Lead Through Strengths - Build a Training and Coaching Practice, Based on Strengths – Details, episodes & analysis

If you lead through the CliftonStrengths talent theme of Adaptability, (or you know someone who does), this is the episode for you!

The Adaptability talent theme thrives in the present moment. People with this strength are naturally flexible, responsive, spontaneous, and grounded in what's happening right now.

At their core, Adaptability is about flow. These individuals are wired to adjust, shift, and respond as circumstances change. Instead of resisting unpredictability, they lean into it and find opportunity inside it.

They often describe themselves as easygoing, agreeable, present, and in the moment.

What motivates them most is the chance to respond to real-time needs. They enjoy new challenges, spontaneity, and environments that allow them to pivot quickly. Predictability and rigid plans tend to drain their energy.

When Adaptability is operating at full strength, it brings calm responsiveness and real-time problem solving to any situation. This talent allows someone to follow the lead of change, adjust quickly, and stay productive even when the unexpected happens.

Adaptability often shows up through roles like first responder, early adopter, accommodator, or follower.

These individuals shine when circumstances shift. While others may freeze or resist, Adaptability steps forward, grounded and ready, meeting the moment exactly as it is.

To close, here's a simple 5-minute experiment to try in the next 24 hours…

The next time something unexpected changes your plans, pause and ask: What opportunity just appeared that wasn't here before?

Then act on one small adjustment that uses the change to your advantage.

Well, that's a wrap for today's episode. What small action can you take to show up at your best, given where you're starting today?

If you lead through the CliftonStrengths talent theme of Activator, (or you know someone who does), this is the episode for you!

The Activator talent theme is fueled by motion, urgency, and decisive energy. People with this strength are naturally action-oriented, dynamic, influential, and initiating.

At their core, Activators are wired to start. They don't wait for perfect conditions. They create momentum by taking the first step. Their instinct is simple and powerful: act now, adjust later.

Activators often describe themselves as fast, catalytic, propulsive, and impatient.

What drives them most is the opportunity to turn ideas into reality. They thrive when they can initiate, instigate, and get things moving. Waiting drains them. Starting energizes them.

When Activator is in its strongest state, it brings a surge of energy to people and projects. This strength delivers urgency, instant momentum, and the courage to take risks.

Activators naturally step into roles like catalyst, starter, originator, and influencer.

They are often the spark that turns discussion into action. While others are still evaluating options, Activators are already testing the path forward. Their willingness to move first often unlocks progress for everyone else.

To close, here's a simple 5-minute experiment to try in the next 24 hours…

Choose one idea you've been thinking about but haven't started. Take a single visible action toward it today. Send the email. Draft the outline. Make the call.

Notice how quickly your energy rises once movement begins. Activators often discover that action itself is their greatest source of clarity.

Well, that's a wrap for today's episode. What small action can you take to show up at your best, given where you're starting today?

In today's episode, we dive into the juicy topic of being a "bad boss" to ourselves as entrepreneurs. Isn't it funny how some of the very behaviors that made us decide to stop working for a bad boss, are often some of the same behaviors we do to ourselves. Things like overworking, neglecting self-care, not setting boundaries, working unreasonable hours, and more. Together, we explore how these bad boss behaviors can lead to burnout and resentment,

So, if you're ready to stop being a bad boss to yourself and start thriving in your entrepreneurial journey, this episode is packed with insights and encouragement just for you!

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Work With Us!

BREA Roper
Communication | Woo | Activator | Futuristic | Connectedness

If you need a Strengths Hype Girl for yourself or your team, connect with Brea at brearoper.com. She's ready to deliver an inspirational keynote, empowering training, or transformational workshop. If you're looking for an expert guide to support your internal Strengths efforts, reach out today!

LISA Cummings
Strategic | Maximizer | Positivity | Individualization | Woo

To work with Lisa, check out her resources for independent coaches, trainers, and speakers. Get business tools and strategy support with her Tools for Coaches membership.

Takeaways

Here are three key takeaways from our conversation:

1. The Importance of Boundaries
   One of the biggest traps we fall into as entrepreneurs is the lack of boundaries. Whether it's working unreasonable hours or failing to take time off, we often push ourselves to the limit. In the episode, we discuss how setting clear boundaries (like blocking off time for personal commitments or vacations) can actually enhance our productivity and well-being. Remember, it's not just about working hard, it's about working smart and honoring your own needs.
2. Understanding Your Value
   Many of us struggle with pricing our services appropriately, often undercharging out of fear that clients won't pay for what we offer. We emphasize the importance of recognizing your worth and understanding the market value of your skills. By doing your research and setting fair prices, you not only protect your profits but also prevent burnout and resentment. Don't be afraid to charge what you're worth!
3. The Power of Community
   Navigating the entrepreneurial landscape can be daunting, but you don't have to do it alone. We highlight the significance of surrounding yourself with a supportive community. Whether it's through mentorship, networking, or joining groups like Tools for Coaches, having a network can provide you with insights, accountability, and encouragement. Sharing experiences and learning from others can help you avoid common pitfalls and thrive in your business.

Take Action

1. Set Boundaries for Work Hours: Establish clear boundaries around your work hours to prevent burnout. Consider blocking off specific times for work, personal activities, and rest to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
2. Implement a PTO Policy: Schedule regular time off by blocking out vacation weeks in advance. Aim for at least one week per quarter to ensure you take breaks and recharge, even if you don't have immediate plans.
3. Time Block for Tasks: Create a structured schedule by time blocking for different types of work (e.g., emails, client calls, instructional design). This will help you manage your time effectively and ensure you allocate enough time for all necessary tasks.
4. Evaluate Pricing Strategies: Reflect on your pricing model to ensure it reflects the value of your services. Research market rates and consider charging more for customized offerings to avoid burnout and resentment.
5. Seek Community and Mentorship: Surround yourself with a supportive community or mentors who can provide guidance and share their experiences. Engage in discussions about challenges and solutions to avoid common pitfalls in entrepreneurship.

🎧If you're ready to stop being a bad boss to yourself and start building a business that aligns with your values and goals, tune in to this episode! Let's embrace the journey together and create a fulfilling entrepreneurial experience.

💬We'd love to hear your thoughts! How do you ensure you're being a good boss to yourself? Share your experiences in the comments below!

#Entrepreneurship #Podcast #Leadership #Boundaries #Community #ValueYourself

Let's Connect!

●      LISA: Website | LinkedIn | Facebook

●      BREA: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram

AI-Generated Transcript

Lisa:
Hi, I'm Lisa.

Brea: I'm Brea

Lisa: And today, oh, this song is on my mind. Do you remember that song? Where it says buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh. Yeah.

Brea: Yes, of course I do. And you did that so well. Do it again.

Lisa: Well, that was me for a lot of years of my coaching, training, speaking business being a bad to the bone, a bad boss to yourself. I am so guilty or was so guilty.

Brea: A bad boss to yourself. Yes. Okay. This is juicy. You know, I love a juicy topic. This is a juicy one.

Lisa: Yeah. Well, let's talk about what brings us into wanting to be entrepreneurs and then how, well, for me, I know I have the stories to tell and the lessons to tell about the things that were turning it into bad boss. So if I start off and say, I didn't have bad bosses in corporate. I had great bosses, great leaders. I had a really good experience. So I didn't have the reference point of saying, I don't want to be this terrible person. And so that's why I'm leaving. I wasn't running from that. I was running toward this dream. Oh, now I've got a Tom Petty song in my head. Running down a dream. OK, no, let's stop. I've got too many songs.

