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!

🌟

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.

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

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 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.

Today, the talent theme of the post is Positivity.

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 is usually "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live. This is an overlooked use for tools like LinkedIn, which is not just for job seekers.

Chances are good that you are a lot 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 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 adjectives you can use in your career branding and your LinkedIn profile. People who lead through Positivity are often:

• Upbeat
• Fun
• Energetic
• Hopeful
• Magnetic
• Encouraging
• Optimistic
• Enthusiastic
• Warm & Friendly
• Celebratory

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Positivity. 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 Responsibility:

1. Devil's Advocate. If your team has a pessimistic tone where people are awarded for their cynicism or constant reality checks, be on watch. This can suck the life out of you – especially if the team is constantly picking on each other's ideas with a "that will never work" type of default response, rather than building on each other's ideas and hearing each other out.
2. Celebrate For A Nano Second. If you lead through Positivity and you're in a culture that doesn't stop to celebrate, regardless of how big the accomplishment, you'll be constantly drained and baffled wondering why you can't slow down for a second to acknowledge the accomplishment. Although you don't expect everyone to give praise as readily as you do, it will drain you if you know it's getting withheld.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Positivity 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 Positivity, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. Lifting spirits though change. If you have someone on the team who leads through Positivity, call on them when the team is having trouble seeing the silver lining in the situation. Behind the scenes, brainstorm with them all of the things you can think of that are still going well. Also list all of the potential future outcomes this change will enable. You'll have fun making the list, and you'll likely come up with ideas that will help you get adoption for a tough change.
2. Tone setting. When you need someone to pump up a room, consider someone with the Positivity talent. They often light up a room just by walking into it. So next time you have a kickoff event, or you want a moment of levity in a meeting, ask this person in advance to bring a fun segment to the event.
3. Seeing possibilities. When a team feels stuck, the leader is often reluctant to come in with a rah-rah message about how you'll be okay in the future (and rightly so). If you want to lead the team through a deep conversation along the lines of "Who do we need to become to make that happen?," enlist your team member with the Positivity talent in advance. They're awesome at possibilities-thinking, so they can seed the conversation with believable ideas to get the momentum going in the room.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Positivity. 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 Relator with your career. So in this series, I break down one strength per episode.

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 Relator. 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. People who lead through Relator often have a tight-circle, a good BS Alert System, and are often:

• Friendly
• Genuine
• Loyal
• Transparent
• Caring
• Trustworthy
• Authenticity-Spotters
• Deep Connectors
• Relationship-Focused

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Relator. 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 Relator:

1. Keeping Up Appearances. If you have the Relator talent and you feel that people are always Peacocking around to show off only the polished, perfect parts of their contributions at work, you'll probably be drained by the relationships at work because you think they're fake and superficial.
2. Transactional. If you're in a role where there's no time or desire for building relationships over time, you'll be drained by it. If the sterile, fast, transactional exchanges are part of the expectation, you need to find other ways to fuel your need for care and friendships. Try challenging yourself to see how quickly you can drip in relationship-building anecdotes into a 30-second conversation (note: this doesn't mean superficial, talk-about-the-weather type of small talk). Activities like this will help you test it out to see if there's room for relationships in your organization.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Relator 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 Relator, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. Nurture. When you need a deep relationship to develop over time, think of someone with the Relator talent to nurture it over the long term. For example, this could be someone who manages your most important account. Or it could be the person who onboards new hires as their first-year mentor. Or it could be a performance coach who helps a peer develop over time.
2. Confidentiality. Sometimes you can't tell everyone about a decision or a product or a process change. Yet you need someone to be assigned to it. Often, people with the Relator talent are great keepers-of-confidences. Especially when they can tell it is important to someone else.
3. Authentic. Imagine a situation where your team or your brand is getting dinged for being stiff, stodgy, and old school. You're afraid to swing too far into the informality that seems to be taking the world by storm. You still worry about professionalism, yet you need to attract great talent to your team. If you're trying to strike the balance, call on someone with the Relator talent to bring the authentic, professional personality of your team out to the world. This can be valuable for marketing your team and your company when you're hiring for the next opening.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Relator. 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 align your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Responsibility 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 match 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.

Today, the talent theme of the post is Responsibility.

You'll get three layers to chew on:

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

Let's start with career branding. 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. Now, what's missing in most of them is "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live. This is an overlooked use for LinkedIn, which is not just for job seekers.

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 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 howit is to work with you.

With that in mind, here are a bunch of adjectives you can use in your career branding and your LinkedIn profile. People who lead through Responsibility are often:

• Trustworthy
• Loyal
• Diligent
• Dependable
• Accountable
• Conscientious
• Promise-Keepers
• Honest
• Committed
• Responsive

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Responsibility. 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 Responsibility:

1. Chronically Missed Deadlines. If you lead through Responsibility and your team culture is one that is cavalier with deadlines, it will suck the life out of you. To you, your word is your honor, and you expect other people to honor their commitments as well. So when people miss their deadlines and treat it like no big deal, you'll likely feel like it's a place where mutual respect is severely lacking.
2. Imposed Urgencies. You're conscientious and dependable. You plan things out diligently so that you can keep your promises. So when other people constantly blow up your day with their lack of preparation, you're likely fuming. If you work in a place where people tend to launch their hand grenades at you — which puts you at risk of not keeping your promises, this will suck the life right out of you.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Responsibility 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 Responsibility, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. The long haul. When you need someone who will consistently chip away at a project over time, assign it to someone with Responsibility. They are self-starters who will diligently follow it through the long term.
2. Trust. When you need to hand something off to someone you can trust, assign those responsibilities to someone with Responsibility. When you know you can't babysit the process, the person who leads with Responsibility will keep you posted on timelines, deadlines, and progress without any hand-holding necessary.
3. Ownership. Think of a project or process that no one has really owned before — one of those things that sort of gets done, but never that well. Change that up by assigning clear ownership to someone with the Responsibility talent theme. They're great at covering it from soup to nuts when they know they can take charge and bring order to a neglected part of the business.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Responsibility. 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.

In today's episode, we dive deep into a topic that many coaches struggle with: finding clients. If prospecting makes you want to run and hide…don't worry. We've got you!

Listen in as we share some strategies that have worked for us, so you can make them work for you. Plus, we sprinkle in some creative ideas on how to make yourself visible and approachable in everyday situations. You know, just because we're fun like that.

If you're ready to transform your prospecting game, and maybe even have a little fun along the way, this episode is just for you!

🌟

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

●      Throw Away the Rule Book 📚
Contrary to what all the marketing gurus out there will tell you, there is no one-size-fits-all approach! Instead, focus on leveraging your unique strengths. Whether it's through storytelling, networking, or email marketing, find what resonates with you and use it to connect with potential clients. Remember, authenticity is key!

●      Know how to answer the question, "What do you do?" When someone asks, they're standing at the front door of your business. If you don't have a compelling answer, they will turn around and leave. Tailor your response to spark their interest, and they'll likely ask to come inside.

●      Referrals are the lifeblood of your business. Move beyond the awkward, "It was nice working with you. If you ever know anyone else who might be interested, please send them my way." Instead, request referrals with confidence, intention, and gratitude. Build intentional relationships to create a network of mutual referrals that benefits everyone involved.

●      Visibility is Vital 👀 If going out to find clients feels intimidating, get them to come to you instead! Find creative ways to make yourself visible and approachable in everyday situations, like bringing a relevant book to a coffee shop or wearing a name tag while working at a co-working space. These small actions can invite conversations and opportunities.

●      Follow Up with Existing Clients: Don't overlook your current and past clients. Regularly check in with them and ask for referrals or feedback, as they are often the best source for new business opportunities.

Take Action

●      Identify and utilize your unique strengths in your prospecting efforts. Focus on what feels authentic to you rather than blindly following conventional methods. Authenticity wins every time!

●      Craft Your One-Liner: Develop a compelling answer to the question, "What do you do?" that resonates with your target audience. Ask Brea to share her simple 3-sentence framework that works every time.

●      Leverage Referral Partners 🤝Make a list of other professionals who serve your target audience in different ways. Invite them to be an intentional referral partner for you (and you for them!). By collaborating with these partners, you can create a network that mutually benefits everyone involved.

●      Utilize Email Marketing: Start or enhance your email marketing strategy to gather and nurture leads. Create valuable content that keeps your audience engaged and positions you as a go-to resource in your field.

●      Engage Current Clients for Referrals and Continuing Business: Regularly ask your existing clients for referrals by directly inquiring, "Who do you know that might benefit from my services?" Use feedback forms to gauge interest in additional services or coaching opportunities.

Here are 20 Things to Try, as a Numbered List

1.     Be ready with a clear answer when someone asks, "What do you do?"

2.     Create a network of referral partners in adjacent businesses.

3.     Co-host an event to share audiences with another service provider.

4.     Participate in adjacent groups, like trade associations (your audience), and be of service.

5.     Be a toll booth in a customer's existing flow. This is a way to get inbound leads because you are contributing in spaces where they are hanging out.

6.     Create a nurture sequence in your email system. Keep in touch over the long term, and they will likely hit reply to offer gigs.

7.     Use your strengths to decide which prospecting channel will feel most natural to you.

8.     Bring "the book" to your coffee shop or hangout space (one you wrote, or one that is easy for them to comment on). Leave it on the table and use it as a conversation generator.

9.     Wear a fun name tag to be extra approachable.

10.  Host a podcast and sponsor yourself.

11.  Write about a single topic all over the place – blog, guest author, a book, social – get known for a specific thing so people come to you.

12.  Use email marketing. Unlike social media, where a small % of your followers see your content, with email marketing, you reach 100% of your list with no gatekeepers.

13.  Run ads. Nail your messaging first so that you're not bleeding out cash.

14.  Expand business with an existing customer by building in a Yes/No checkbox on the feedback form to ask if they're interested in following up with coaching.

15.  Expand business with an existing customer by booking a "Keep Momentum" call after your event. Give them DIY ideas, and also offer ongoing services.

16.  Be findable when someone searches for answers to the problem you solve, which means having at least a few pieces of clear content. This could be working on Search Engine Optimization to be found in online searches. It could also be on podcasts or YouTube, which also get used like a search engine.

17.  Pick one primary marketing channel and go all in.

18.  Directly ask for referrals. Using questions like "who else might need work like this on their team?" is a great way to get intros right after a client engagement.

19.  Plug into a community of your target market. Contribute genuinely, and the relationships will naturally create business and referrals.

20.  Use video. Trust is more important than ever. Being visible on video can help people know more quickly that they want your service.

🎧 If you're a coach looking to grow your client base, this episode is packed with actionable insights and creative ideas. Tune in now and let us know your thoughts!

#Coaching #ClientAcquisition #Podcast #Networking #ReferralPartners #Visibility #StrengthsBasedApproach

Let's Connect!

●      LISA: Website | LinkedIn | Facebook

●      BREA: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram

AI-Generated Transcript

Lisa: I'm Lisa.

Brea: I'm Brea.

Lisa:
And today we are talking about, y'all, Brea is in love. Did you ever think we would have a show about Brea being in love? What are you in love with, Brea?

Brea: I love prospecting.

Lisa: They didn't see it coming.

Brea: I know. I was trying to think of something funny that was unexpected, but I wasn't expecting to do that. And then I just was like, I just love it. I love it so much. Helping people find clients, finding my own clients, reaching out and helping people, giving them a solution. Finding people, I just, I love it. I love it so much.

Lisa: You hear her excitement. She's in love with prospecting. How fun is that? So yeah, today we're going to talk about 10 ways to find clients as a coach. Hey, awesome. Let's go. Well, you're enamored. You're in love. So we're going to start with you. Give us a way to find clients as a coach.

Brea: Well, I think the first thing to do is to throw away the rule book. whatever the people have told you that you should be doing, or you have to do this if you're gonna find clients as a coach. No, there is no right way. We know from our strengths work that the only right way is to use your strengths. So do that. If you want to use social media and funnels and aggressive marketing campaigns and all the things that they say, whoever they are, say that you should do that, that's fine. And also use your strengths. So for me, communication, number one, telling the story, right? Sharing testimonials, telling the transformation, not in a salesy way, but just in a like, I love my job kind of way. You know, when you meet someone on the street, when you're sitting in the salon chair, when someone says, Hey, what do you do? Don't give them the wah, wah, wah. This is what I do. Tell them the story, right, if you lead with communication. So, woo, you know, look for opportunities to approach new people or sign up for networking events or figure out ways to use your strengths. to interact and engage with people.

Lisa: Yes. One of mine was pretty similar, so I'll just jump on to kind of piggyback that. And the way that I thought of it was, have an answer that you love to the question, what do you do? Because that question comes up in life so often. So I always think about the person I'm talking to. So if I'm in a room full of software engineers and my answer is, I help burned out software engineers love their work again, like I'm being really specific to that person where they're like, oh, I'm burned out. So whether in the story, I just love your perspective because you're pulling people in like, oh my gosh, I know someone who needs you.

