0 Guidelines
Here’s a more exhaustive list along with elaboration.  You can drink from the fire hose, or tackle in steps, as you prefer.  I would suggest first reading it through to get the lay of the land, and then going back and spending more time on the points that resonate for you.  Enjoy …

• Live your values.   Values are the culture of a business.  That’s why sometimes it doesn’t feel right.  You want one thing, the business wants another.  Your best fits are where your values match and you can live your values on the job.  In life, when you live your values you feel strong.  When you compromise your values, you feel weak.  Living your values is a way to stay true to yourself.  It’s part of your authenticity.  See Finding Your Values.
• Invest in yourself.  You’re a good bet to invest in.  Sharpen your mind.  Craft your body.  Master your emotions.  Make time for yourself.   This includes think time and fun time.  See Life Frame.
• Unique differentiators.  A successful business stands out.  Its unique value to the market is obvious.  You bring unique value to the table.  Your mash up of skills, experience, and values are a unique combination.  Use your differentiation as a leverage point in your life.  Your unique differentiators can be the key to how you sell yourself in the market.  Are you the “get things done” or the “creative mind” or the “makes them smile” or … ?
• Track progress from time to time.  A business keeps a scorecard to measure its progress along the way.  In life, you can check yourself against your outcomes and objectives.  For example, do you have the right people in your life?  … Are you spending the right time and energy on your body? … Are you actually enjoying the things you do for fun? … etc.  See Tests for Success, Improvement Frame and Keys for Skilled Happiness.
• Play to your strengths.  A great business plays to its strengths.  Darwin and survival of the fittest are as true in business as in life.  Give your best where you’ve got your best to give.  Nature supports you.  In life, you can spend all your time working on your weaknesses, or you can play to your strengths and maximize your results.  Spending time in your strengths not only renews your energy, but it’s where you’ll get your best ROI.  See Give Your Best Where You Have Your Best to Give and Choose Your Jobs Based on Strengths.
• Perform a SWOT analysis.  SWOT is an abbreviation for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.  It’s an analysis tool to explore the overall strategic position of a business and it’s environment.  You can apply it to your life.  Simply list your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities, and threats.
• Assess and prioritize potential risks.  Every business opportunity has potential risks.  So does life.  This includes the risk of missed opportunities.   Take calculated risks.  Smart risks help you get more from life.  Remember the saying: ships are safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.
• Create budgets.   Create budgets for your time.  This will help manage your energy and avoid spreading yourself too thin.  You can also use time as a forcing function to prioritize and to meet windows of opportunity.   See Timeboxes, Rhythms, and Incremental Value and How To Use Timeboxing for Getting Results.
• Balance your portfolio.  Diversified investment portfolios help reduce risk and maximize return.  You can do the same in life by spreading your life force across your key hot spots.  I use what I call my Life Frame: mind, body, emotions, career, financial, relationships, and fun.  Investing in these areas helps me stay balanced and effective.  See Life Frame.
• Learn and respond.  Successful businesses learn and adapt.  They respond to feedback.  They test their results and continuously fine tune their approach.   You’re a living learning loop.  You have feedback all around you.  What’s it telling you?  See Working your business is working on your life.  See The Change Frame.
• Team up.  Successful businesses create partnerships.  In life, adopt a “better together” strategy.  Pair up with others that compliment your strengths and weaknesses.  Life is a team sport.  See How To Consistently Build a Winning Team and Outsource Your 80 Percent.
• Compete with yourself.  Successful businesses find ways to improve efficiency and effectiveness.  They raise their own bar.   Make it a game to improve your abilities.  Improve your super powers.  Find more effective ways of getting things done.  The secret is that when you compete with others, they’ll knock you down.  When you compete with yourself, others will lift you up.  Everybody wants to help the underdog that makes the most of what they’ve got.  Be YOUR best.
• Cost, differentiation, and focus.   According to Michael Porter, businesses can compete on cost, differentiation (unique capabilities along dimensions that customers value), or focus (best in class in a segment).  As a contributing member to society, you can use this lens to figure out your long term competitive strategy.  In this case, competitiveness roughly equates to your ability to survive in the marketplace.  For example, rather than compete on cost, how can you differentiate yourself?
• Know your target market.  A business has to figure out who its customers are and what channels it will use.  In life, you can figure out what arenas you can play in to maximize your results.  Changing where you play your game can dramatically change your game.  The world might seem like a big place, but at the end of the day, the most important impact on you is YOUR world.
• Know intrinsic value vs. the market value.  The intrinsic value of a glass of water might be negligible.  Take that same glass of water to the desert and the value just shot up.  Intrinsic values are lasting.  Market value fluctuates.  Think about the intrinsic values and market values in your life.
• Invest in innovation.  Experiment.  You never know where your breakthroughs will come from.
  Know what holds you back.  Every business has at least one bottleneck on its throughput.  So do you.  What holds you back the most?  Pushing this bottleneck around might help you unleash your best results.  See Theory of Constraints (TOC).
• Hire and fire the right people.   A business thrives when it’s got the right people.  Your life thrives when you’ve got the right people in it.  What people do you want in your life?  See Catalysts and Drains.
• You get what you reward.  A business gets what it rewards.  That same is true in life.  The idea here is that if you have an attitude of gratitude, reward your good behaviors and you’ll get more of them, appreciate the people in your life that do the things you like (or you’ll lose them or the behaviors.)  The key point is what gets ignored gets lost … use it or lose it.
• Find a way forward.  The market place changes.  Life’s not static.  Follow trends to see where things are going.  Sharpen your anticipation skills.  Respond to change and stay agile in your approach.
• Never get stuck.  Ask solution focused questions such as, “what’s my next best move?” or “how can I make the most of this” or “what’s the way forward?” or simply, “what’s the solution?” See Solution-Focused Questions.
• Model the best.  Successful businesses don’t start from scratch.  They model what works.  Every now and then somebody changes the game, but a lot of what works is proven patterns and practices.  Success leaves clues.  Find your mentors and models in life.  Mentors are one of your best short-cuts to avoid years of mistakes.  A lot of ideas sound good or look good on paper.  Mentors and models can help you filter through the vast amount of information.  See Capturing and Sharing Strategies, Eliciting a Strategy, and  Lessons Learned from Per.
• Know the business case.  A business case helps answer the question, does this investment make sense?  You can ask the same of your life investments.  See 3 Keys of a Business Case and How To Figure Out What You Really Want.
• Know the ROI.  Quit the right things and lean into the right dips.  See Lessons Learned from the Dip.
• Productize yourself.   A business can find economies of scale with a product strategy.  The right products also help service companies sustain through the downtimes.  You can turn what you know into information products, such as a book or an information kit or training.  Productizing yourself helps you decouple from time and break away from the grind.   It’s a great complement to a services strategy, since your products and services can help support.
• Focus on renewal.   A business that renews itself refuels for the future.  It cuts the dead wood and creates new opportunities.   Your energy is one of your most precious resources.
• Create a system that supports you.   A successful business is a system of inputs and outputs.   Map out your system.  This includes your inputs, outputs, and key processes.  One simple way to improve your system is to create and improve checklists for your common tasks.  Periodically review these to see how you can tune, prune, and optimize your key workflows.
• Flow value.   Any business with a sense of entitlement soon finds itself in trouble.  The market weeds it out.  Flowing value is a simple but effective way to stay focused, survive, and thrive.  See Timeboxes, Rhythms, and Incremental Value.
• Follow the growth.  A business thrives on growth.  It’s where the energy is.  Find the growth opportunities in your life.    See You Can Travel the Road of Success.
• Passion, profit, value.  A successful business finds the intersection of passion, profit, and value.  Making a profit without value or passion is unsustainable.   Look for the passions in your life that have the best profit potential.  You define what profit is: energy, financial, emotional, or whatever you choose.  If it’s not generating value, don’t expect to profit and don’t expect it to be sustainable unless it’s truly valuable for you.
• Think in terms of funding your life style.   Your lifestyle is a sliding scale of quality in different areas.  Everything is a trade-off and comes with a certain cost.  If you think in terms of funding your life style, you get clarity on what you need to make and why.  You can make conscious trade-offs by design.  It’s about shifting from a decision to get a job, make money, pay for costs, and use whatever is left for fun … to intentional design around your lifestyle and evaluating the trade-offs as a sliding scale … how much do you need to make for different lifestyles, and do you like the trade-offs those lifestyles demand?
• Ask what’s the minimum you need to make.  This is such a simple question, but it gives immediate clarity.  What’s the business need to make to stay around?  You can simply ask, “What’s the minimum you need to support your basic needs?”  This one question can put a lot of things in perspective very quickly.  See How Much Profitability Do You Need?
• Focus on sustainable results.  Unless you’re a fly-by-night business, you’re focused on the long-haul.  That means building trust, flowing value, and growing in a sustainable way.  In life, play for the long haul.  One of my mentors uses the following quote as a guide: “Live each day as if it were your last and plan to live 100 years.”  The key to sustainable results is playing to your strengths, following your passions, and living your values.  It’s also about finding effective metaphors, whether that means pacing yourself for a marathon or running a series of sprints within a longer race.  Test to see what works for you.  See Sustainable, Healthy Commitment.
• Know the cycle you’re in.  A business should know the maturity level of its market.  It should also know its maturity level in terms of people, process, and product.  A business also should know whether the market is in growth or decline.  When you know the cycle you’re in you can pace yourself.  You can anticipate a bad bet.  You can better understand whether you’re waxing or waning in specific areas and time your best moves.  See 4 Stages of Market Maturity.