Brea: Chili's, baby, baby, baby back ribs. That's what I have in my head. Now you've got to turn it into bad, bad, bad boss.

Lisa: That's so fun. Anyway, yeah, I was totally running down that dream. It was like freedom. I would see other people doing it and I would think, this is so cool. I could take the work that I'm paying vendors to do. I just saw this vision, like if I could be that vendor, I could have this amazing life doing exactly the work that I love. It will be so inspirational and soul-filling because the work is really cool. I'll have total freedom and flexibility with my time. I can work fewer hours. I think it's going to just be so amazing. So I really set up this dream life vision and then quickly out of fear, now that I have a rear view mirror, I worked myself into not that dream because I was so unreasonable as a boss to myself. So I was a total bad boss to myself. What about you? What attracted you to do your own thing?

Brea: Yeah. A huge part of my story was, I'm not going to say I had bad bosses, but I am going to say There are a lot of people who are elevated into leadership positions because they were really great at their job. at the lower level, you know, for example, maybe they were just a killer salesman. And now all of a sudden, they're a manager of people. And that's not even the same job. And I think we've actually talked about that on the podcast before, and how just bogus that is that we're expecting, you know, great leaders to emerge from people who were showing excellence in something else. And so I have worked for and with people who were not given any training or any support to be a leader and didn't know how to handle me. And I'm a lot. And I think maybe those who are listening with a lot of strong, influencing themes like me, I'm not the cookie cutter, let's do it like it's always been done. Just close your mouth and do the work. I can't work like that. I bring new ideas and question everything. And leaders didn't know what to do with that. And so I really did get into this business, especially strengths to help be a solution, to help leaders learn how to lead the people they have. instead of just trying to put everybody into the same little mold. So a different starting place, but yeah, great conversation. I'm excited to dive in. Okay, nice.

Lisa: And you made me think that our thread is so tied together in that it's like when people get promoted into their incompetence. When I left and went out on my own and didn't know how to be an entrepreneur, I had business acumen. I was promoted into incompetence as far as being able to manage myself and my time and create, run, grow a business. I didn't really get all of it so I had some areas of high incompetence and that's why I was a bad boss to myself.

Brea: Yeah, and maybe this is where we start is, you know, there are very, very few people out there who can do all the things with excellence. We've talked about that a little bit in our BP10 episode, you know, how there are certain talents and certain skills that every business owner needs, and no one person has them all.

Lisa: Yeah, well, let me give a real-life tale of being a bad boss to myself under one category, which would be just unreasonable work hours. And one version of that is I had this business strategy. I worked to work with Fortune 500 talent development teams, leadership development teams. That was all great. Got that. So then, I have clients who have people all over the world, and they want to do sessions and workshops, usually virtual, because that was my specialty, and they would want to break up a session, and we would do them basically on the same day, and here's how it would work. I would have a 9 a.m. session, and that would be with Americas and EMEA, so if you're not from corporate or a place where they do these abbreviations, EMEA is Europe, Middle East, Africa, And then I would do a 9 p.m. session with India, APJ, APJ is Asia Pacific, Japan. So I would be up, prepared, showered, ready to go, sound check, so pretty early days, starting with the 9 a.m. Then I would deliver at 9 p.m., depending on time changes, sometimes it was 10 or 11, or depending on the client. could be a 10 or 11 p.m. start. So I would be finishing up as late as 1 a.m. after having gotten up at 5 a.m. and I would do these repeatedly. It wouldn't just be like an occasional thing. I would do them over and over and that would be these long, long days. And I just thought, I mean, it's the same workshop. We're trying to deliver it on the same day-ish. And I just did it unthinking about the consequence to my body and my sleep and the circadian rhythm and all these things that now later, I realized I really wrecked it, but I didn't know then. I just thought, yeah, I stay up late once in a while. Once a week I do these, big deal. And it was a big deal, but didn't realize I was being such a bad boss to myself with those decisions.

Brea: Yes, totally. It does add up over time, right? It's so funny because for me, it's exactly the opposite. I love a 9 a.m. and a 9 p.m. I often am working late at night. 9 p.m. to midnight is kind of a sweet spot for editing podcasts or emails or some creative things. So I don't mind the unreasonable work hours. But for me, where I fall into the trap is just working all the time, not having boundaries. So one of the things that attracted me to entrepreneurship is this concept of time freedom, you know, being able to just go to a kid's soccer game or a recital or something during the day that I wouldn't be able to if I was in an office 9 to 5 and I had to be there, right? So if I'm working at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. I have to make sure that I'm taking advantage of the time freedom that I've given myself.

Lisa: It's like the good boss to yourself is taking that time and making them non-work hours. The bad boss to yourself would be go, go, go and just fill the middle with the emails and the mundane and fill it in and then it becomes a, well, more than 12 hour workday. Maybe it became a 16 hour workday, but the difference could be a nap in the middle of the day, the soccer game and all of those things. And you're still spending those same hours awake, but it's what you're doing with them consciously.

Brea: How do you know me so well? You know that I love to nap. I mean, come on, naps are a key part of a long day, you know, is taking a little break, a little siesta. Yes. And to be honest, I don't feel guilty about any of that at all. Unreasonable work hours doesn't resonate with me, but working more hours than ever totally resonates. Whatever your time hangup is, make sure that you're being a good boss to yourself by honoring your own needs, your own talents, and balancing the work with life.

Lisa: Right. Yeah, all of mine are some version of time. Like the next one that I thought of was PTO policy. So if you're an employee somewhere, you have PTO. And when you have PTO, you actually think about booking out vacation time. And I just allowed myself to forget about the concept of PTO. And in the early five years of my business, in the front end, I was so booked out. I would be booked out for nine months. So if anybody wanted to get on my calendar for anything, it would literally be like, well, I have a speech that week, or I have a training that week, I want to be in this city that week, I want to be in another city that week. And if we were going to take a vacation, we'd have to think of it nine months in advance. So that is another area of bad boss to yourself, where on one hand, you think you're being good because I was like, Yeah, I'm booking myself out and I was excited because I could generate enough business to be booked out that far But then the downside was what about my family? What about friends? What about my own breaks? I just didn't have them and one day I was talking to a friend about it Tammy if you're listening shout out she was like Lisa It's so easy. All you have to do is block of one week per quarter. And that's it. Just one week per quarter. Then you give yourself four weeks of time. Worst case, if you don't want the time off or you don't want the vacation, don't take it. But otherwise, take it. And if a client wants to book a speech and it's a really cool opportunity, then just move the week to another week. But if you don't block the time out, you'll never get the time. And it was really cool. I started doing it and it made everything work. Now, I am way on the other side of it now. I take lots of time off. I work three-day work weeks. I have a whole different thing because I've figured out how to be a super cool boss to myself nowadays. But it was terrible. So that was one that I thought, gosh, that would be a really good lesson for someone new who is building momentum to just do that in advance. Even if you don't have any bookings yet and you're new to building a business, just start doing it as a habit. Because what's the worst case of that? Just work during that time if you want to.