Brea: So that's right. That's right. Yeah, and you're reminding me we have another episode, I don't remember what it's called off the top of my head, but where we talk about that one-liner. And so if that's something that you listeners want to do, go back and listen to that to maybe spark some creativity about how to create that one-liner.

Lisa: Yes, absolutely. We'll find it and put it in the show notes.

Brea: Okay.

Lisa: Yeah. So Brea, if we do, if we start with how we've actually gotten the bulk of our business, let's start the next couple with things that we actually used to get business. I mean, probably all of them are things that we've used, but I want to say like, what has had the biggest impact in getting us business?

Brea: Yeah, so I love this concept of referral partners. I mean, referrals are just, I mean, chef's kiss, you know, for building a business. But I don't know that a lot of people know what a referral partner is or have put some thought into having intentional referral partners. So that could look like a referral program where clients can refer you and maybe they get some kind of reward or maybe they do it out of the kindness of their heart. But when I think of a referral partner, I think of who else serves your customer, your client base, in a different way. Are you intentionally partnering with those people to refer each other? So think, what else does your client need? Find those service providers and link arms. Realtors are great at this. Their job is to sell the house, so their referral partners are the plumber, the electrician, the lawn maintenance, anything that a homeowner might need services for, then all of a sudden you've got this network of people that are referring their clients to each other. And we can do that too as coaches.

Lisa: Yes, so smart. I can see, like, if you do CliftonStrengths for teams in manufacturing and you have a referral partner who does HR for teams in manufacturing, you could be a great referral partner for each other. Absolutely. Yes. I have something similar I would add. It's going to be a separate thing. It's a separate technique, but it is along the lines of referrals. I would call it an expansion referral. And that would be, I've gotten a lot of business over the years where I get in a customer, and then I'm in with Executive A, and then Executive B tells Executive C, and they start spreading you around the organization, sharing what you do. And that can be something that just happens because the impact was big and they took it upon themselves to do it. But you could also do this really programmatically. If they don't have the budget to do the full thing they want to accomplish, I'll say, what other leaders could we involve so that you could team up together and get a year's worth of this instead of one? session, one one-off session. So things like that, where you get in and you grow the opportunity from the inside because you've already proven yourself and you have fans who are willing to share, plus you're already through the procurement system and all of those things that happen. So I would say, I would call that an expansion referral, a little different from an outside referral partner, but both amazing kinds of referrals, especially if you make it a system.

Brea: Yeah, I love that. You know, my missionary background is coming to mind where I had to fundraise all of my income for four years. And in that training, we learned a question that has been so helpful for me as a business owner. And that question is, who do you know that needs whatever it is that you provide, that needs your coaching services. But when you ask a current customer who already loves you, who's already paying you, who is already singing your praises, the question of who do you know is so much different than saying, oh, if you know anybody who could blah, blah, blah. That's not actually helpful, but when you say, who do you know? Then their brain turns on, right? And they're like, oh, maybe this leader. Oh, maybe this person. Oh, so be direct without being aggressive or, you know, like weird about it, but give them an opportunity to actually answer the question instead of just throwing the ball casually in their court and just watching it like drop and bounce. away, you know?

Lisa: Love it. Okay, how else have you got in business? That's amazing.

Brea: So I think asking people who you patronize to patronize you is like a great way to kind of start that referral partner process. And then can you co-host something together where they invite their people, you invite your people and and those relationships start to meld. One way that I've found to be incredibly helpful and lucrative is at a co-working space because a lot of my clients are smaller businesses or entrepreneurs or, you know, people in the local community and they office out of a co-working space and the co-working space already has clients, right? They've got people that are there who need my services. So I can offer the benefit to the coworking space of professional development. Here are a lot of small businesses who don't have a budget for that or just, you know, startups that need and desire professional development, but they don't have the big corporate budget or the corporate vendors, the systems. And so I can just come in and provide that for the coworking space. And the coworking space is providing me with the people. We do a little intro workshop and then Boom, we're off to the races.

Lisa: Okay, amazing. I mean, audience built in. My version of that, I have one that is similar but a different thread. I would call it adjacent groups. So for example, I think of my favorite match of an audience. So over the years when I would lead workshops, The ones that just always felt so aligned and like great fit were marketing teams. And so then, OK, what are the marketing associations? American Marketing Association, there's a national something, National Association for Advertisers. It's ANA, I think. But anyway, different groups like that, where you go to the trade associations, but not in what you deliver. So I didn't say, Go to the CliftonStrengths Association, because I do CliftonStrengths. I moved over to something adjacent. I thought of my audience, and then my audience's group, because that's not going to be filled up with people who do what you do. Just like I mentioned manufacturers earlier, if I went to a manufacturing association, and I delivered something as a CliftonStrengths person, it's going to look really unique, and the concept might be very unique to them. And it's not just flooded with people doing the same thing. So adjacent groups are a really cool place to provide development, just like you're talking about with that audience that is already sitting there, where they wouldn't have gotten that education otherwise, if you delivered a speech or a workshop for that group.

Brea: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. And if workshops are not your thing, if you're listening and you're thinking, oh, I'm a coach, you know, I don't want to go out there and do an intro workshop to get people. Try a book club. Partner with a local bookstore or a local library or a local group that's adjacent and do a book club. And when they get to know you and they hear what you have to offer, then that easily can transfer into a coaching engagement.

Lisa: Beautiful. Well, I'll share my favorite thing. And that is I love email marketing, as you know, probably as much as I love prospecting. I love email marketing. I love the automation of it. I love how I can educate and help people. And I can write a thing once and it can serve 100,000 people with that one writing. I think it's so cool. And so once someone is on my email list, I have a couple of years worth of those nurture sequences to keep educating them and keeping them up on whatever topic. So being of service. But what is so cool from a business building standpoint is, if they're of value, and people stay subscribed, then you become part of their daily flow. And I have had dozens, I would guess on the order of about 50 events, where people hit reply on one of those emails way into the sequence. They are 18 months in, they're two months in, and they're like, oh, hey, we're having a summit in three months and we're planning, we need a speaker, can you speak on X date? Those gigs are so great. They know you and love you. They've received content for months or years, and they're literally just saying, I have a gig in this city on this day. Are you available? Let's go. I mean. What can get better than that, where they're literally just like plopping it at your feet?

Brea: Yeah, I think that's so good. You have to be visible. And so your email sequence is making yourself visible on a regular basis, right? Weekly in your case. I don't do email marketing like that. My version of being visible is when I go to a coffee shop, I take my laptop and I'm just going to do some admin work to get my energy from the vibes. I'm going to bring a book. Maybe it's a StrengthsFinder book. Maybe it's, I don't know, it's The Manager or Strengths for Students. I've been working on some offerings for students, high school students and their parents. I'm going to bring the book and I'm going to set it on the table. so that anyone walking by or looking in my direction sees the book and if that connects with them in some way, there's an opening for a conversation and it's making my offerings visible. And then they come to me and they say, oh my gosh, StrengthsFinder. I love that. I did that at my job two companies ago and I really wish that my company that I'm at now would do it. And I'm like, oh, really? Tell me more. Let me help you with that, right? So clever.

Lisa: And they're coming to you. They're approaching you.

Brea: That's right. So make yourself visible and it doesn't have to be like you get a sign and you're standing out on the street corner and you're like, hey, mattress sale today. Come on in. You know, it doesn't have to be crazy.

Lisa: You have that sandwich board. You're swinging that sign around that goes in the twirlies that is like, strength coaching here.

Brea: Right, right. I mean, if that's you, do you. But I think most of us, it could be as simple as just putting a book out for people to react to. I love co-working spaces. I just joined a new place. I've been wearing a name tag. It just says, hi, I'm Brea. Or sometimes I'll say like, please say hi. You know, I, I love people, you know, or something, something that kind of catches people's eye. So again, it's an invitation. And if they want to engage, they can. So just be creative, but be visible.

Lisa: I love the creativity. Okay, let's see. I have one that I think is worth putting in here because it is the way I've gotten the most business over the years. Host a podcast and sponsor yourself. So by the way, you hear me talk about at the end of these episodes, you hear me mention Tools for Coaches, my membership that supports coaches. You hear Brea talk about going to brearoper.com for coaching. We have a podcast. We're sponsoring ourselves because that's who we're talking about, just like I did there. So that's part of the beauty is that you have some awareness of a service that we offer. And the way that I've systemized it to really make it work over the years is every time we do a podcast, we transcribe an episode. I turn it into a blog post. That blog post over the course of 11 years, having that many of them, even though we don't have a high frequency show, It's built really good search engine optimization. So people Google and find me based on the topic and just dropping in your contact form saying, I found you on Google, want to talk to you about an event. And that has been an incredible win. That's what everyone seems to wish for. And it really does happen.

Brea: I love that. I just am so inspired by you, Lisa. Slow and steady wins the race. Consistency, your focus, you just kind of have built such a wealth of resources on your website, and it's working. So that's inspiring to me. Yeah, I think along those lines, you can write, you can host your own blog, or you can be a guest blogger. You can be a featured writer in magazines, newspapers, other publications. It could be on LinkedIn, it could be on social media, but also go out there and be a guest author in a real publication. Again, obviously, target the publications that your people are reading. Use your strengths.

Lisa: And books. I mean, look, in the speaking world, the most classic way to sell to customers is to have a book, be an expert in a topic, and you have a book, which is basically like a business card. It's something tangible that people put in there. hand to know about you and then of course like if you make a dollar or two a book and you sell one to every crowd you can get some momentum from that but books are a classic way of writing and getting customers especially in the speaking world.

Brea: The last thing that I'll say is I think we've already touched on it but I just really want to call it out because it's so important is find your clients in the clients you already have. Don't sleep on your current or your past clients. The people who you've already sold to are most likely to buy from you again. So make sure you're always, always reaching out.

Lisa: Yeah, I want to add on that two specific ways. Because I think what you just said is so important. So one way of doing that is, let's say you're doing a workshop or a coaching program, and you have feedback forms at the end. You can literally build in a yes-no checkbox kind of question at the end to ask them if they're interested in exploring one-on-one coaching on the topic that you just did. So, for example, let's say the company provided the budget for the kickoff. I could go back as the coach and say, 85% of people check they'd really be interested in this. Would it be of interest for you to explore how we can make this happen for your team? And also, if there's someone who's interested in one-on-one coaching and they might want to pay for themselves, it might be something they want to do individually as well. Feedback forums can be a really good place to introduce something that you have, a solution to their problem, something of interest to go further, and they just don't know ways to go further if you don't tell them. So that is a way to open the conversation.

Brea: That has worked for me so many times. I actually do cards at the event, and I put them in a little bag or a box, and I draw for a little prize, because you don't want to force people, but you want to encourage people to fill it out. But I also put on those checkboxes like, are you interested in one-on-one coaching? Are you interested in bringing me to your school, to your church, to your, you know, fill in different places that you might go that are even outside of the workplace? Because people a hundred percent are not thinking that you might do that if they're experiencing you in their workplace, right? They're not thinking outside of that at all. So if that is something you offer, put that on the card as well. And then also have a place for them to put their testimonial. Just write something that they really loved about the day, and then boom, you've got a testimonial. And if you really, really want to just milk it for all it's worth, you can ask them if they have a referral. You know, so those those feedback forms or those, you know, those cards can really, really pack a lot of value.

Lisa: Packing in the value. Okay, let's see value. Another technique is when you're in the process, let's say you have a workshop or a speech planned, you have an event in the works, You set up with the person who's sponsoring it for the company, you set up this extra call while you're in process, and it's a debrief call. You set it up in advance. And in the debrief call, you chat about what's next. And in the what's next conversation, You might be just saying, you know, like, congratulations, you've graduated type of thing. And here are some things you can think about going forward. And I have these things available to help you if you want to go deeper, you want to go further and ask people if they're interested in carrying it forward. And if they say no, I don't have the budget or no, not right now. But I would love to think about that for next year. Then you have the follow up for next year. But a lot of times they're like, yeah, I didn't know there was a next. I didn't know there was another step in this progression. And you already have the call set up. So it's not awkward. You're debriefing and you're chatting about what's next, how to carry it forward.

Brea: Yes, how to really maximize their investment, right? How to set them up for success, continued success. Yes, that is, I'm just going to repeat what you said because it's so important, setting up the call ahead of time so that they're expecting it. Set up the workshop, set up the debrief all in the same call. It just flows so much better and feels better for both parties.

Lisa: Yeah. Love it. It's part of the process. It's just part of the system. And it is a conversation that sounds natural and is natural. You don't want your thing to come to a conclusion and be like, okay, bye, abrupt, like just cut off. And it doesn't mean that somebody always has the budget or inclination to keep going, but they usually do. They want to maximize their investment. They want to keep things happening. And if they don't have the money to do that right now, they might have the money in six months if they're looking for a corporate budget or they have to get in the cycle, it might be next year. But those are those long tail things that just keep the pipeline full over time so that you don't look up and say, oops, I don't have any bookings now. What do I do? I'm starting from scratch again. No, if you're always doing this with every customer and you hit, let's say only 25% of those turn into business, that's a lot after you add them up over the course of years.