As I see more businesses expand and contract, grow and die, I think of how we can borrow the lessons from business to find more growth and expansion in our lives, as well as renewal and sustainability.  Businesses are not static.  Neither is life.

Special thanks to Loren Kohnfelder for a very thoughtful review and really helping this post make a lot more sense.

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You 2.0 is a way to unleash a version of your best self.  It cuts to the chase to help you quickly find your purpose, your why, your how, your values, your strengths, and your personal success patterns.  Once you’ve mapped these out, you have a firm foundation to be your best in any situation.  By finding and living your process, you lead a life by design, not by default.

I call it You 2.0 because it’s about renewal and taking yourself to the next level.  A few years back, a friend of mine broke his back.  You can imagine the extreme scenario.  Rather than focusing on trying to get back to where he was, he focused on rebuilding himself to be better and stronger than before.  A version 2.0.

Why You 2.0
Here are a some key benefits:

• Success by design.  Rather than luck into success, you’ll know your personal combination for results.
• Living your purpose.  Nothing fuels life like knowing what you want.
• Living your values.  Living your values help you enjoy more moments in your life, a moment at a time.
• Playing to your strengths.  When you play to your strengths, you improve your energy, and you amplify your results.  It’s the simplest way to get more impact each day.
• Improved results.  You’ll improve your results.  A little self-knowledge goes a long way.  You’ll be a better, faster, stronger you for whatever you want.

The real secret is life gets better once you have your personal map.

Download the Free You 2.0 E-Book
The You 2.0 E-Book is a very short (25 pages) guide to help you be YOUR best.

• Download the You 2.0 Free E-Book

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