Brea: Yeah, I love that. And the other side of that is if it's on the calendar and you've got a trip to Europe planned and it's coming up and you aren't working like that's a little fire under your behind to find some work, get some revenue coming in. It's also interesting, this concept of boundaries, putting a PTO on the calendar, that's a boundary. You're saying, I'm prioritizing this. There's a literal boundary that you're drawing on the calendar to block off the time for that. So if you're listening, think about other boundaries that you need for yourself.

Lisa: I'm curious, how did you know some of the boundaries early on? I don't know how I would know until I made the mistakes. I would do three or four virtual sessions in a day because I was like, oh, this is so efficient. I love being efficient and I only have to do my hair and makeup one time. And then I can take the next day to do more admin stuff. So I would get like adrenaline dump after adrenaline dump. It was not good for my body to do it that way. But I didn't realize until I did it enough to go, Oh, I need some boundaries on how many a day I'll do. And then another one, is I would do about 100 events a year. And if you think about travel events, there's a fly day, there's the event day, and then there's a fly day. So if you do 100 events times three, because it's three days to do an event, that is 300 days. Then you want to add on some vacation days, and then add your 52 weekends in there. Basically, that's every day. So then, when do you do prospect calls? When do you do instructional design? When do you answer emails? Do you just cram it in even more? I did. I was a terrible boss to myself in that way. So I think, like, I'm curious about you and your boundaries. How did you know what your boundaries needed to be before you were ever fully booked?

Brea: I didn't know. I didn't know anything. I didn't even know anything. I mean, I think I've said this on this podcast before. I didn't even know that I wanted to own my own business. I literally just fell into it because I didn't have a job and I just started like, doing what I could to make money. And now here I am nine years later. So that's a bad boss, OK, is not even knowing that you're running a business. Yeah. So I learned as I went and I often learned the hard way, which I think is why I love these episodes on helping other coaches to not make the same mistakes. For me, the boundaries that I've learned I needed were around customization. So a trap that I would fall into and still do, if I'm totally honest, I need to continue to do better, is to not over customize everything. Because I love that. I love it so much. So I learned to set the boundary of charging more for those custom, bespoke, premium experiences, which is helpful. But also, I just have such a big heart for people, and my little individualization will over-customize literally everything if I'm not careful. So setting those boundaries is really important. I think you mentioned earlier working or operating out of fear. That's a general caution when we're looking at how are we a bad boss to ourselves. Oftentimes, being a bad boss comes from being afraid. So you're afraid that the customers won't come, you know, the work won't come. And so you take anything given to you, even if it's something you've never delivered before, you don't know anything about it. And You're like, sure, I can do that. And then you spend way too much time creating something that you only use once and not charging enough for it. So setting boundaries around where I want to spend my time. Not just the time on the calendar saying this is admin time, this is creative time, and this is delivery time, but boundaries around what do I want to offer? And that took time for me to figure out. I don't know that I would know that ahead of time, unless maybe someone else who was in L&D or are something, something adjacent and then became their own boss. Maybe they would have a better idea, but I had no idea.

Lisa: Yeah, I came from that background and I had no idea because I knew how to block out time for instructional design, for a needs assessment. I knew those parts of the work, but then how many minutes I would need to be in QuickBooks, or calling the accountant, or managing a procurement process, or talking to the insurance company. I mean, all of those kind of things that I had an experience before. I did not block time out. And that is how I figured it out eventually. I'm still figuring it out, let's be honest. But I did get a lot closer by time blocking. And I started doing things like, what amount of time a day do I spend on email? OK, about an hour. And sometimes emails create action items. So I've got to leave some space for that. So I started putting, OK, they create about this many action items. So I'm going to put hold customer work. And I'm going to block. a couple hour chunk twice a week, and then I'm going to put one hour a day for email, and then I'm going to put 30 minutes for lunch so I can actually eat. I just tried to look at what the average week had for me that I hadn't really thought of or didn't want to plan for, because planning for design time, that was easy. I would just be like, block one day, and I can get this deck developed. I really just had a good feel for that, whereas these other elements, I didn't have a feel for it. And I didn't want to be in those moments like I wanted to be in a needs assessment or instructional design or making a deck. So I started time blocking. And then I had this massive realization that was whoa, there aren't very many minutes left. If you actually put, you know, if you want to work a regular kind of, say you want to work a nine to five kind of time block, and then you fill all those things in, where, where do you even have time? And then you add in delivery and flying. if you're on the road and that gets really slim and that is where I realized I just had to say no. I was so good at saying yes to things and that's not as fun for me to say no. It still isn't as fun to say no but that is the the magic sauce. And I still struggle with it every day because the more you book and the more you get seen in an industry, the more people ask for things from you. And some of those are really great things. You want to be in a peer relationship. You want to have a media appearance. You want to talk with clients about ideas. You want to do a bunch of things, but you realize you have to say no to a lot or you'll never have time for you and the whole oxygen mask theory comes into play.

Brea: Yep, totally. So the thread, common theme that I'm hearing is this idea of structure. We need structure. Too much structure, maybe, is what I'm hearing from your early days. Or the wrong kind of structure, not knowing how much time to block for certain things. Too much structure might equal no freedom. which is bad boss, right? That's not why we went into business for ourselves. But also the other extreme is no structure. No structure is no freedom as well, because there's wasted time and decision fatigue. So finding that median that works for you. Maybe it's a nine to five workday. Maybe it's a nap in the afternoon and a 9 a.m. and a 9 p.m. But whatever works for you, making sure that there is some kind of structure, some kind of boundary, some kind of sandbox to play in to allow the freedom that you're looking for. It's such a trap to believe that structure constricts or restricts our freedoms. There's so much science that proves when we have at least some boundaries, when we have a sandbox of plan, we can get so much more creative than if we have all the things to do, then we end up doing nothing or we end up just spinning our wheels. going insane.

Lisa: Yeah, constraint can give you the freedom. And it's scary to honor the constraint. But you definitely have the theories that everyone has heard of, like the work expands to the time allowed. So you have simple things like if I give myself three hours to make this deck, will it be any better than the one hour? Well, maybe marginally, but if I said, I'm going to buckle down, I only have one hour to do this, boom, I'm still going to have a good product. And then I get two hours back in my day that I would have spent over maximizing. And then on a bigger picture, if you back into the dreams, when I decided a few years ago to have three-day work weeks, it sounded so impossible. But then I just blocked off Monday and Friday and said, well, what does it have to look like to make it possible? and being able to say things to a client that I was so afraid of. The words, oh, I'm already booked there. Let's look at next week. Those are so easy to say. I don't have to say, oh, I take off Fridays to get a massage. I don't have to say those words. I just have to say, I'm booked already on Friday. Let's look into next week. And it's fine. Everything's fine.

Brea: Yep. And people like to work with winners. So if you are available every minute of every day, what they might see is, wow, like she's not doing anything. She's desperate for work. And they're busy too. They are busy too. This actually just happened yesterday. I got an inquiry from someone that I didn't know. They found me online and went to my website and scheduled a call. So yay, process works, right? Yay, inbound. Yay, inbound. But it wasn't until my next available on my Calendly, which was a few days away. And when her inquiry came in, I happened to be available. And I just texted her and I said, Hey, super excited to meet with you, just wondering if you happen to be free now. And she called me and we talked and it's looking really good. So I think structure is good and it's okay to be flexible in the moment. You know, I gave her that option that said, Hey, if you want to talk now, we can. And she took it and now we're moving forward.