Brea: Yep, yep.

Lisa: I'll give my closing thought. Closing item, I should say, because I want to do one more. We're always talking about strengths. You and I both love CliftonStrengths. And I think prospecting is tough for a lot of people. And instead of having Brea's reaction that is like, I love it." Instead, people are like, I didn't like the thought of it. Oh my gosh, I wish they would just magically appear in my inbox. This is a great opportunity to say, pick a primary marketing channel. and pick something that aligns with your strengths. Like if you're a speaker and a workshop leader, and you love being on stages, then maybe webinars and speeches are the kinds of things you should think about as your primary lead gen. If you like the one-on-one interaction and that is what you need and want and sounds more meaningful to you, maybe you're gonna reach out to every person who's in your professional network from way back in the day and you just like log them up in a spreadsheet and you do a couple a day where you reach out and you say, hey, I'm doing this new thing. This is what I do. If you know somebody who needs X, I hope you'll send them to me and just get the conversations going in a way that aligns with you and your strengths. Because if you don't, you're going to wear yourself out, burn yourself out, and you're going to hate prospecting. One of the reasons I think Brea likes it so much is like she's giving these creative ideas like wearing a name tag that makes it approachable. So people are just like, oh my gosh, I want to talk to you. Well, she leads through communication. She wants to get people talking to her and she thought of creative ways to get people talking to her. How perfect is that?

Brea: Yep. I mean, that's why I love it. Communication Woo Activator, top three. If there's a strength zone, this is it for me. I love it. I love it.

Lisa: Amazing. I would come talk to you. I would come talk to you with that book on the table at the coffee shop. I would come talk to you with the name tag. Yeah. There are all kinds of ways to be creative to allow approachability. I mean, of course, a smile always helps make you be approachable, but there are a lot of other tools you can use that naturally draw people in to start talking to you.

Brea: Totally. Yes. Use your strengths, baby. Come on. Come on. Use your strengths. Lead with your strengths.

Lisa: And prospecting, dare we say, might actually be fun.

Brea: Yes. It is. It is. I know, we already have gone so over time. So here's my closing thought. My closing thought is if you are interested in the idea of using your strengths to prospect, come to my website, no surprise there, brearoper.com. But this time I actually have a download for you. Send me your top five and I'll send you some ways to prospect based on your strengths.

Lisa: Oh, that sounds really cool. I want that. I'm headed there now. And then for mine, Tools for Coaches. It's our group. And if you are listening to some of these and you're on the, like, in the Lisa land where you're like, Oh, yeah, she's talking about long tail over time. She's talking about evergreen email, she's talking about building systems that a little bit at a time have a compounding effect. If that kind of stuff resonates with you, those are the kind of systems and tools and templates I provide in the Tools for Coaches membership. Right now, the price is only $100 a month. So come on over and join us. Leadthroughstrengths.com slash Tools for Coaches.

Brea: Sounds good to me.

Lisa: All right. Well, hey, Brea, we got to go. We need to go build some more business and start thinking about prospecting.

Brea: Oh, you're right. Yeah. OK, guys. Catch you on the flip side.

Lisa: Bye for now.

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 gobs of questions about how to align your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Restorative with your career.

So 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 match between your job and your strengths.

– If you're exploring 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 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 post is Restorative.

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. Now, what's missing in most of them is "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live. This is an overlooked use for LinkedIn, which is not just for job seekers.

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 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 howit is to work with you.

With that in mind, here are a bunch of adjectives you can consider using in your career branding and your LinkedIn profile. People who lead through Restorative are often:

• Problem-Invaders
• Issue CPR-Givers
• Unintimidated by Big Problems
• Root Cause Finders
• Diagnosers
• Fixers (or Fixer-Upper)
• Investigators
• Accountable
• Rehabilitators
• Realistic
• Troubleshooters

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Restorative. 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 Restorative:

1. False Harmony. If you lead through Restorative and you have a team culture where people are outwardly harmonious (when they don't actually agree) — where they fake their agreement and go through great lengths to be conflict avoidant, you will probably feel super drained by that.
2. Sweeping Issues Under the Rug. If you keep getting responses to your problem-solving ideas that sound like, "Well that's not really something we own" or "That will never work here" or "No one else seems worried about it, so let's not make mountains out of molehills" — you will be soul-sucked because you're around people who are ignoring problems that you'd be happy to solve.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Restorative 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 Restorative, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. Give them your big, hairy problems. Many managers feel bad delegating problems. Yet problems are a treat for people who lead through Restorative. Tell them why you assigned them, and that you know they'll be able to diagnose and propose at a level that few people can do.
2. Get them assigned to solving problems for your best or biggest customers. This person will enjoy the challenge of discovering and removing the obstacles. You can rest assured that they'll go about it in a businesslike, focused way (rather than the emotional panic that many would get into).
3. When you're stuck. When you catch anyone on the team saying, "I'm stumped" or "I'm baffled" or "I don't know what to do" — consider partnering them with your team member with Restorative. This person has fun finding the root causes and helping people decide how to move forward.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Restorative. 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 lot of questions about how to align your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Self-Assurance with your career. In this series, I break down one strength per episode so that you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make a better match between your job and your strengths.

– If you're exploring 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 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.

The talent theme today is Self-Assurance. 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 profiles is "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live. This is an overlooked use for tools like LinkedIn, which is not just for job seekers.

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 – because it's the tool your teammates, customers, and vendors use to 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 adjectives you can consider using in your career branding and your LinkedIn profile.

People who lead through Self-Assurance are often:

• Independent
• Instinctive
• Self-Sufficient
• Stable
• Resilient
• Confident
• Courageous
• Solid
• Influential
• Certain
• Persistent

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

Here are two red flags for Self-Assurance:

1. False Collaborations. If you lead through self-assurance and you're partnered up with another person or another department when your opinion doesn't really matter, it will drive you crazy. You will already know a direction you'd propose, and if your ideas constantly fall on deaf ears, you'll feel totally soul-sucked by it.
2. Hand Holding. If you work with someone who needs constant hand-holding, it will wear you out. You work independently and you expect others to at least try to figure it out on their own before leaning on you. And if you feel like someone is trying to constantly hand-hold you, you're likely to resist and feel as if they're treating you like a child or a newbie or a dummy.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Self-Assurance 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 Self-Assurance, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. When a critical issue comes up, think of the person who leads through Self-Assurance. This doesn't mean to dump all of the problems on them. It means to look for situations where a lot is riding on the decision or execution (good or bad). Rather than being scared and hesitant as many would be, someone with Self-Assurance can confidently handle the challenge without getting ruffled.
2. Watch for change that makes others nervous. Think about things like process changes, re-orgs, or mergers that make others fear that they'll be redundant and lose their jobs. This is the situation where you can put the person with Self-Assurance out front to show people how to confidently and resiliently flow through major organizational changes.
3. Assign this person to responsibilities that benefit from no second-guessing. Those with strong Self-Assurance have strong instincts and can move forward quickly. If you need someone who will not hem and haw over a decision, make this person your go to.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Self-Assurance. 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.

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 align your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Significance with your career. So in this series, I break down one strength per episode. 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 exploring 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 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 Significance. 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.

Now, what's missing in most of them is "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live. This is. an. overlooked. use. for tools like LinkedIn, which is not just for job seekers.

I bet you are 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. It's their most efficient way to learn about 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. Here are a bunch of adjectives you can consider using in your career branding and your LinkedIn profile.

People who lead through Significance are often:

• High Visibility
  • Big Dreamers
  • Difference-Makers
  • Credible
  • Purpose-Driven
  • Not Afraid Of The Spotlight
  • Results and Performance Oriented
  • People Who Want Their Lives to BE for Something … Not Frittered Away

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

Here are two Red flags for Significance:

1. Busy work. If you lead through Significance and you think the work you're doing has no purpose, it will bother you at a values level because this is not how you want to spend your life.
2. No one sees or cares about your results. If you've been busting your butt for months in a thankless role, you have a red flag on your hands. People who lead through Significance want to leave their mark on the world — they like to be recognized for making an impact through what they do at work. If you're doing something big, and it seems that no one will see it or no one will care, it will drain your energy fast.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Significance at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you're reading this 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 Significance, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. Take a chance on something big. If you manage someone with Significance, give them a highly visible project that has a lot riding on it. Be sure to communicate the importance and the gravity — when they know that their success (or failure) will be in the spotlight, it's a hugely motivating factor. Whereas others might feel crushed by this pressure, it brings someone with Significance alive.
2. Put them on a project to start a recognition campaign. While people with Significance love to BE recognized, they also love to help others feel significant. Ask them to create a shift in the team culture over the next 6 months so that praise and credit-giving feels like the norm on the team.
3. Rub elbows with high achievers. Ask this person to name a few of the top achievers that he or she admires in the company. Then get them linked up on a project. People with Significance love the opportunity to step their game up by standing side by side with people who are great.

So there you have it. It's a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Significance. 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 steady stream of questions about how to align your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Strategic to your career. In this series, I break down one strength per episode — so that you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make a better match between your job and your strengths.

– If you're exploring 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 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 Strategic. 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. Now, what's missing in most of them is "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live. This is an overlooked use for tools like LinkedIn, which is not just for job seekers.

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 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 howit is to work with you. To that end, here are a bunch of adjectives you can use in your career branding and your LinkedIn profile.

People who lead through Strategic are often:

• Fast Decision Maker
• Culler of Lists
• Pattern-Spotter
• Vetter of Ideas
• Simplifier
• Planner
• Creative Strategist
• Anticipator Who Sees The Downstream Impact

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

Here are two Red flags for Strategic:

1. A culture of slow decision making or analysis paralysis. If you have Strategic and you're stuck in status quo while you can already see the clear path ahead, you will likely spend your days at work in extreme frustration.
2. Micromanaging your decision process after trust and credibility are built. If you have Strategic and you've already built credibility, yet you're still being questioned deeply and constantly about your decisions, it will impact you beyond the lack of trust. It will hit you at the core because you like moving into the future. If you have to justify every detail, you'll likely be counting the wasted minutes you could have been using toward progress, which is a serious drain on your psyche. Instead, you're probably at your best when you can sort quickly and take action.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Strategic at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you're reading this 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 Strategic, put this talent to good use with one of these action items:

1. Put this talent to use when you need a workaround. Sometimes, the long-term solution to a problem is in in the works…and meanwhile you need a bandaid-type solution to also cope in the short-term. Usually, someone with the Strategic talent will be able to sort all of the options quickly and get into the workaround-action on the same day.
2. When there's a topic on the team that seems confusing and overly complex to everyone. Get a whiteboard in front of the person with the Strategic talent and see if they can simplify the complex in a way that helps everyone nod their heads in agreement that they're looking at the same thing. This could be drawing a contextual model or framework. This could be dissecting a problem. Or even getting everyone to agree on what the problem is that you're solving.
3. Use this person for collaboration insight. When you're hearing that stakeholders are not getting consulted or that people are frustrated that your process changes have a negative impact on their work, get someone with Strategic talent involved. They're great at seeing the handoffs between steps in the process. And they can predict what consequences will come from small upstream changes by the time they get to the 3rd or 4th person down the way.

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

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. Think over the red flags to see if there's anything you need to get in front of before it brings you down.
3. 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 constantly get questions about how to align your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Woo with your career. So in this series, I break down one strength per episode — so that you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make a better match between your job and your strengths.

– If you're exploring 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 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 Woo.

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.

Now, what's missing in most of them is "the how," and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live. This is an overlooked use for tools like LinkedIn, which is not just for job seekers.

I bet you are just like most of 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 – because 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 adjectives you can use in your career branding and your LinkedIn profile to represent the Woo talent theme.

People who lead through Woo are often:

• Charming
• Social Butterflies
• Interactive
• The One Who Knows Everybody
• Welcoming
• Instant Connectors
• Engaging
• Great Conversationalist
• Energetic

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Woo. 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 at work.

Here are two red flags for Woo:

1. Weeks in isolation where you don't get social interaction — if you lead through Woo and you work from home, be sure to "get your people fix" through video calls with colleagues or by getting out of the house for social hour.
2. The need to continually deliver bad news or work with irate customers — if you lead through Woo, you're usually watching for a positive reception from that person. If you're in many interactions per day where people don't like you or your answers, it will be extremely draining.

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Woo at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you're reading this 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 Woo, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. Onboarding New Hires: Consider how this person could play a role in onboarding new team members or customers. They will likely enjoy the opportunity to create a welcoming experience.
2. Making Strangers Feel Comfortable: Talk about responsibilities that include meeting a lot of new people — anything from software demos to creating a destination booth at a trade show to delivering presentations or doing customer tours.
3. Emcee or Experience-Creator: If you have annual events, like holiday parties or customer appreciation events, see if your team members with Woo would love to Emcee them or be part of designing a magical experience. Keep in mind that there's a lot of behind-the-scenes work with big events. Someone with the talent of Woo is usually more energized by the front-of-house type of responsibilities.