Lisa: And what a cool way, like I just think of that and go, ooh, that could be an example of being a good boss to yourself. And that what if you really had something else in mind for Thursday and you could find cracks in the week. You always talk about the cracks in your day. And then this could be a crack in the week where you're like, ooh, if I filled this one in, I'm going to free myself up to do this other thing on Thursday.

Brea: Totally. And it was it was better for me because my energy was at a high. I had just delivered something really great. I had just had a great coaching call in the morning. So I was like, I was feeling it. I was feeling strengths. I was feeling myself. And that came through in the sales call several times. She said, oh, my gosh, I can just tell how much you love your work. And isn't that what we want? Is that true authenticity? So knowing my own talents, knowing that my energy comes from those wins, I leaned in and I offered to meet with her then because I knew I would be better on the call. She didn't have to say yes, I wasn't forcing her to change the schedule, but she did and that worked out for both of us, you know? So knowing yourself is just really, really important. Yeah. Another thing is also with boundaries and with fear, the trap of charging too little because we're afraid that people won't pay for what we have to offer. Not only does it hurt our profits, but it also leads to so much burnout and maybe even resentment. And that's something that I found really early on. I didn't know what the market would handle as far as pricing went, and I didn't really know what I wanted to value my time for. And so that was something that I had to learn the hard way. But I think if I had put some thought into it, put some research into it, I could have figured that out without years of learning the hard way and struggling with the burnout and the resentment that that brought.

Lisa: Yeah. Oh, that's a really good one because you basically you're being a bad boss to yourself by not thinking of it as a business. If you're thinking of it as you as a freelancer doing hourly rate, you're going to make really different decisions versus how you would price it if you were like, oh, they want to do four pre-event calls, not just one. Oh, they're going to ask me to take my deck and put it into their brand template. oh, they're going to send me through a procurement process that requires 40 hours on the phone with their call center, and they only happen to be available in India time zone, and things that you wouldn't expect because you don't know at the beginning, or maybe you need to hire a team to deliver because the time zones are all over the place, and you have no margin for that if you're building it like an hourly freelancer, not like a business owner. And it's a way that people are often bad bosses to themselves just out of naivete. But like you said, if you have people around you, if you have mentors around you, if you ask the questions, you can really be a good boss to yourself by thinking ahead and surrounding yourself with a community of people who have been there and done that so that you don't walk the same mistakes.

Brea: Yes. Yes, I know you probably want to land the plane. So I'll give my closing thought first. My closing thought is scaling the wrong thing, growing something that you don't enjoy, continuing to offer something that has worked, that has brought in money, but not because you like it or not because you want to continue offering it. Gosh, Doesn't that happen when we're working for someone else? We're given tasks all the time and expectations, and we just kind of have to grumble our way through it. And we do that to ourselves in our own business as well. And you don't have to. You don't have to do that. I talk to so many coaches who ask me, what should I offer? What should my offering be? What should my business model be? What should I? And you are the only one that can answer those questions for yourself. You have to make sure that you're setting things up in a way that you want to go to work every day. You want to sell in casual conversations in the elevator and also informal networking opportunities and in a formal sales call. You have to be excited about what you're doing. Don't keep doing things just because they're bringing in profit. If it's not really lighting you up, then figure out something else. Scale your business another way. You don't have to scale it based on what other people are telling you to do or what's working for other people.

Lisa: Yes, and I'll jump on the theme of scaling and say where I know I went wrong and I was a total bad boss to myself, was not thinking about the scale of labor. And I ate into that with my personal hours as the only solution I really knew how to do at the beginning. And if I had mentors and a community and people who had been there before I went there, I think instead of me just celebrating, Oh, look how much I'm growing. Oh, look how many clients I'm getting, I would have realized, Oh, my gosh, I'm about to step in a big pile of life poo because of how much I'm wearing myself out. So it's actually why, one of the reasons I created Tools for Coaches. So if you're listening, and you've been hearing me talk about the tools and templates inside of Tools for Coaches, there's also a community out there and there's mentorship. And part of the beauty of that group is being able to ask, like, what do you all do to prevent this? Or what do you all do to get in front of that? And that's part of that membership that I run. So leadthroughstrengths.com slash Tools for Coaches, if you want to check that out. It's a great place to catch these problems, like being a bad boss to yourself before you commit them.

Brea: Love it. Yes. And same for me. I mean, having people around me, having community is just essential for my happiness and for my success. So I think that's why I've been really itching to get this podcast community together. I want to talk to you guys about these episodes. If anything is resonating with you, come talk with other podcast listeners. Let's talk about what's working for you, what questions you have, what's not working for you, share that community, and then put it to work. Let's build your business. You know, we had our first meeting this week and it was so awesome. So it's BreaRoper.com/leadthroughstrengths. Can't wait to see you.

Lisa: Boom. No more bad to the bone.

Brea: Now we can get our baby back, baby back, baby back ribs.

Lisa: See y'all next time.

Let's Connect!

●      LISA: Website | LinkedIn | Facebook

●      BREA: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram

The Fine Print: This podcast is not sanctioned or endorsed by Gallup in any way. Opinions, views and interpretations of CliftonStrengths© are solely the beliefs of Lisa Cummings and Brea Roper.

I get tons of questions about how to go deeper to align your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Ideation with your career. So in this series, I break down one strength per post.

That way, you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make a better match between your job and your strengths.

- If you're reading as a manager, use this series for career development ideas and even new clues about responsibilities you could give a person with this talent theme so that they can show up at their best.

- If you're reading for yourself, use this as a chance to build a reputation for your strengths so that you're more likely to be given assignments that live in your strengths zone.

Today, the talent theme of the episode is Ideation. You'll get three layers to chew on:

1. Career Branding
2. Red Flag Situations At Work
3. Fresh Application Ideas

You probably already have a reputation for what you know. If you imagine your resume or your LinkedIn profile, I bet it's full of "the what," which are things like job titles, skills, knowledge, expertise, or the degree you earned.

What's missing in most resumes and profile is "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live. This is an overlooked use for LinkedIn. That's why it's not just for job seekers - it's also about shaping your career.

I bet you are just like my StrengthsFinder training clients, where you don't see your teammates and customers every day. That's why LinkedIn has become so important for career branding. It's where your teammates, customers, and vendors go look you up before a meeting - to see who they're about to talk to.

Rather than only telling them what you know, you should also give them a peek at how it is to work with you. So here are a bunch of adjectives you can consider using in your career branding and your LinkedIn profile:

• Discoverer
• Insightful
• Unbound
• Stimulator
• Fascinated
• Designer
• Creator
• Innovator
• Brainstormer
• Spontaneous
• Fast-Thinker

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Ideation. They might even make you want to quit the team. So I'll give you a couple of these to be on watch for — because if they fester, you might get the urge to disengage on the job or become detached at work.

Here are two Red flags for Ideation:

1. The "Yeah, But" Team. This is the team where there's a table full of devil's advocates ready to pick apart every idea. See, if you lead through Ideation, you love having ideas. You love exploring ideas. You love talking through them to see what they could turn into. If you're part of a team that instantly greets new ideas with "Yeah, but that will never work here" or "Yeah, but we tried that two years ago and it didn't work" "yeah, but" "yeah, but"…you're going to feel really shut down if you lead through Ideation.

2. The "Little Less Talk And A Lot More Action" Team. This is the team that loves to execute and crank out volumes of transactional work. If you're on a team with this type of job responsibility, be on watch for what's valued in the culture. Often you'll hear that they need less talk and more action, which to you means fewer ideas, less exploration, and less growth. Which leads to boredom. Which leads to the death of your soul. I'm dramatizing, yet if you lead through Ideation, you likely love to think and dream and expand beyond what's going on today - and to do that requires thinking and talking through new ideas. If your ideas constantly get squashed, you're likely to feel like the environment is a total downer for you.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Ideation at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you're listening as a team manager, be sure to have a conversation around these ideas. You'll both be able to come up with places to apply them.

For someone who leads through Ideation, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. Making Unlikely Connections. People who lead through Ideation are great at brainstorming ways that things could be repackaged or reimagined. For example, they could take a stale product line and bring you 3 ideas for ways that they could be refreshed or remixed to solve a new problem for customers and create new revenue streams.

2. The Blue Sky Dreamer. If you want the team to be thinking about what you could accomplish if you really dreamed big - without constraints - this person will be great at leading, generating, and even facilitating this kind of thinking from others. When you're trying to pull the team out of the status quo, someone with Ideation would love spearheading that type of mental exercise.

3. 10 Better Ways. Lets say you work in a customer-facing role, and your team uncovers that customers do not understand or use your help page when they have an issue. If you assign the person with Ideation to come up with 10 better ways of solving the problem for the customer, they will likely have a blast and offer innovative ideas that the team loves.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Ideation. So, here's your homework:

1. Go take action on your LinkedIn profile with the career branding section. Challenge yourself to write one sentence in the Summary section of LinkedIn that captures how you collaborate as a teammate at work.
2. Then think over the red flags to see if there's anything you need to get in front of before it brings you down.
3. And finally, volunteer your talents through the application ideas. And if you're a manager, have a conversation with your team members about which of these things sound like something they'd love to have more of.

If you're thinking about doing a virtual or in-person event to kick off your strengths-based culture, head on over to our training page to see if our current offerings are a good fit for you. Until next time, thank you for being part of this powerful strengths movement that helps people unleash the awesomeness already inside them.

To subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You can also stream any episode right from this website. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode. Let the app notify you each week when the latest episode gets published.

I get tons of questions about how to go deeper to align your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Includer with your career. So in this series, I break down one strength per post.

That way, you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make a better match between your job and your strengths.

- If you're reading as a manager, use this series for career development ideas and even new clues about responsibilities you could give a person with this talent theme so that they can show up at their best.

- If you're reading for yourself, use this as a chance to build a reputation for your strengths so that you're more likely to be given assignments that live in your strengths zone.

Today, the talent theme of the episode is Includer. You'll get three layers to chew on:

1. Career Branding
2. Red Flag Situations At Work
3. Fresh Application Ideas

You probably already have a reputation for what you know. If you imagine your resume or your LinkedIn profile, I bet it's full of "the what," which are things like job titles, skills, knowledge, expertise, or the degree you earned.

What's missing in most resumes and profile is "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live. This is an overlooked use for LinkedIn. That's why it's not just for job seekers - it's also about shaping your career.

I bet you are just like my StrengthsFinder training clients, where you don't see your teammates and customers every day. That's why LinkedIn has become so important for career branding. It's where your teammates, customers, and vendors go look you up before a meeting - to see who they're about to talk to.

Rather than only telling them what you know, you should also give them a peek at how it is to work with you. So here are a bunch of adjectives you can consider using in your career branding and your LinkedIn profile:

• Accepting
• Expander
• People-Aware
• Integrating
• Welcome Wagon
• Interactive
• Others-Oriented
• Warm
• Barrier-Buster
• Inviter
• Tolerant

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Includer. They might even make you want to quit the team. So I'll give you a couple of these to be on watch for — because if they fester, you might get the urge to disengage on the job or become detached at work.

Here are two Red flags for Includer:

1. Cliques. If you lead through Includer and you sense that the existing tight knit relationships inside of the company are impenetrable, it's going to feel like a really frustrating place to work. If you think that your industry is filled with good ol' boys clubs, you are going to feel more than left out, you might begin to resent the structure and the idea of being closed off to outside viewpoints. The idea of in-groups and out-groups and exclusion really sucks the life out of someone with Includer.

2. Loud Voices Always Win. If you work on a team or in a company culture where the ideas that get implemented seem to always come from the most talkative, extroverted, or loud people, you might begin to question the values of the company. When you lead through the Includer theme, you are keenly tuned in to each person's contributions and ideas...not just the ideas that are spoken aloud. So if it appears that the only way to succeed is to be a bold talker, you may come to resent this idea. This can be true even if you are extroverted or comfortable speaking aloud. When you have Includer you will be aware of this dynamic on behalf of other people.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Includer at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you're listening as a team manager, be sure to have a conversation around these ideas. You'll both be able to come up with places to apply them.

For someone who leads through Includer, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. Assimilate New People. A great way to use the Includer talent is to help integrate new people into a team or a culture. You can make them feel part of the group quickly, and help them feel seen and appreciated, even when they are new. And being assigned to this kind of work is the type of thing that might light up the soul of someone with the Includer talent. This could be a new hire or a new team member or even a new customer - this is a fun way to feed the Includer talent theme while also making someone else feel like they're a critical part of the group.

2. Interested Party Finder. This one is about uncovering people who are interested in being involved in a project you may not know about. It makes me remember a customer situation where a team I worked with in Malaysia told me they were so frustrated that they were never consulted about the advertisements that were placed in their country by their marketing team. There was a billboard strategy across the company, but they felt that billboards were a waste of money in Malaysia because, living in the jungle, the logos and the text on the billboards constantly got covered up by fast growing trees. This is an example where the locals were contacted for translation, but not genuine localization. This is the type of investigation someone with Includer would be great at. They can find stakeholders who are feeling ignored, and give voices to people with no voice. They can help you prevent vetoes or internal battles that could've been prevented with better listening up front.

3. Turn On The Megaphone. If you have people on the team who seem to never contribute in conversations, assign it to someone with Includer to turn the megaphone on for them. Often, quiet people will give their opinion if they are asked. If a person with Includer gets in the habit of saying things like "Maria you know a lot about advertising in southeast Asia; we haven't heard from you yet. What do you think?" You can unleash the power of hearing from people who are used to not sharing their voice. It will be fun for someone with the Includer talent to notice and bring those voices out, rather than being annoyed that the project leader is not doing this.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Includer. So, here's your homework:

1. Go take action on your LinkedIn profile with the career branding section. Challenge yourself to write one sentence in the Summary section of LinkedIn that captures how you collaborate as a teammate at work.
2. Then think over the red flags to see if there's anything you need to get in front of before it brings you down.
3. And finally, volunteer your talents through the application ideas. And if you're a manager, have a conversation with your team members about which of these things sound like something they'd love to have more of.

If you're thinking about doing a virtual or in-person event to kick off your strengths-based culture, head on over to our training page to see if our current offerings are a good fit for you. Until next time, thank you for being part of this powerful strengths movement that helps people unleash the awesomeness already inside them.

To subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You can also stream any episode right from this website. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode. Let the app notify you each week when the latest episode gets published.

I hear a lot of curiosity about how to apply your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Individualization to your career.

In this series, I break down one strength per post — so that you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make a better alignment between your job and your strengths.

- If you're exploring this concept as a manager, use this series for career development ideas and even new clues about responsibilities you could give a person with this talent theme so that they can show up at their best.

- If you're exploring this concept for yourself, use this as a chance to build a reputation for your strengths so that you're more likely to be given assignments that live in your strengths zone.

You'll get three layers to chew on:

1. Career Branding

2. Red Flag Situations At Work

3. Fresh Application Ideas

You probably already have a reputation for what you know. Think about your personal resume, CV, or your LinkedIn profile, I bet it's full of "the what," which are things like job titles, skills, knowledge, expertise, or the degree you earned. What's missing is usually "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live.

Chances are good that you are a lot like my StrengthsFinder training clients, where you don't physically see your teammates and customers every day. That's why LinkedIn has become so important for career branding. It's how your teammates, customers, and vendors go look you up before a meeting - to see who they're about to talk to. And rather than only telling them what you know, you should also give them a peek at how it is to work with you.

So here are a bunch of Individualization-related adjectives to consider using in your career branding efforts and your LinkedIn profile:

• Perceptive
• Astute
• Insightful
• Outlier Detector
• Customizer
• Anthropologist
• Uniqueness-Spotter
• Sees Who People Are
• Observant Biographer

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Individualization. They might even make you want to quit the team. So I'll give you a couple of these to be on watch for — because if they fester, you might get the urge to quit the job or become detached and disengaged at work.

Here are two Red flags for Individualization:

1. Execution Over People. Imagine going to a kickoff meeting for a new project team, and the head of the team dives right into the task list. They don't give you time to get to hear how each person's strengths can fit into the bigger picture. They don't even give you a second to get to know the people you're going to work closely with. If the feeling of brushing over or devaluing the people side is part of the culture, it might be really draining for you when you lead through Individualization. This is because you thrive by knowing what makes each person tick. You're at your best when you can see how people's differences are their differentiators. Without having this step, you'll feel like you need to cram that into your personal process. And if there's no time made for "those soft things" you're going to feel drained.

2. One Size Fits All Rules. Imagine a situation where your manager distributes a list of canned responses that you are required to use when contacted by any customer. You are told not to deviate from this list, regardless of the person's individual needs. I remember this happening early in my career when I was required to answer the phone by saying, "It's a great day at ACME Company, how may I help you?" This drove me crazy. Although I could appreciate the positive vibes, it felt fake. Those were not words I'd ever choose, and they never felt genuine coming out of me.

   This is a double whammy for Individualization. First, if you have this theme, you likely don't believe that one size fits all. Each person would be better off coming up with their own version of a positive vibes greeting. Secondly, if you have Individualization, you might dislike being boxed into rules. So when a one-size-fits-all rule gets implemented, it's going to feel like an energy vampire every time you have to execute on it. You likely feel that any list of responses should only be a guideline. And you'll know that it could be made better if you could put a unique spin on it based on each customer's style.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Individualization at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you're exploring this concept as a team manager, be sure to have a conversation around these ideas. You'll both be able to come up with places to apply them.

For someone who leads through Individualization, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. Style Spotting. When you get a new customer, and your team doesn't know anything about them, assign someone with Individualization to research the customer and create a style profile. They'll have fun uncovering how they are unique, and what kind of communication they prefer.

2. Team Connector. Say you have a newly formed global team that's working on a huge new project. You don't know most of the team members, and they don't know each other. Everyone's in a different time zone, with unique cultures and experiences. If you want to kick off with a team building meeting or a get-to-know you activity, assign it to someone with Individualization. Even if you're listening as an individual contributor and no one assigns you a task like this, take it on yourself. Find one fun fact about each person and make a one-pager that shows each person's photo, role on the project team, and one fun fact. This will be a fun and useful exercise for you, which will help you get you feel more productive because you now know something about each person. And it helps the team connect as well. It's a win all the way around.

3. Objective 3rd Party. If you have a personality clash on the team, or you're having one yourself, call on a teammate who has Individualization. This person can be the objective 3rd party who is excellent at seeing the gifts and positive intent of each person. Often, their deep intuition for seeing value in each person can bring the battling parties to see that they're not so far away from each other. Often, they can find the differences and see how they can be used as a positive partnership. Of course, use this one with caution. You don't want to send in a peer as an arbitrator when the goals are not artfully set up and executed. Yet, if you have a highly mature and self-aware team, this is an outstanding use of Individualization.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Individualization. So, here's your homework:

1. Go take action on your LinkedIn profile with the career branding section. Challenge yourself to write one sentence in the Summary section of LinkedIn that captures how you collaborate as a teammate at work.
2. Then think over the red flags to see if there's anything you need to get in front of before it brings you down.
3. And finally, volunteer your talents through the application ideas. And if you're a manager, have a conversation with your team members about which of these things sound like something they'd love to have more of.

If you're thinking about doing a virtual or in-person event to kick off your strengths-based culture, head on over to our training page to see if our current offerings are a good fit for you. Until next time, thank you for being part of this powerful strengths movement that helps people unleash the awesomeness already inside them.

To subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You can also stream any episode right from this website. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode. Let the app notify you each week when the latest episode gets published.

I get a whole lot of questions about how to amplify your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Input with your career.

In this series, I break down one strength per post — so that you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make a better alignment between your job and your strengths.

- If you're exploring this concept as a manager, use this series for career development ideas and even new clues about responsibilities you could give a person with this talent theme so that they can show up at their best.

- If you're exploring this concept for yourself, use this as a chance to build a reputation for your strengths so that you're more likely to be given assignments that live in your strengths zone.

You'll get three layers to chew on:

1. Career Branding

2. Red Flag Situations At Work

3. Fresh Application Ideas

You probably already have a reputation for what you know. Think about your personal resume, CV, or your LinkedIn profile, I bet it's full of "the what," which are things like job titles, skills, knowledge, expertise, or the degree you earned. What's missing is usually "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live.

Chances are good that you are a lot like my StrengthsFinder training clients, where you don't physically see your teammates and customers every day. That's why LinkedIn has become so important for career branding. It's how your teammates, customers, and vendors go look you up before a meeting - to see who they're about to talk to. And rather than only telling them what you know, you should also give them a peek at how it is to work with you.

So here are a bunch of Input-related adjectives to consider using in your career branding efforts and your LinkedIn profile:

• Inquirers
• Collectors
• Information Sponges
• Generous
• Appliers of Knowledge
• Well-Read
• Knowledgeable
• Researchers
• Investigators
• Corporate Librarians
• Archivists
• Curators
• Workplace Archeologists

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Input. They might even make you want to quit the team. So I'll give you a couple of these to be on watch for — because if they fester, you might get the urge to quit the job or become detached and disengaged at work.

Here are two Red flags for Input:

1. Busy work. Because people with Input like to learn and then aim that learning at something useful, it's really draining to do tasks that seems like "make work." If you lead through Input and you see this happening, challenge yourself to share insights or document the process to make it useful to someone else. This way, you can still feel like you're curating something useful to teammates.
2. Outdated or unsearchable tools. If you lead through Input and you see something like a database or CRM system or customer service tool that is not kept current, it will be draining. You'll be able to see the huge value in sharing information, and it will be extremely frustrating to find that others don't value the repository in the same way.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Input at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you're exploring this concept as a team manager, be sure to have a conversation around these ideas. You'll both be able to come up with places to apply them.