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

1. LinkedIn: 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. Audit For Red Flags: Think over the 2 red flags to see if there's anything you need to get in front of before it brings you down.
3. Offer Your Talents To The Team: 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.

Today we're exploring your CliftonStrengths Q&A with a question someone asked me in a training class the other day. He said, "Hey, I only have two of the four CliftonStrengths colors in my StrengthsFinder DNA chart. Is that bad?" My answer to this one is like that Lil Jon Song "Work What Your Mama Gave Ya." Maybe he said Shake What Your Mama Gave Ya, but you know what I'm talking about here. It's the best thing you can do with your lineup of talents: use the ones you have.

Have You Downloaded Your Strengths Tools?

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths-based culture is to offer an appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. Get started by downloading this awesome tool that offers you 127 Easy Ways to Recognize Strengths on your team.

The DNA Colors = 4 Demands You Have In The Workplace

If you're not sure what I'm talking about when I say, "the DNA colors," there are these 4 domains or 4 demands that all of us have in our work day. These demands are represented by color in the CliftonStrengths StrengthsFinder report. Those are:

1. Purple for executing talent themes
2. Blue for relationship building talent themes
3. Red for strategic thinking talent themes
4. Yellow for influencing talent themes

If you're interested in StrengthsFinder colors, you might also like the episode "What Do StrengthsFinder Colors Mean?"

Royal Flush Gets A Unicorn Trophy

I have to admit, I have been known to celebrate with a game-show-like moment when someone has all five talent themes in a single color. It's usually in a big giant ballroom of people in a training class or a StrengthsFinder speech. If we have one of those royal flush moments where someone has all of the same suit (or same color in this case), it's a fun thing to spot. When you have a room of 300 people and somebody has 100% purple executing talents or 100% blue relationship talents — it really is a rare sight, so I get excited. Then yeah, yeah, I admit it. I give out Unicorn Sticks and I make a thing of it for a second because it's fun.

Dang. I Only Have 2 of 4 Colors. Surely I Need Those Other Ones.

Most often, what happens is that people say, "Oh Dang, I only have two of the four, so I'm probably missing something really important that I need." Or, "Oh man, I have three, but I really need that 4th color for the job I'm in right now." To know what to do here, you really have to go back to that concept of working with what you have. It's almost like that scene from Pretty Woman where she's saying, "Work it! Own it!" You have what you have. So instead of trying to go back to game the assessment by retaking it to get it to say what you want, look at the ones that you do have and figure out how to use those to meet those very same demands.

What To Do When You're Missing A Color From Your Top 5

I'll give you an example from my personal lineup of all 34 talent themes. Of the Top 14, I have 1 executing talent. So you would read that and think, just like participants do in my training sessions, "Oh no, I'm not going to ever get anything done because I only have one executing talent out of my top 14." But the thing is I do get things done. Focus is the only talent theme that is in my top 14. And so yes, I have an easy go-to talent theme when I need to get things done.

Get The Full 34 CliftonStrengths Report To See Where Each Color Comes In

When you get the upgraded CliftonStrengths 34 Report, you can see all 34 potential talent themes in stack rank order. I mention that in case you're wondering how I know what my top 14 are. So if you get the full report, you can look to it for your easy go-to colors that represent each demand. That's why, when I really need to get something done, I'm going to rely on my focus talent theme. That's not the only option though. There are other things to do besides going to your obvious go-to talent. My favorite alternate option is to think of all 4 of those demands with all of your talent themes, regardless of color.

Action Step: Make Your Top 5 Meet The Demand At Hand

You can actually impact any of those demands through any talent theme if you stretch your brain creatively. It's an innovative application of strengths thinking that I love to do. So that's my action item I offer you for this question: think of 1 of those 4 demands — pick the one that is calling on you in your job right now.

Example of Stretching A Talent To Look Like Another DNA Color

Let's say I really need to get some stuff done. So I would pick the executing demand for this activity. Oops. Now I look at my top 5 and I see that I don't have any executing talent themes to call on. I have zero purple and my top 5. This is where you have to tell yourself to not fret. I'll give you an example by running through my top 5 and this will just demonstrate for you how you could do this for yourself.

Maximizer Can Impact How I Execute

If I used my Maximizer talent in a git-r-done moment, it would be when I need high quality because my Maximizer loves to tweak and keep working on stuff. It's fun to keep making it better.

Strategic Can Impact How I Execute

For an execution situation where I need to get a lot of decisions made fast, I would rely on my Strategic talent. It helps me sort out what the options are quickly, then pick a path, and then press the go button. Although it's technically in the thinking talent domain, Strategic allows me to get moving and not belabor the thing or have buyer's remorse.

Positivity Can Impact How I Execute

If I needed to execute on something and I wanted to use my Positivity talent, it would likely be on one of those crap tasks that you hate doing, yet you also don't want to waste your time bellyaching about things. So Positivity could make light of it or find a silver lining in it. It helps me reframe and move on.

Individualization Can Impact How I Execute

If I wanted to get things done and I really needed to customize, that would be a great way to call on my Individualization talent. So even though it's technically a relationship talent, I certainly use it to accomplish things because I would be thinking about the audience and what the recipient cares about. It helps me think, "How can I make this palatable for them, not just me?"

Woo Can Impact How I Execute

Woo would be great if I'm collaborating with some new people and we need to get to know each other. Or maybe there's a task that has to do with spreading an idea. The Woo talent loves to get the word out — and that would be a great way to execute on an organizational change.

Your Turn To Run Through Your Top Five Applied To A Single Demand

When you look at your top 5, don't worry about what colors you do have or don't have. Instead, think about a specific demand that you're getting called to do right now at work:

1. Executing
2. Relationship Building
3. Strategic Thinking
4. Influencing

After you pick 1 specific demand that you're getting called to do in your work, run all 5 of your talents through that single demand. See how they could support you in that endeavor.

It's a really cool way to stretch your talent themes and think of them in a way you haven't used them before. I hope you really enjoy that way of looking at talent themes with a new lens. Instead of lamenting what you don't have, love and leverage what you do have. Now get on out there, claim your talents and share them with the world — no matter what color they are!

Remember to Downloaded Your Strengths Tools

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths-based culture is to offer an appreciation of strengths in action. Get started by downloading this awesome tool that offers you 127 Easy Ways to Recognize Strengths on your team.

Enjoyed The Podcast?

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.

In this 12-week strengths implementation series, you get one conversation per week to help your team start each week with strengths. If you "did" StrengthsFinder with your team and you didn't follow up after the initial conversation, this is a great way to make Strengths part of your work culture.

Go to [http://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge] to get the series emailed to you one week at a time. You'll get the question and examples to make it sound real and practical. You'll also get additional angles so that you can take the answers beyond the surface. If you're a manager who wants to make culture-building part of everyone's job, have each person on the team sign up for the email series. That way, it won't rely on you doing the question-asking each week. You can get the team to share their answers after they receive the email.

This series is usable even if you've never used CliftonStrengths. Although the questions work in excellent alignment with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, they also work with no assessment at all - just conversations about what already works on the team.

In this 12-week strengths implementation series, you get one conversation per week to help your team start each week with strengths. If you "did" StrengthsFinder with your team and you didn't follow up after the initial conversation, this is a great way to make Strengths part of your work culture.

Go to [http://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge] to get the series emailed to you one week at a time. You'll get the question and examples to make it sound real and practical. You'll also get additional angles so that you can take the answers beyond the surface. If you're a manager who wants to make culture-building part of everyone's job, have each person on the team sign up for the email series. That way, it won't rely on you doing the question-asking each week. You can get the team to share their answers after they receive the email.

This series is usable even if you've never used CliftonStrengths. Although the questions work in excellent alignment with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, they also work with no assessment at all - just conversations about what already works on the team.

In this 12-week strengths implementation series, you get one conversation per week to help your team start each week with strengths. If you "did" StrengthsFinder with your team and you didn't follow up after the initial conversation, this is a great way to make Strengths part of your work culture.

Go to [http://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge] to get the series emailed to you one week at a time. You'll get the question and examples to make it sound real and practical. You'll also get additional angles so that you can take the answers beyond the surface. If you're a manager who wants to make culture-building part of everyone's job, have each person on the team sign up for the email series. That way, it won't rely on you doing the question-asking each week. You can get the team to share their answers after they receive the email.

This series is usable even if you've never used CliftonStrengths. Although the questions work in excellent alignment with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, they also work with no assessment at all - just conversations about what already works on the team.

In this 12-week strengths implementation series, you get one conversation per week to help your team start each week with strengths. If you "did" StrengthsFinder with your team and you didn't follow up after the initial conversation, this is a great way to make Strengths part of your work culture.

Go to [http://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge] to get the series emailed to you one week at a time. You'll get the question and examples to make it sound real and practical. You'll also get additional angles so that you can take the answers beyond the surface. If you're a manager who wants to make culture-building part of everyone's job, have each person on the team sign up for the email series. That way, it won't rely on you doing the question-asking each week. You can get the team to share their answers after they receive the email.

This series is usable even if you've never used CliftonStrengths. Although the questions work in excellent alignment with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, they also work with no assessment at all - just conversations about what already works on the team.

In this episode, Lisa and Brea explore the phenomenon of low ticket offers and how they can be a game-changer for your business. While high ticket items often steal the spotlight, we believe that low ticket offers have their own unique magic that can help you build relationships and grow your business.

Plus, we have a special invitation for you! Make sure to listen to the end for an exciting new opportunity to connect with other listeners, ask questions, and get support as you implement what you learn.

Let's unlock the potential of low ticket offers together!

Work With Us to Decide on Your Low Ticket Offer

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 on Using Low Ticket Offers In an Independent Coaching Practice

The power of the no-brainer factor. Low ticket is a strategy for creating offers that your audience can't resist, making it easy for them to say "yes!"

●      Transform Browsers into Buyers: By offering low ticket items, you can convert freebie seekers into paying customers. This shift not only establishes a business relationship but also increases the likelihood of repeat purchases in the future.

●      Creative low ticket ideas: Steal some of Lisa & Brea's favorite low ticket offerings that you can implement in your coaching practice.

●      Leverage Existing Content: Coaches can create low ticket offers from existing materials, such as recorded webinars, activity guides, or coaching templates. This allows you to monetize content you've already developed, making it easier to generate income.

●      Build Trust and Value: Low ticket offers can help establish trust with your audience. When clients see the value in your lower-priced products, they are more likely to invest in higher-ticket items down the line, creating a sustainable business model.

Take Action to Build a Low Ticket Offer Strategy

●      Define Your Low Ticket Offer: Determine what your low ticket offer will be. Remember to make it a "no-brainer" for potential customers.

●      Repackage an Existing Asset: Look through your existing materials (like recorded webinars, handouts, or coaching questions) and package them into a low ticket offer. Aim to create something that provides value and can be easily sold, such as a workbook or an activity guide.

●      Ask For the Sale: After you create a clear offer, it's time to communicate it to your audience. Remember, people who have bought from you before are more likely to buy again.

●      Automate Your Sales: Consider exploring ways to automate the sales of your low ticket offers, such as through email marketing or online sales platforms, to generate income while you focus on other aspects of your business.

🎧 Whether you're just starting out or looking to expand your existing offerings, this episode is packed with actionable insights that you can implement right away. Let's unlock the potential of low ticket offers together!

Let's Connect!

●      LISA: Website | LinkedIn | Facebook

●      BREA: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram

AI-Generated Transcript

Lisa: I'm Lisa.

Brea: I'm Brea.

Lisa: And today we're talking about a wallet phenomenon. It is all about low ticket offers and how they can help your coaching practice.

Brea: Ooh, I love a low ticket offer. Come on.

Lisa: Yes. Come on.

Brea: I'm here for this. Yeah. All this talk. I hear so many people like, oh, here's how you have the highest ticket.

Lisa: Most high end product. That's all cool. If you can sell $100,000 product. Cool. I love you for it. It is amazing. I have sold six figure product. things as well, or services rather, but low ticket is its own phenomenon. It has its own magic. I personally love having low ticket in the portfolio of a coaching business.

Brea: Amen. Yes. I mean, that's how I launched my business was a hundred people, a hundred dollars, a hundred people in 60 days that I was able to coach. And that was the foundation for an eight plus year business, you know, so.

Lisa: Yeah. OK, so let's just do dollar definitions and then we can do a little bit of a greater definition. But if you say low ticket, what is a dollar amount of a we're talking U.S. dollars if you want to do a conversion from another currency. But what is approximately a low ticket offer in your world?

Brea: In my mind, I think $100 or less is a no-brainer. When I think of low ticket, I think, what is something that you could put out there and almost every single person, nine out of 10 people, could say yes without having to think about it, without having to ask for permission from someone, without having to get special funds. Just $100, sure, I'll try it.

Lisa: I would say something very similar but in my mind it's all about the no-brainer factor like I like to get in a $25 or under zone because I want it to be true no-brainer like literally they just go oh I will, yeah, sign me up. I'm not even going to think about it.

Brea: I would be an idiot if I didn't say yes.

Lisa: Yes, yes. So personally, I like the person, not the value of the offer, because I do think it is cool in a low ticket offer. If you could say, here's a Lamborghini product, but you're going to pay a Camaro price. If they can get that vibe on the value difference, then of course, they're going to be like, oh yeah, I'll put my $100 in. But that idea of offering something that has way higher value is super cool. But I like that. Yeah, that very low ticket is for me and the strategy that I have behind low ticket. I like it to be very low.

Brea: Yeah. And you know, this, gosh, this conversation could go so many different ways. Like, you know, a $9.99 offer, a $10 offer could be an upsell, right? If they're buying something online and then it's like, oh, here's another $10 thing. Do you want to just add that on to the course you bought or, you know, the coaching package or whatever? That's one kind of low-ticket offer where it's coming at the end of the purchase. I think when I think of low-ticket offers, most often I think of something that's coming at the very beginning of that customer journey to bring them into your sphere and start working with them in a small way. Kind of like you dip your toe in the pool before you jump in just to get acquainted. That's not so much of a shock. That's, I think, a great use of low ticket offers as well.

Lisa: I am absolutely with you. I think the biggest magic you can get out of it is on the front end. So I have two favorite things. One, I have, as an example that is concrete, I have $10 activity guides someone can download and they don't have to be a trainer type. They don't have to have any special training. and it allows them to run a mini team building kind of conversation with their team. So those conversation guides slash activity guides, 10 bucks. I mean, it's one of those things like I love that for those who can't afford the bigger service right now. But you know, they'll stay in touch with you. And later, they might become your deeper clients in that way. But one of my favorite ways is totally a different strategy. It is when someone signs up for your list. It's like, Hey, you just downloaded this thing, this, this freebie on conflict. If you click here, you can also grab for $10 this more robust version where I can walk you through being able to lead a conversation like this with your team. I think that is such a cool way and I have so many reasons for it because it's easy to spend the money. You're converting a prospective customer into a legitimate customer. Now they're not just lurking around. Now they're not just looking at freebies. They are now a customer and people who have already purchased from you are so much more likely to stay in touch with you and purchase again. And I think probably the more important thing, you're establishing a business relationship with this person. And I hear people all the time say, well, I have all these people and they're just around for the free content. I have the tire kickers, I have the freebie seekers, but I don't have people who transact. Well, I think that if you put out so much free content everywhere all the time, it's great. And that is a good thing for being able to have brand awareness and establish relationships. But think of it, it's kind of like they view you like a charity. And you have a business and you have to make offers to not go out of business.

Brea: That's right.

Lisa: So this changes the relationship. So some things are free content, some things are for sale, and it normalizes a relationship that you have offers and you have a business, not that you are only a charity where they come to get only free. And I think that dynamic in the relationship, and listen, we're talking about the shift happening over $10, but it totally changes the mentality in the relationship, and I think in such a good way.

Brea: A huge way. You know, this is so key. As you're sharing, I was just thinking about all of the conversations that I've had. with other coaches or other business owners who say the exact same thing. I'm putting out all this content, I'm showing up on socials and no one is buying. And so I just ask, well, have you asked them? You know, have you asked them to buy? And they're like, wait, what do you mean? And I'm like, have you put out an offer? Have you actually said like, here's something and this is what it costs, you know, or are you only doing the free stuff to try to get them into your funnel? There's all this noise out there about getting people into your funnel and the purpose of the funnel is to get them to buy. It's not the end, it's the beginning. It's surprising to me how many people forget to ask for business and to your earlier point, to ask for repeat business. Right? People who have already purchased for you are the most likely prospects for future sales. So ask, ask, ask, ask. You have to, you have to ask. When I think of transforming browsers to buyers, the difference in my mind is the browsing, the free content, you know, the things you want to put out there that you might not be charging for. That's the why. Why should you do business with me? Why is it important? And what that sounds like to the customer is what is the problem that you're facing, right? The free stuff should connect with them in a way that says, ooh, this is my person, Lisa. Like she gets it. She gets me, she gets my problems, she gets the situation I'm in, however you want to say it. I understand why I should do business with her and that she can help me. She's the person. And then you charge for the how. you're not going to tell them how to fix their problem or you're not going to give them the solution for free. You're going to charge for that. So if your freebie is attracting them into your funnel, then what you're offering them in even a low ticket way is just maybe here's the first step to the solution and then they can pay more for a bigger offer that offers them more later.

Lisa: Yes, yes, yes. I actually attended one recently and I thought it was a clever idea. I did a boot camp that I paid $25 for and the boot camp, this was extremely inexpensive for what it was. And so as you might imagine, now that I've said that, this boot camp is the start of his funnel. And so you're in the boot camp, and then you're getting upsold into a more expensive product set. And it was great. It's totally fine with me. I only paid 25 bucks. It made it a no brainer for the bootcamp. And truth be told, I already had plans for that week that did not include working. And so I skipped every day except the first day and I'm planning to go back to replays and whether I do or not, I don't know, but I want to. That is another thing about like, it's so low ticket that if I lost $25 over it, I'm not going to lose any sleep. But I also didn't want to lose the opportunity to get this content for only $25. So it was more important for me to take the chance to buy it. And then I'm supposed to watch the replays within a year or they disappear. A year is plenty of time. So, I'm totally happy and if a year goes by and I didn't do it, then I still thought that was a risk worth it because it was such a no-brainer dollar amount.

Brea: I mean, we are in the age where most people would agree with you. I've spent money on things that I haven't used because it's like, oh, it's such a great offer. So, yeah, I get that. I think low-ticket offers are also an opportunity to to build trust with people. When we first started talking, it kind of triggered something inside of me of like, sometimes there is such a thing as too low of a price in my mind. If you're selling a Lamborghini for a Camaro price, You definitely don't want to sell a Lamborghini for, I don't know, whatever is less than the Camaro price. Because then people, they kind of lose a little bit of trust. They're like, wait, this sounds too good to be true. So you don't want to sell something that's $2,500 for $25, right? So there is, there is something I think to be said about low ticket might be under $100, it might also just be like, look, if you've got a $10,000 coaching program, maybe the low-ticket version or the low-ticket offer for that is $1,000, not $100, but $1,000.

Lisa: I'm with you there on value. So let's talk about, as the coach who's building a practice, many coaches have these portfolio businesses. You lead workshops, you do one-on-one coaching, you have group programs, you have all kinds of things. This can introduce the variety of topics, like low ticket can mean, Oh, look, I've delivered these 10 other workshops, but people tend to know me for this other thing. So you could have these low ticket offers in those areas that people don't yet know you for and you want to start to get them exposed to you in that new way. And it's totally low risk for them to do it. Think about things like You did a webinar and you recorded it on Zoom. Now you have a product you could go sell as a low-ticket offer. You have a really cool handout or workbook or something that you use in a framework. Like, let's say you have a workshop that you offer on delivering feedback, and then you have this really cool model for delivering feedback, and you have a handout and a guide on it. And it's sitting in your Dropbox folder and you could just package it up and have a low ticket thing. Like go dig around your files for two or three hours. I bet you could come up with 40 things that you could sell for $10.

Brea: I believe it. I believe it. I've done that. I do that, you know. I have to be intentional about that because I'll just create and create and create and it'll sit and sit and sit and it won't even be sold the first time, you know, because I learn as I do, right? So there's so much stuff that's sitting there just waiting to go out and I love it when coaches come to me and they say, you know, hey, what have you done for I don't know, someone came to me a couple weeks ago and she said she was looking for name cards that she could put into like lanyards for presentation and I was like, oh yeah, I have a template and I sold it to her and it saved her time. It was a win-win for both of us. I was able to customize it for her with her branding. It was a low ticket offer, you know, and it helped her and it helped me. So I think there's people have tons of stuff like that.

Lisa: Yes. And if you know that you're going to create things like this, you could do it with the thought in mind like, hey, I'm going to make this so it could be white labeled for later in your case. Or if it's an end product like a handout that you want to sell, you could just be thinking, oh, if I wanted to sell this as a standalone, what I need to add to my process right now. literally within 30 minutes, you could have your first one done. And then after that, each one might take five minutes.

Brea: Yes. It's always the first one, which is often why people don't do it. Right. Whether it's this or anything is just like, Oh, I have to go buy this software. I have to, you know, go put this thing together, you know, this web page or whatever. I have to add this to my, my Squarespace website. But once it's there, Boom. That's it. I love it. The other thing about low ticket offers, all this noise that's out there that's like, oh, you have to sell all the high ticket offers and you have to make a lot of money every time you sell. McDonald's does not sell high ticket offers. And they, you know what I mean? You can sell cheeseburgers for 99 cents or I don't know whatever it is now, but for very low ticket and be the number one hamburger chain, you know, I'm just making up statistics, but be something that everyone recognizes, right? I mean, McDonald's is, is huge. because they sell cheeseburgers, because they sell fries. So you can get rich on low ticket offers. I guess that's what I'm saying. You don't have to sell high ticket if you don't want to at all. It doesn't have to be- It's not the only way. Yeah, it doesn't have to just be like, oh, you should add a low ticket offer to be supportive. That could be the main meal.

Lisa: It could, it could. And I think that's an interesting model conversation because If it's a low ticket and someone comes back again and again and again, that relationship, it's easy to keep the relationship going. One thing that's difficult about high ticket, I know on this podcast I've told the story about having the $29,000 solution and then challenging myself to add a zero and I sold the $279,000 package and I thought I was so cool. But there's so many, I mean, okay, I'm doing a little high five to myself here for that. Also, how many of those have I sold? Right, right. Certainly not very many so If you want to go whale the rare, you know the rare Yeah, yeah, and some people have a really good time they chase those and they do all RFP business because they're out there doing those requests for proposals and they're looking for those massive multi-million dollar contracts and And that is totally a legit business model. And just as legit business model is selling $25 at a time, a bunch of times to someone who just loves swimming in your ocean. And over time, it'll be like, oh, they bought this activity guide. And then a week later, they bought this one. And then two months later, they bought this other one. And then, oh, look, they started coming to every webinar I deliver. And then, oh, look, they became a workshop customer. It's so fun.

Brea: It's very rare that you get someone to the altar on the first date, right? You know, it's very rare that you're going to just sell your high ticket item to someone out of the blue. And you can either chase them personally with phone calls, with meetings, with emails, however you do it, or you can sell them things. You know, I mean, it's amazing.

Lisa: Yeah. Yes. I like this metaphor. Like we're not trying to get married and do the $100,000 gig deal. We are on a coffee date.

Brea: Yep, that's right. And just getting to know me. And I mean, because like you said, a lot of these low ticket offers can be automated. That happens while you sleep. You're not even doing anything. It's easy. And you're putting yourself out there and keeping your business top of mind with your future customers or with past customers. And that's what's motivating them to buy in the future.

Lisa: Yes. Okay. I'm doing this off the cuff, so we'll see what we can come up with. Let's see if we can come up with a back and forth, like five different things that a person who's a coach, especially the portfolio business kind of coach who does workshops and coaching, what kind of thing could they sell for 10 bucks? Or let's just say low ticket.

Brea: Go. So something that a lot of people don't know about is private podcasts or even just audio. That's something that I love to offer as a low ticket item.

Lisa: Good one. I know you like to talk about Hello Audio as one of those.

Brea: Hello Audio, that's right. Shout out to Nora if you're listening.

Lisa: Okay, that's good. Okay, I'm going to say go back through Zoom recordings and see what you've delivered that you could sell the recording that already exists. If you just do a little trimmy trim and then you could sell that.

Brea: Boom. Love it. Love it. How about audio coaching? I mean, you're picking up on my communication. Number one, I love audio. But like pre-recorded coaching questions, reflection questions, mantras, you know, whatever you want to package it up as so people can hear your voice, experience your coaching questions every day without paying the big ticket price for one-on-one coaching.

Lisa: Oh, I'll tell you one. I hear everyone in the audience, somebody put this out before I do, because I've been thinking of it for years and have not executed yet. It's just basically a workbook of coaching questions, and they're tailored to whatever thing you want to guide them through. And you give them something $100 or less, and they take themselves on their own, their own personal retreat, and you just write up prompts, and you package it up in a beautiful workbook that they can print out and take with them.

Brea: Well, shoot, Lisa, I've got a few of those in my vault. I should just pull them out and sell them. That's a good reminder. Yeah, tomorrow. That's funny. I actually just made another one for a one-on-one client.

Lisa: Well, how many of those do we have as coaches? We do a coaching session, and we're like, oh, they're focused. Like, pick a thing. Oh, this person's really focused on their goals for the year. This person's really focused on weight loss. Like, pick the thing. And then you know you have 20 questions you could support. And if you did a one-on-one coaching, you might even send them follow-ups that you drip out, things like that. Those are all right there under our fingertips, right at the tip of our tongues. It would be so easy to create those from scratch. And we just don't. And it would be so easy to do it and sell it.