For someone who leads through Input, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. Make information findable. If you lead someone with Input and you want a system for curating, storing, and finding information that everyone can use, send it over to someone with Input. Whether you ask them to make a Wiki or update an intranet page or collect FAQs, the idea of gathering and sharing useful information will light up someone with Input.
2. Research deeply. When you need someone to do a deep research quest, ask someone with Input. They'll enjoy looking through archives, learning, and then distilling the important parts down to make them usable to others. The idea of researching and applying is highly energizing for those who lead through Input. And then translating them into usable bits will be a fun way for them to apply the information while being challenged to distill the important takeaways.
3. Soak up practices from other teams. Basically, ask them to be a sponge and soak up the approaches that others are using. Then they can apply it to your team's specific situation and make recommendations. The idea of investigating the options by being curious inquirer will be fun. From there, applying it to your team adds to the energy because someone with Input wants to apply the learning to a specific project or situation.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Input. So, here's your homework:

1. Go take action on your LinkedIn profile with the career branding section. Challenge yourself to write one sentence in the Summary section of LinkedIn that captures how you collaborate as a teammate at work.
2. Then think over the red flags to see if there's anything you need to get in front of before it brings you down.
3. And finally, volunteer your talents through the application ideas. And if you're a manager, have a conversation with your team members about which of these things sound like something they'd love to have more of.

If you're thinking about doing a virtual or in-person event to kick off your strengths-based culture, head on over to our training page to see if our current offerings are a good fit for you. Until next time, thank you for being part of this powerful strengths movement that helps people unleash the awesomeness already inside them.

To subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You can also stream any episode right from this website. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode. Let the app notify you each week when the latest episode gets published.

I get a whole lot of questions about how to amplify your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Intellection with your career.

In this series, I break down one strength per post — so that you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make a better alignment between your job and your strengths.

- If you're exploring this concept as a manager, use this series for career development ideas and even new clues about responsibilities you could give a person with this talent theme so that they can show up at their best.

- If you're exploring this concept for yourself, use this as a chance to build a reputation for your strengths so that you're more likely to be given assignments that live in your strengths zone.

You'll get three layers to chew on:

1. Career Branding

2. Red Flag Situations At Work

3. Fresh Application Ideas

You probably already have a reputation for what you know. Think about your personal resume, CV, or your LinkedIn profile, I bet it's full of "the what," which are things like job titles, skills, knowledge, expertise, or the degree you earned. What's missing is usually "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live.

Chances are good that you are a lot like my StrengthsFinder training clients, where you don't physically see your teammates and customers every day. That's why LinkedIn has become so important for career branding. It's how your teammates, customers, and vendors go look you up before a meeting - to see who they're about to talk to. And rather than only telling them what you know, you should also give them a peek at how it is to work with you.

So here are a bunch of Intellection-related adjectives to consider using in your career branding efforts and your LinkedIn profile:

• Philosophers
• Deep
• Musers
• Intense
• Intellectuals
• Critical Thinkers
• Reflective People
• Contemplative
• Solitude Seekers
• Introspective
• Willing To Be Contrarian

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Intellection. They might even make you want to quit the team. So I'll give you a couple of these to be on watch for — because if they fester, you might get the urge to quit the job or become detached and disengaged at work.

Here are two Red flags for Intellection:

1. Pressure to give answers in the moment. If you lead through Intellection, it will likely be annoying to go to a meeting where someone asks you to make an important decision or give your opinion on something they've sprung on you in the moment. You do your best thinking when you have time to marinate on it, so be sure to find a way to communicate to your team that you'll be at your best when you have time to think about something in advance. This means, watch out for those blank calendar invitations that don't tell you anything about the meeting at hand. Get the agenda in advance. Know what contribution someone is hoping for. Otherwise, they might pressure you to "talk it out" in the moment, which will likely drain you and frustrate you.
2. Groupthink. If you lead through Intellection and you're on a team where people blindly nod along with each other, you'll probably feel frustrated with the lack of critical thinking. If you're in this situation and you're thinking that your team is a bunch of sheep or "Yes Men" or lemmings, imagine how difficult it would be for you to have a deep, trusting relationship with peers. The same goes for teams who seem to skim the surface and then act - while never doing the deep thinking on a topic. Watch out for these situations because they'll be big energy-zappers for you.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Intellection at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you're exploring this concept as a team manager, be sure to have a conversation around these ideas. You'll both be able to come up with places to apply them.

For someone who leads through Intellection, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. Help me poke holes in my idea. Many roles today are filled with distractions, quick meetings, and instant messenger. This can be efficient, yet it can also keep teams from the deep contemplation needed for important decisions. If someone on your team has Intellection, ask them, "what am I missing here" or "what else should I be thinking of" or "can you poke holes in my idea?" They will appreciate the idea to think beyond the surface.
2. Contrarians wanted. Just because someone on your team has Intellection, it doesn't mean that they'll disagree with everything. At the same time, using their critical thinking will unleash their best. Their deep reflection and reasoning skills are valuable to help teams see past the surface. They can see downstream impact that others can't see. They can see the unexpected consequences that others can't spot.
3. A task of solitude. Next time you have a role where someone needs to work from home, or do a seemingly lonely job of traveling and being alone in hotel rooms (or holed up in a remote cabin), see what someone on your team with Intellection thinks. They will often love doing tasks that require solitude because they do their best thinking when they can contemplate alone. This doesn't mean that they don't like people. Yet often, they will be private people who need time alone to be at their best.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Intellection. So, here's your homework:

1. Go take action on your LinkedIn profile with the career branding section. Challenge yourself to write one sentence in the Summary section of LinkedIn that captures how you collaborate as a teammate at work.
2. Then think over the red flags to see if there's anything you need to get in front of before it brings you down.
3. And finally, volunteer your talents through the application ideas. And if you're a manager, have a conversation with your team members about which of these things sound like something they'd love to have more of.

If you're thinking about doing a virtual or in-person event to kick off your strengths-based culture, head on over to our training page to see if our current offerings are a good fit for you. Until next time, thank you for being part of this powerful strengths movement that helps people unleash the awesomeness already inside them.

To subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You can also stream any episode right from this website. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode. Let the app notify you each week when the latest episode gets published.

I hear a lot of curiosity about how to apply your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Learner to your career.

In this series, I break down one strength per post — so that you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make a better alignment between your job and your strengths.

- If you're exploring this concept as a manager, use this series for career development ideas and even new clues about responsibilities you could give a person with this talent theme so that they can show up at their best.

- If you're exploring this concept for yourself, use this as a chance to build a reputation for your strengths so that you're more likely to be given assignments that live in your strengths zone.

You'll get three layers to chew on:

1. Career Branding

2. Red Flag Situations At Work

3. Fresh Application Ideas

You probably already have a reputation for what you know. Think about your personal resume, CV, or your LinkedIn profile, I bet it's full of "the what," which are things like job titles, skills, knowledge, expertise, or the degree you earned. What's missing is usually "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live.