Brea: Yep. Yep. And I mean, I have to say it just because it's probably one of the most common things. It's common because it works is an ebook or a guide, 10 steps to something or 10 easy ways to, you know, just a, a real easy PDF download. People love that. They love that stuff, but go for like seven things or 10 things. There's a lot of psychology behind that, but those are numbers that people like.

Lisa: Mm-hmm. And then your deep dive extra private podcast that explains each of them and what to do to really take action Like you could just build from one thing to the next and take your lead magnets and build on them. That's right Okay, I want to build on my activity guides I think that idea of setting up one page guides that someone else can facilitate, it is so powerful. How cool to have, like, I just think about when I was a manager early on, like a frontline manager, and I didn't have a team building budget to go access, I would have spent $10 of my own money. And that is such an easy one to create and so powerful for what you're providing them. with. I think it's a really nice one for those of you who have a workshop business or a content business. Totally.

Brea: Yeah, and for those of you that are listening, you can probably hear the difference in Lisa's brain and my brain. I don't often think about the auto magic or the repeatable, but I love being live. I love being connected even in the low ticket offers. Um, so don't limit yourself to something that they have to download or something that works while you sleep. You can make low ticket offers that are inclusive of your time, you know? Yes. Yeah. Yes.

Lisa: Yeah, you're right. That is not my first go-to.

Brea: I mean, I've done so many webinars over the years that are $100 a seat or $97 is usually the price that I do because of psychology. But, you know, $97 a seat, that's a low ticket price. But if I sell several seats to the same webinar in that hour, then it's worth it for me.

Lisa: Yes. Yep. And now you have a customer, you have a different relationship with that person, and they're going to buy from you in the future, and you've established that relationship at a deeper level. Yes, yes. Because I'm going to come away from that $97 being like, I want more brand.

Brea: I want more, yes. And here's the thing. I find a lot of value in saying, look, spend $97, come to this webinar. It's not going to be recorded. There's value in that. There's attraction in that as well. And it gives a different message, you know? So yeah, just another way to look at it.

Lisa: And you know, I think you're bringing up a different angle on the money, but also you're bringing up a different psychology in terms of putting yourself out there. So if I go to your $97 webinar and I know that it's going to be recorded and resold as a participant, I'm going to be a little bit guarded about what I say because I know any person in the world could buy this and see exactly what I said. And if you say it's not going to be recorded, I'm going to show up in a different way. That's me personally. I don't know if everybody is like that, but I would show up differently if I knew it wasn't going to be recorded. And then, of course, you have the scarcity like, well, you know, buy it here because it's not just something you can download later for free.

Brea: That's right. And you have to sell them something else if they want to keep engaging with you because they don't have a recording from that to go back to and revisit. Right. So they're more engaged. They're more invested because they've shown up in a more vulnerable way, most likely. And they're primed and they're ready to purchase more to keep going down that journey.

Lisa: Yeah. Okay. This was a fun exploration of low ticket. I think for a lot of people, this is kind of a new phrase, even thinking low ticket, high ticket, what kind of ticket? They just think, here's what I do. How much should I charge for that? That's a whole question, a whole different show. What should I charge for that? But this idea of having low ticket in your stable of offerings is a valuable conversation to have and a valuable thought to make sure you run through. Brea, did you have a low ticket thing you wanted to share with the audience?

Brea: Oh my gosh, you know what? I think about all the people who are listening and I hope that you listen and you're like, wow, this is really exciting. I want to do a low ticket offer in my business or I want to add a group coaching program to my business or I want to take whatever the topic of this episode is and I want to do that in my business. And then life happens and you don't take action. If that's you, here's my invitation to you. Let's do a virtual little meetup on the off weeks. We release an episode every other week. So on the weeks that an episode doesn't release, we're going to meet up all the listeners who want to come and discuss whatever the topic of this episode is. I'll be there to answer questions and let's do it. Let's get the work done. Let, let me create a space for you to come together with other listeners of the podcast and actually get this stuff done. So if that sounds good to you, if you want to spend some time connecting with other listeners and connecting with me, go to my website, brearoper.com and come join us.

Lisa: Love it. Love it. Well, I'm not going to say any call to action this time because I'm just going to leave that at Brea's so that you can go hang with Brea.

Brea: Oh, well, thank you. I just, I really want to know who you guys are. I believe you're out there, but yeah, I would love to, love to connect with you. So just come on, you know, and let's get, let's get some work done. Let me activate you and, and let's connect with each other.

Lisa: Yes. Is there a thing like Strengths Twins Activate? Where did that come from?

Brea: Oh, I don't know. I mean, Richard Starey keeps a database of strengths for people to match them to twins.

Lisa: Yeah, it's not the Strengths. What is that? StrengthsTwins.com. That's really cool, but it's not what I'm thinking of. There's something that's like Power Twins Activate or something that I don't know because I'm so missing non-pop culture.

Brea: That's so funny.

Lisa: I keep thinking of Inspector Gadget, but that's not it.

Brea: I don't even know either.

Lisa: People tell us. Look how lost we are. We need you.

Brea: You need to come to the meetup to let us know. Cool. All right. Well, this was fun. I feel like hopefully there's a lot of value there for people. But don't just let it sit. Go and do something with it. Do it on your own or come do it with me and do it with other listeners. Let's do it.

Lisa: One thing, one little thing, because after you do the first one, the rest will seem easy. Talk to you later.

Brea: Bye, guys.

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.

In this 12-week strengths implementation series, you get one conversation per week to help your team start each week with strengths. If you "did" StrengthsFinder with your team and you didn't follow up after the initial conversation, this is a great way to make Strengths part of your work culture.

Go to [http://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge] to get the series emailed to you one week at a time. You'll get the question and examples to make it sound real and practical. You'll also get additional angles so that you can take the answers beyond the surface. If you're a manager who wants to make culture-building part of everyone's job, have each person on the team sign up for the email series. That way, it won't rely on you doing the question-asking each week. You can get the team to share their answers after they receive the email.

This series is usable even if you've never used CliftonStrengths. Although the questions work in excellent alignment with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, they also work with no assessment at all - just conversations about what already works on the team.

In this 12-week strengths implementation series, you get one conversation per week to help your team start each week with strengths. If you "did" StrengthsFinder with your team and you didn't follow up after the initial conversation, this is a great way to make Strengths part of your work culture.

Go to [http://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge] to get the series emailed to you one week at a time. You'll get the question and examples to make it sound real and practical. You'll also get additional angles so that you can take the answers beyond the surface. If you're a manager who wants to make culture-building part of everyone's job, have each person on the team sign up for the email series. That way, it won't rely on you doing the question-asking each week. You can get the team to share their answers after they receive the email.

This series is usable even if you've never used CliftonStrengths. Although the questions work in excellent alignment with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, they also work with no assessment at all - just conversations about what already works on the team.

In this 12-week strengths implementation series, you get one conversation per week to help your team start each week with strengths. If you "did" StrengthsFinder with your team and you didn't follow up after the initial conversation, this is a great way to make Strengths part of your work culture.

Go to http://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge to get the series emailed to you one week at a time. You'll get the question and examples to make it sound real and practical. You'll also get additional angles so that you can take the answers beyond the surface. If you're a manager who wants to make culture-building part of everyone's job, have each person on the team sign up for the email series. That way, it won't rely on you doing the question-asking each week. You can get the team to share their answers after they receive the email.

This series is usable even if you've never used CliftonStrengths. Although the questions work in excellent alignment with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, they also work with no assessment at all - just conversations about what already works on the team.

In this 12-week strengths implementation series, you get one conversation per week to help your team start each week with strengths. If you "did" StrengthsFinder with your team and you didn't follow up after the initial conversation, this is a great way to make Strengths part of your work culture.

Go to http://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge to get the series emailed to you one week at a time. You'll get the question and examples to make it sound real and practical. You'll also get additional angles so that you can take the answers beyond the surface. If you're a manager who wants to make culture-building part of everyone's job, have each person on the team sign up for the email series. That way, it won't rely on you doing the question-asking each week. You can get the team to share their answers after they receive the email.

This series is usable even if you've never used CliftonStrengths. Although the questions work in excellent alignment with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, they also work with no assessment at all - just conversations about what already works on the team.

In this 12-week strengths implementation series, you get one conversation per week to help your team start each week with strengths. If you "did" StrengthsFinder with your team and you didn't follow up after the initial conversation, this is a great way to make Strengths part of your work culture.

Go to http://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge to get the series emailed to you one week at a time. You'll get the question and examples to make it sound real and practical. You'll also get additional angles so that you can take the answers beyond the surface. If you're a manager who wants to make culture-building part of everyone's job, have each person on the team sign up for the email series. That way, it won't rely on you doing the question-asking each week. You can get the team to share their answers after they receive the email.

This series is usable even if you've never used CliftonStrengths. Although the questions work in excellent alignment with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, they also work with no assessment at all - just conversations about what already works on the team.

In this 12-week strengths implementation series, you get one conversation per week to help your team start each week with strengths. If you "did" StrengthsFinder with your team and you didn't follow up after the initial conversation, this is a great way to make Strengths part of your work culture.

Go to http://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge to get the series emailed to you one week at a time. You'll get the question and examples to make it sound real and practical. You'll also get additional angles so that you can take the answers beyond the surface. If you're a manager who wants to make culture-building part of everyone's job, have each person on the team sign up for the email series. That way, it won't rely on you doing the question-asking each week. You can get the team to share their answers after they receive the email.

This series is usable even if you've never used CliftonStrengths. Although the questions work in excellent alignment with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, they also work with no assessment at all - just conversations about what already works on the team.

In this 12-week strengths implementation series, you get one conversation per week to help your team start each week with strengths. If you "did" StrengthsFinder with your team and you didn't follow up after the initial conversation, this is a great way to make Strengths part of your work culture.

Go to http://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge to get the series emailed to you one week at a time. You'll get the question and examples to make it sound real and practical. You'll also get additional angles so that you can take the answers beyond the surface. If you're a manager who wants to make culture-building part of everyone's job, have each person on the team sign up for the email series. That way, it won't rely on you doing the question-asking each week. You can get the team to share their answers after they receive the email.

This series is usable even if you've never used CliftonStrengths. Although the questions work in excellent alignment with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, they also work with no assessment at all - just conversations about what already works on the team.

In this 12-week strengths implementation series, you get one conversation per week to help your team start each week with strengths. If you "did" StrengthsFinder with your team and you didn't follow up after the initial conversation, this is a great way to make Strengths part of your work culture.

Go to http://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge to get the series emailed to you one week at a time. You'll get the question and examples to make it sound real and practical. You'll also get additional angles so that you can take the answers beyond the surface. If you're a manager who wants to make culture-building part of everyone's job, have each person on the team sign up for the email series. That way, it won't rely on you doing the question-asking each week. You can get the team to share their answers after they receive the email.

This series is usable even if you've never used CliftonStrengths. Although the questions work in excellent alignment with the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book, they also work with no assessment at all - just conversations about what already works on the team.

leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge

Today's episode is a question that came up this week when I did an event for one of my awesome tech clients here in Austin, Texas. I was checking in with security and he asked about the purpose of my visit. I said I was delivering a StrengthsFinder team session. Pretty soon, he's telling me his top five talent themes and we were asking each other questions about our CliftonStrengths profiles, which led to the answer highlighted in this episode.

Have You Downloaded Your Strengths Tools?

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths-based culture is to offer an appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. Get started by downloading this awesome tool that offers you 127 Easy Ways to Recognize Strengths on your team.

My First Major Strengths Insight … Ever

He asked me a unique question, which was what my first ever major insight was from strengths. So here I am, quickly scanning over 13 years of insights, and boom — it hit me like a bolt of lightning. My answer was that seeing my strengths and the strengths of people on my team (my direct reports) helped me understand that I had some dangerous unconscious biases. Now, I am not talking about the biases that many workplaces are focused on right now, like racial biases or gender biases. Cognitive bias is another layer entirely. What I discovered is that I had strong cognitive biases. And being in a people-manager role, it was leading me to value the thought processes of certain people on the team more than others. It was leading me to appreciate the relationship styles of some people over others. It was leading me to think that some people were high maintenance and not enrolled in our vision. But once I explored our talents at a team level — our natural ways of thinking and feeling and acting — it helped me discover that I placed the greatest value on people who thought most like me. It was a dangerous bias because I didn't realize I was doing it.

Cognitive Biases Are Extraordinarily Powerful Yet Often Unconsidered

Just imagine what this awareness could do to improve performance on the team. For example, one person on the team leads through the Consistency, Deliberative, and Intellection themes. She is probably at peak performance when she can think deeply and carefully about changes, how they will affect the people and processes on the team, and how they could be implemented prudently. Meanwhile, imagine my Strategic theme: decision-making and pressing the go-button fast. And my Individualization theme leads me to rarely feel married to a consistent, standard way of doing things. If a situation calls for something else, I love to adjust and customize and change. To take it further, my Maximizer loves to tweak and change and make things better. All the while, I am driving her crazy with my constant changes. And if you've read the book Strengths-Based Leadership, you know that stability is one of the deepest needs of your team. So in this scenario, which happens to be a real-life memory from one of my teams, my personal biases and preferences were leading me to create an environment that put her at her worst and left her feeling frustrated every day.

Self Awareness Of Your Patterns

To apply this to yourself, think about your talents and consider these questions:

• What kind of people do you most enjoy being around? This tells you something about your relationship-building patterns and preferences.
• What kind of thinkers do you love working with? Is it fast thinkers with lots of ideas? Is it careful thinkers who go deep? It is it analytical thinkers who always consider data, credibility, and proof?
• What are your trust patterns? My friend Lexy Thompson has this concept of a trust faucet. Are you a person who trusts easily — the type of person who extends trust quickly, like a faucet that is turned all the way on? Or do people earn your trust slowly over time, like you're releasing it one drop at a time?

As a manager of a team, if you will take the time to understand these things about your team members, you can have massive insights about where you are similar and where you are different from people on your team. And if you're honest with yourself and you're willing to be very self-aware, you may find that you are biased toward people who are like you. Or, you might be biased toward experiences that honor your talents or bring you personal energy. Even when these biases are totally fine (which they sometimes are), it's great to have an awareness of them.

Here's a super simple example of being biased toward experiences that honor your talents: When I was sitting in the lobby with that guy, chatting about strengths, there was a Rolling Stones song playing in the background. It's the one called Sympathy for the Devil. Nope, I'm not about to dive into a lesson on devilish biases. What happened is that just as he asked me my talent themes and I finished with my #5 Woo, the song breaks into the part where the rest of the band does the "Woo Woo." I pointed at the speakers and add in my own "Woo Woo." He thought it was awesome because his Connectedness talent knows that song came at the perfect moment for a reason and that there are all sorts of connections like this for us to make if we're looking around for it. My Positivity talent theme loved being able to create a second of comic relief by singing in the middle of the lobby and getting to crack up together. We each had a bias toward that moment, yet it came from a different place. So that's another reason why this concept of cognitive biases is fascinating because your preferences might be similar on the outside, yet on the inside, you have vast differences in the motivations and values that sit underneath them.

Differences Are Differentiators

The beauty of a strengths-focused culture is that you can see differences as differentiators rather than seeing them as annoyances. It helps you understand how to use each person's unique awesomeness to improve your overall team performance. And rather than viewing those "different" team members as high maintenance, you can reframe that to understand that there are people on the team that do not think like you. Which means they cover important ways of thinking, acting, doing, and performing that do not appeal to you. And likely, your organization needs some of that "other way."

So if you can value those ways of thinking, you can make the person a superstar in that area. And — bonus! You don't personally have to spend your headspace in that zone. For example, I don't personally love to think about all of the risks and possibilities for where things might go wrong. There are usually people on my team who do enjoy that. So, in this example, I could delegate risk management-related responsibilities to the person who enjoys it. I could send juicy problems to people with the Restorative talent theme — to people who have a great time working out the solutions — people who love the puzzle of exploring the problems and fixing things. It's no surprise that my Positivity talent theme doesn't get energy or enjoyment from wallowing in problems. To give you another example, a manager I met with last week is not strong in relationship talents and so rather than lamenting all of the critical customer relationships he needed to build, he instead delegated that authority to someone on his team who leads through Includer, Empathy, and Connectedness. Then both people get to have more fun and be more aligned with their highest and best use. The customer gets a better experience. And the company gets better overall performance.

Reflections To Consider Your Biases

So to summarize, take a look at your own biases. Here are three questions to get you started:

1. Who do you like spending time with? And to go deeper, after you think of those specific people or those types of people, now ask yourself if you tend to believe that the people you like are the higher performers? That's a dangerous bias I've fallen into as a manager in the past.
2. If you've unlocked your full 34 StrengthsFinder lineup, look at your lesser talents, which are probably your bottom five. Ask yourself which themes, at the bottom of your personal list, bring you a tendency to potentially insult those talent themes in others who hold them in their Top 5. For example, Harmony is #33 on my list. And someone who leads through Harmony might feel totally drained in a work environment where people are disagreeing all the time. Well, my Individualization doesn't mind if people disagree because I think we can all come at things differently and still be a functional team. Yet someone who has Harmony at #1 might get a gut-wrenching feeling when we are not moving toward consensus or not trying to find areas of similarity. To make this self-reflection even cooler, extend it into an others-assessment also. If you can see the lineup of all 34 of your direct reports, go explore your themes that seem opposite of each other on the surface. Look for where you might drive each other crazy if you're not conscious of pairing your strengths for and awesome yin-yang thing.
3. Think about whether your biases are allowing people to be seen and heard and appreciated at work. My friend Dave Stachowiak mentions this on our podcast interview. His insight really stuck with me. And if you think of this in the context of biases, you'll quickly see that most of us have preferences that would make it tougher for someone else to feel appreciated. Of course, as your self-awareness increases and as your talent themes mature, you learn to ask great questions and be curious and to value other peoples' opinions even when you don't agree with them. And if you want to amp up your emotional intelligence and your overall effectiveness as a leader, it's important to give this a good consideration.

Burnout Might Bring Your Bias Out

As we bring this in for a landing, it's important to note that I don't believe that our strengths and natural talents bring us negative cognitive biases all the time. But we're human, which means we're flawed. And you're probably a growth-minded lifetime learner if you're listening to a show like this. So think of these cognitive biases as states of mind that you can change. And that might be more likely to crop up in you when you're overtaxed, burned out, and falling into lazy thinking. But when your awareness is high, you can invest in those talents to apply them as contributions — and you will be on watch for other people's contributions (especially the ones that are different from yours). I'll leave you with the idea that using your strengths on the team will help you build stronger performance on the team. To keep your biases in your awareness, watch for differences and use them as differentiators!

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Lumpy cash flow.

Unpredictable income.

Feast or famine.

If you own your own coaching business, you've probably ridden the revenue rollercoaster a time or two. Scary for some, and exciting for others. Either way, this episode is for you! Join us as we explore strategies to smooth out the lumps and create stability in your cash flow, OR learn how to lean into the dips and curves so you can, dare we say, enjoy the bumpy ride!

🌟

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 team workshops and retreats at the Lead Through Strengths site. For 1:1 strengths or life coaching, check out the Get Coached link. For independent coaches, trainers, and speakers, get business tools support with our Tools for Coaches membership.

Takeaways

●      Embrace the Lumps: It's completely normal to experience fluctuations in your income. These ups and downs are part of the entrepreneurial journey, and don't reflect your worth as a business owner. Instead of feeling like something is wrong, let's recognize this is a natural part of running a business. By accepting the lumps, we can better prepare for them, and even leverage them to our advantage.

●      Create Predictable Revenue Streams: Finding ways to smooth out the revenue can help alleviate the stress of unpredictable cash flow. Consider strategies like offering retainers, group coaching, or digital products to establish a more stable revenue base. This can help smooth out the highs and lows of your cash flow.

●      Nurture Relationships: Stay in touch with past clients, even if you're not actively selling to them. Simple gestures like sending a handwritten note or a small gift can keep you top of mind for future opportunities.

●      Align with Your Strengths: Build your business around what you enjoy and excel at. When your offerings align with your passions, it becomes easier to sell and maintain enthusiasm for your work.

Take Action

●      Identify Revenue Patterns: Look for seasonal trends in your business. Recognize the months or periods that tend to be busier or slower, and plan your strategies accordingly.

●      Create Consistent Income Streams: Explore options for establishing a steady base of income, such as offering retainer agreements, creating group coaching programs, or developing digital products that can be sold repeatedly.

●      Nurture Past Client Relationships: Implement a system to stay in touch with past clients, whether through email marketing, or more personal outreach. This can help keep you top of mind for future opportunities.

●      Leverage Your Strengths: Align your business strategies with your personal strengths and preferences. Focus on what energizes you to make selling easier and more enjoyable.

●      Prepare for Lumpy Revenue: If you're considering transitioning from a corporate job to full-time entrepreneurship, assess your appetite for lumpy revenue. Create a financial plan that includes a savings runway or a solid customer base to mitigate the stress of unpredictable income.

🎧 If you're navigating the challenges of lumpy revenue or just looking for some inspiration, I encourage you to listen to this episode! Let's embrace the journey together and find ways to smooth out those lumps.

#Entrepreneurship #BusinessGrowth #Podcast #LumpyRevenue #Networking #Coaching #SmallBusiness

Let's Connect!

●      LISA: Website | LinkedIn | Facebook

●      BREA: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram

AI-Generated Transcript

Lisa: I'm Lisa.

Brea: I'm Brea.

Lisa: And today we're talking about my humps, my hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely income lumps. Check it out. Priya, do you know what I'm referencing there?

Brea: I do. Is it Black Eyed Peas or is it just a Fergie thing or am I totally off?

Lisa: It's one of the two. I mean, it is Fergie's voice, whether it was Black Eyed Peas or Fergie solo, I'm not sure. You nailed it. If it's music, you know I've got a little bit of it. If you talk movies, forget it. I've got songs floating in my head all day, every day. So there you go. Yes.

Brea: So our lovely revenue lumps.

Lisa: Revenue lumps. We're talking about lumpy revenue, lumpy income, lumpy cash flow, lumpy demand. Some people even call these lumpy businesses. We're talking about these solo practices that many of us have, or small practices that are coaching, training, workshops, and they don't have predictable, steady, stable income, and it is the bane of the existence of many coaches. It freaks people out. They talk feast or famine. They don't know if it's normal. And they also want strategies for it. So, yeah, let's talk. I know you're going to want to define what we're talking about, Brea. So take us down the definition trail and then let's jump in.

Brea: I mean, honestly, you did such a great job. You used feast or famine. I think that's a great, like, that clues us into what we're talking about. It's unpredictable. You know, this is unpredictable cash flow. Maybe another term would be seasonal. This is often seasonal business. And I think This is something that we can all relate to because a lot of the work that we do as entrepreneurs, as consultants, as you know, whatever it is that you're doing, a lot of it is project-based, right? So obviously that's not a consistent cash flow.

There's a beginning and an end to that. And because we're selling into other markets that have slower sales cycles. In a previous episode, we talked about selling to corporate. That's maybe a longer, slower sales cycle than some other cycles. But there are cycles, there are seasons, there are longer lead times and shorter lead times.

There's such a reliance on other people, on referrals, on things that are outside of our control that lead to this kind of lumpy, bumpy life. So today I would love to talk about what are the lumps and bumps that we're experiencing because, first of all, I don't think we talk about it enough. People just feel like there's something wrong with them, you know, if they're not perfectly consistent and that's not true. So let's just call it what it is and say it's actually normal to experience this rollercoaster of revenue.

Lisa: Oh, rollercoaster revenue, there's another good one.

Brea: Yeah, and maybe can we talk about how to create some predictable, consistent revenue streams that make the highs and the lows, the peaks and the valleys a little bit more tolerable, right? I'm just laughing.

Lisa: It used to be on the inside, but it came out. I was trying to think of the name of that shapewear that people wear under their pants to smooth out the lumps. What is that called? The Spanx. We are coming up with Spanx for revenue.

Brea: Hey, I love it. I love it.

Lisa: Yes. And then, okay, you also, I wanted to just call out that this topic came up because you and I were talking And you were like, I don't know what's going on, but are you seeing this trend? There's a mega activity right now. And you were talking about the good, you know, the lumps, the ups, the good part. And I was laughing because I had just been on a call where people were like, have you seen this trend? There's such a retraction.

Everyone is freaking out and, you know, killing their budgets. And that is such a truth. in the peer groups that I've been in over a decade of doing this work, you get one person who is on a high and they are on a roll.

Then the next person is thinking the world is ending and we tend to assign our personal truths like that's what's going on for everyone and in every time, every time this goes on, you can look around and you can find examples of someone who's on the upper hump and somebody's on the lower hump.

Brea: Yes, and we need each other so much. That's why these communities are so important. Hopefully this podcast is helping to fill that need to recognize that when I'm down, someone else can lift me up or I can be so excited that someone else is having a good day, even if I'm not.

Then I can offer that energy when I'm on a high to someone else who might be on a low. And if we're both on a high, then we're sharing in that. And if we're both at a low, then we're sharing in that. So true.

Lisa: Mm-hmm. OK. Well, should we get right into smoothing the lumps? Or is there more to talk about before ideas and business models and strategies for getting some predictability?

Brea: Yeah, I want to talk about smoothing the lumps. I think Spanx for revenue is a very cool topic. And also, I kind of want to normalize the lumps. As a business owner, I don't mind the lumps. And I think part of that might be looking back and seeing, are there some patterns? Do I see that there are some seasons that are really high, some seasons that are slower?

Can you find those patterns? And if you can, let's just, let's, let's just call it what it is, you know, and then lean into the highs and, and figure out some strategies to make sure you're, you're covered during the lows. It's okay to be lumpy and bumpy, is what I think I'm trying to say. And accepted. Yeah. I remember in 2023, I was expecting about three months of, I knew it was just going to be slower, where I'm not traveling as much, is what I mean by that.