Chances are good that you are a lot like my StrengthsFinder training clients, where you don't physically see your teammates and customers every day. That's why LinkedIn has become so important for career branding. It's how your teammates, customers, and vendors go look you up before a meeting - to see who they're about to talk to. And rather than only telling them what you know, you should also give them a peek at how it is to work with you.

So here are a bunch of Learner-related adjectives to consider using in your career branding efforts and your LinkedIn profile:

• Curious
• Variety Seekers
• Studious
• Lifetime Learners
• Expert
• Multi-Passionate
• Inquisitive
• Dynamic
• Explorers
• Growth-Focused
• Early Adopters

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Learner. They might even make you want to quit the team. So I'll give you a couple of these to be on watch for — because if they fester, you might get the urge to quit the job or become detached and disengaged at work.

Here are two Red flags for Learner:

1. Stagnation. If you lead through Learner and you stop growing and learning, you will likely feel like you're dying inside. Use this as an early warning sign. If you're bored. If you're stagnant. If you're assigned to maintain something and keep it the same, you have to find other ways to feed your Learner or you will be super drained.
2. Maintenance. Think about the contrast between maintaining something that is already up and running versus being involved in a new project or program. If you're involved in keeping something at status quo, you will likely have few days that feel energizing. That's because you love to explore and learn and experience new things. If you own a program that has already launched, be sure that you're continually working on your craft or your subject matter depth. That way, you can maintain the success while constantly bringing new information or new angles to the team.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Learner at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you're exploring this concept as a team manager, be sure to have a conversation around these ideas. You'll both be able to come up with places to apply them.

For someone who leads through Learner, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. When you need a tester. If you have a change initiative and you need someone to be the early adopter, call on someone with Learner to be your pioneer. Tell them that you're asking them to test and explore - to soak it all in - and to document the good and bad. They will have fun being on the cutting edge and being the trailblazer for the team.
2. When you need to introduce something foreign. Imagine a situation where your team is taking on a whole new set of responsibilities. You're going to have to ask some people on your team to think or act or learn in a whole new way. Pick someone with Learner and tell them that you're introducing this to give them some variety and a growth-challenge.
3. When you need one person on the team to learn everything there is to know on a topic. Sometimes teams want to be on the cutting edge of an ever-changing competency or subject matter. A project like this might seem insurmountable to the non-Learner. Or it might seem frustrating to a non-Learner because they're never complete. But to a Learner, this continuous study and growth will be fulfilling.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Learner. So, here's your homework:

1. Go take action on your LinkedIn profile with the career branding section. Challenge yourself to write one sentence in the Summary section of LinkedIn that captures how you collaborate as a teammate at work.
2. Then think over the red flags to see if there's anything you need to get in front of before it brings you down.
3. And finally, volunteer your talents through the application ideas. And if you're a manager, have a conversation with your team members about which of these things sound like something they'd love to have more of.

If you're thinking about doing a virtual or in-person event to kick off your strengths-based culture, head on over to our training page to see if our current offerings are a good fit for you. Until next time, thank you for being part of this powerful strengths movement that helps people unleash the awesomeness already inside them.

To subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You can also stream any episode right from this website. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode. Let the app notify you each week when the latest episode gets published.

I get a whole lot of questions about how to amplify your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Maximizer with your career.

In this series, I break down one strength per post — so that you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make a better alignment between your job and your strengths.

- If you're exploring this concept as a manager, use this series for career development ideas and even new clues about responsibilities you could give a person with this talent theme so that they can show up at their best.

- If you're exploring this concept for yourself, use this as a chance to build a reputation for your strengths so that you're more likely to be given assignments that live in your strengths zone.

You'll get three layers to chew on:

1. Career Branding

2. Red Flag Situations At Work

3. Fresh Application Ideas

You probably already have a reputation for what you know. Think about your personal resume, CV, or your LinkedIn profile, I bet it's full of "the what," which are things like job titles, skills, knowledge, expertise, or the degree you earned. What's missing is usually "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live.

Chances are good that you are a lot like my StrengthsFinder training clients, where you don't physically see your teammates and customers every day. That's why LinkedIn has become so important for career branding. It's how your teammates, customers, and vendors go look you up before a meeting - to see who they're about to talk to. And rather than only telling them what you know, you should also give them a peek at how it is to work with you.

So here are a bunch of Maximizer-related adjectives to consider using in your career branding efforts and your LinkedIn profile:

• Efficient
• Sorters
• Selective
• Persuaders
• Strengths-Oriented
• Choosy
• Challengers
• Always Refining
• Never Done
• Transformers
• Excellence-Seekers
• Tinkerers
• Iterators
• Quality Boosters

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Maximizer. They might even make you want to quit the team. So I'll give you a couple of these to be on watch for — because if they fester, you might get the urge to quit the job or become detached and disengaged at work.

Here are two Red flags for Maximizer:

1. Premature Launch. If you lead through Maximizer, you naturally focus on quality. You have high expectations, and it hurts to hand over a work product before it meets your quality standard. So if you're on a team that values quantity over quality, you'll likely get frustrated. Also, if you find that a work product has huge potential…if only you could do this to it…(only to find out there's no time or budget to allow it to live up to its potential), it will make your Maximizer sad.
2. Weakness-Focused Culture. Maximizer is a talent theme that is naturally aligned with a strengths-focused culture. If you find yourself part of a team that obsesses over weaknesses and problems and what's wrong, you'll be yearning to flip things around. Sometimes your strengths point of view will be refreshing and welcomed, but if you find that it's dismissed, you'll feel drained by only working on what's broken rather than getting the high leverage out of strengths.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Maximizer at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you're exploring this concept as a team manager, be sure to have a conversation around these ideas. You'll both be able to come up with places to apply them.

For someone who leads through Maximizer, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. When the rest of the team can't see potential in a project or person. The Maximizer talent sees potential all over. So you could apply this to a change that people are resisting, or a future vision that needs to be created. You can even turn on the Maximizer talent to bring an inspirational message to help other people see "what can be."
2. When you need incremental improvement over time. People with the Maximizer talent don't need to constantly work on exponential change. They get a charge out of incremental improvements that compound over time. If you need someone who can help you realize potential over the long-haul, tap into the powers of the Maximizer who loves to test and experiment and iterate to continually improve something.
3. When you want to go from good to great. People who lead through Maximizer rarely rest on their laurels. Good isn't good enough. They like to make things better and better and better. They're constantly asking "what if we did this" or "I wonder what it could be like if we tried this" - they're looking to get the most out of things, so they're chasing efficiencies and mastery all the time. If you want someone who doesn't get bored with continuous iteration, tap your Maximizers.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Maximizer. So, here's your homework:

1. Go take action on your LinkedIn profile with the career branding section. Challenge yourself to write one sentence in the Summary section of LinkedIn that captures how you collaborate as a teammate at work.
2. Then think over the red flags to see if there's anything you need to get in front of before it brings you down.
3. And finally, volunteer your talents through the application ideas. And if you're a manager, have a conversation with your team members about which of these things sound like something they'd love to have more of.

If you're thinking about doing a virtual or in-person event to kick off your strengths-based culture, head on over to our training page to see if our current offerings are a good fit for you. Until next time, thank you for being part of this powerful strengths movement that helps people unleash the awesomeness already inside them.

To subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You can also stream any episode right from this website. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode. Let the app notify you each week when the latest episode gets published.