The work that I was doing was pretty much all virtual at the time. And I was like, you know what, I'm gonna go home to Kansas City and I'm gonna be near my family. I've got five nieces who I just love to pieces and why not go be near them for little things like baking cookies, going to pumpkin patches and showing up for sports games and Christmas recitals and all the things that I don't normally get to do when I'm living states away. So that's what I mean is sometimes the lumps and bumps can be to our advantage if you can just accept it and then make it work for you, you know?

Lisa: Yes, I like that. And you were also making me think about how some lumps become predictable. So I would say over my 11 years in business, There are a couple of patterns that are pretty common, and that is October is super busy. People are using up their budgets, their corporate budgets, and they're trying to cram it in before the holidays.

Then, and it might be 4x a typical month. Then November, you get a little bit of that carryover, and then it drops off for US Thanksgiving. And then, forget it, December is just going to be low. So that has been something I accepted from the beginning because I knew that from being in talent development teams and learning teams in corporate. I just knew that was how it went as far as workshops and events. And that was fine. And so December was either restful family time or if you have a month to develop something, oh, I want to create an online course, that December would be a great time.

I know if I want to leave the business for three weeks and not reply to an email, that's the time of year to do it. Especially, yeah, that week between Christmas and New Year's and then January is going to explode. So that's a trend that even though it's lumpy, it feels very predictable to me at this point.

Brea: Yeah. Yeah. And also that week between Christmas and New Year's, that's a huge week for me because the individual customers that I'm working with are not working at their jobs. You know, they have free time that they don't normally have. They have downtime and they have mental space in a way that they don't normally have when they're in the hustle bustle of the nine to five workday schedule. So they're much more open. Like that week is like, huge for VIP days or retreats or whatever it is that I'm offering that year.

That's one of my biggest weeks every year because I lean into it, you know, and I create an offering for that. So it really is just kind of looking at the lumps and bumps of the market and looking at the lumps and bumps, you know, in your own business and just deciding, do I want to smooth this out? Do I want to lean into it? Do I want to make the peaks and valleys even greater? You know?

Lisa: Yes. Yeah, the deciding. Oh my gosh, you're hitting on it. It's so important because the same phenomenon that is going on the week between Christmas and New Year's, you're taking it and using it to make an uptick. And I'm using it to say, oh, if everyone's gone, this is amazing. No one will expect an email. This is a time I can really go dark and no one minds. So we're doing an opposite thing with it, with the lump. And that's good. And we both love what we're doing with it. That's such a cool one because it just proves that point out where one person is like, wow, are you seeing this mega bump? And the next person is like, whoa, I'm taking such a dip. Is everyone seeing this?

Brea: Yeah, that's right. That's right. If you're experiencing some lumps and bumps, just know that you're not alone and you're not without hope. There's always an opportunity.

Lisa: Yes. Well, let's talk about some of the things we've done to smooth lumps. So if you have ups and downs, but you have a bread and butter level that comes in, you don't mind the lumps because the bottoms become what used to be the top. That is a key to my strategy in I'm not caring as much about smoothing out lumps.

I'm caring about raise the bottom level so that there's no freak out about bare minimum. There's no freak out about the bottom. I want the bottom to be steady and then the spikes at the top, that's great. That can come in. That's okay with me. How about you? What's your perspective there?

Brea: Well, I agree, and this is something that I'm not naturally good at, and I think you are naturally good at and have just done such a great job of smoothing out that base. I mean, there were a couple years in my business when I didn't even know what that base was. So if you haven't started your business yet or if you are in the beginning stages, start there. Figure out what is your bare minimum and find some more consistent income, some passive revenue or some evergreen stuff or whatever to like give you that base so that the low doesn't feel as low.

Lisa: Right, right, right. OK, so let's talk what we really did. I'll also throw in some ideas of things that I didn't do, but I see other coaches do that I love. But personally, what I did, so again, this is like Lisa strengths aligned. So as a listener, think about your strengths and match it up. For me, I love workshops. Those were my bread and butter. Also, speeches are great. So think of me as an event based person.

I knew the downside to that is if I'm doing a bunch of one off events, That's not a consulting engagement that I have a contract signed for four years. If you could do that, that would be a version of consulting that would smooth the lumps. But I knew that isn't what I wanted. I didn't want to do that level of project management. I wanted to be in, be out, be done. And that feels enlivening to me. But I knew that would mean selling over and over and over again.

One of the things I did with that strength in mind and that desire in mind is I targeted corporate where I could find customers that have big talent academies or learning academies. And they could book many events at a time. So I would get people who would say, OK, let's book 20 for the year in January. And I had several of those customers. So I would have dozens of events just lined up ready to go from these academies because we would offer the same program over and over again to different audiences.

And that was a way for me to be a spark and not have projects to manage and not have deliverables hanging over my head, which didn't feel like they aligned with my strengths and desires. and also kind of have that base come in where I felt really comfortable that the base revenue was going to be great. So there's one strategy, talent academies.

Brea: Yeah. Anytime you can sell one thing and have it repeat over time. I mean, what a great strategy, right? I'm like you, Lisa, you know, I love events and I like getting in and getting out and not having those long commitments.

I love retainers when you can get them from a sense of, I love working with internal coaches who are, you know, they're championing the strengths effort at their company, but it's just one of the hats that you're wearing, you know? You've got so many other things going on. I love being that person in your pocket, that coach that you can rely on when you need a coach, when you need, some extra hands when you, you know, you're onboarding a lot of people and you just need a few extra coaching hours, but you're not looking to bring a coach on, you know, for long term.

You just need a little bit of extra juice for a little bit of time. I love being that person and I can create a retainer for that. and just kind of level out that bottom floor, like you're saying, and still honor my talents of being able to flex and adapt and respond as needed, gives me the variety and the consistency, you know, at the same time.

Lisa: Beautiful. Yeah. And Retainer, endless creativity there. You could do so many things on Retainer.

Brea: So fun. So fun.

Lisa: OK, that also made me think of filling a coaching book of business for one-on-one coaches. If you have packages and you're a one-on-one coach, you could fill your book of business and get to the point that you're filled and you have a waitlist. And that would be a way of smoothing the lumps. Of course, it would require selling and marketing and ongoing work. You can't sit back on your laurels when you're full or close to full. You have to kind of overdo it to keep people on wait lists, but that's a really good way to smooth it out if you're a one-on-one coach. Of course, you could do group coaching that has longer programs.

Like if you have a year-long program, maybe they're on a payment plan that charges them once a month for the year instead of a one time. And just think of the image of that revenue. If they paid you in January for 12 months worth of work, would you rather have that spike of having it up front or would you rather have it leveled out over a 12-month payment plan?

That's up to you to decide what you prefer there. Some would much prefer to have it up front. Some would much prefer to have the steadiness. So it doesn't mean lumpy is bad. I mean, a lump can be a super spike and that can be amazing and you might desire that.

Brea: Yeah, getting people to pay up front. I love that.

Lisa: Okay, another one that popped up for me is digital products. One of the things that I started doing years ago is if I created a cool workbook or some activity guides or some resources that would be follow-ups to a workshop, if I'm already going to create content that is new, which my individualization loves to do.

One of the things I decided to do with myself is kind of like rules for life is, hey, you're going to indulge this individualization that loves to create new stuff. You better make it worth it. And maybe Maximizer's kicking it. Make it worth it. So can you resell this as a standalone product? Then those things are living on and serving customers and they're smoothing for you.

Brea: Mm-hmm. You know, something else that I did not do very well for a while that when I started doing it made a huge difference is nurturing relationships with past clients. My talents are just, you know, high futuristic, high strategic, high activator, high a lot of things that are thinking forward, moving forward. So looking back is just not something that that I do naturally.

Once I was done, I was done. So again, learn from my mistakes and stay in touch with people, even if you're not selling to them. I love sending handwritten cards. I love just a a small like Starbucks e-gift card, you know, I can text that to someone and just say, hey, like coffee's on me today, or even just an email or, you know, it doesn't have to be a gift.

It could be anything to just kind of stay in touch because you never know when they might want to be sold to, you know, or they might, might need you again. And if you don't stay top of mind, then you're not on their mind. Whether that's an email list, you know, like Lisa's really great at or I have my own creative relational ways of staying top of mind, like put in the effort. It's worth it.

Lisa: Yes. Okay. I just have to build on that one. because I am the evergreen queen and I love email marketing software and how that can be used to deliver. You can use that software to deliver training. So I have the rest of the training, these activation courses that are delivered from my email marketing software. It's just a way of sending content out.

From there, I have these nurture sequences that stay in touch for more than two years. after that initial contact. And I can't tell you how many times someone is way into it. They might be over a year into receiving a thing and then they go, Oh, we're doing a team summit. Are you available on June 15, 2027? I mean, they just pick a date out of it. It feels like it comes out of nowhere, but it didn't come out of nowhere. It's systematically in there. And that has been incredible for me, smoothing out the lumps.

Brea: Oh gosh, there's just so much on my mind right now. I think I just want to say when we're talking about revenue, when we're talking about income, when we're talking about the highs and the lows and all of this conversation, it's so easy to attach our worth to the numbers that we're seeing on the screen or that we're not seeing on the screen.

I just want to encourage anyone that's listening to detach who you are, just to detach that from the data that you're seeing on the screen. Like you are not your business, you know? And if, if the market is changing, if the politics are changing, if, if you're seeing a down month, that doesn't mean you're a bad person or you're a bad business owner. It just means that this is happening and that's okay. So I guess I just am feeling inspired to speak that over people that are listening.

Lisa: Because you know it happens so often. When I'm listening, I hear what you're saying and I'm thinking of the words and I'm like, lumpy revenue happened. Lumpy income happens.

Brea: Yes.

Lisa: Lumpy. And that's a thing. Like, you can just look at it and go, OK, that is a picture. It's on a chart. And there are plenty of business strategies that can address it. So if you see a trend you don't like, cool. You can come up with a business strategy that can smooth it out. Work with a coach who can help you smooth it out. Great. We all have the ability to build these businesses that are incredible and serve us. It's just an experiment.

I feel like all of this is an experiment in aligning what makes the business go and what makes you go with your strengths and your values. It's just that constant messing with the dials and finding the experiments so that the business strategy, the revenue that comes in, your personal preferences, they can all find alignment. And sometimes it takes several years to play around and find all of that. And meanwhile, yeah, give yourself a break.

You're building your selling skills. You're figuring out all this software. You didn't know you were going to become a full-time marketer and salesperson and you're delivering on the work and you're trying to find a business strategy that there's a lot going on when you're in those first years of business. So have a play with it.

Brea: Yes. And yes, all of that, rewind, listen to it again. Yes. And realize that even when you think you finally got it, like things will change. What worked for me seven years ago doesn't work for me today. You know, like not all the time, not in all the ways. So when things happen that are different, like the whole impetus for this conversation was my Vox to Lisa that said, Why all of a sudden are these people that have been ghosting me for literally years?

I have a client that I can now call them a client because they have paid me to come and do some work for them. But it's been eight plus years that I have been pursuing them, nurturing them. And then all of a sudden it's like, boom, we're ready. Some of those people are coming out of the woodworks. And so you just never know why some things hit when they do and some things don't. So just expect the unexpected, know that lumps and bumps are part of it.

It doesn't mean that something is broken or wrong. It just means that this is happening. And how do we approach it? How do we respond? Those are the skills and talents to learn and to grow in yourself as a human and as a business owner because everything else is changing. Technology changes so fast. You know, what works with the algorithm today, in a few months it's going to be different.

Build your offerings around things that you enjoy delivering and want to sell because if you like it and you want to do it, then it's easier to sell, you know? So, um, that's it. I'll get off my pedestal, but I love this conversation so much. Yes.

Lisa: Yeah. The mind exploding emoji. Like if you love it, you're going to bring an amazing energy around it and it's going to make it so much easier to sell if it aligns with you. So yeah, I think that alignment part and the worthiness thing that you brought up is an important undercurrent in this thing.

Okay, I thought of a closing thought and it's a new idea, so I think it is important for those people who are side hustling or they are still in their corporate job but they have been dreaming of leaving and doing the coaching, workshopping, speaking kind of thing full time. This idea of lumpy revenue and whether you have an appetite for it is a consideration that's valuable to have before you decide to leave and put that in your plans, whether that means you have a longer savings runway.

If you can get that level one covered so that the things that are on top of it are good, get that level one customer base. Prove to yourself that you can sell something, that you know what your product is, that you have your basic website up, those kind of things. That can be very helpful in bolstering that fear part that comes when people launch and leave.

It feels like The lumps are smoothed out before it's all on the line. So that's not something everybody needs to do but for someone like me that that would have helped a lot if I had two years to Make my business idea get things sold get the strategies going get all the nurture going that would have been Incredible for me to get rid of a lot of stress and fear. I had just going straight out of the gate

Brea: Yeah, totally. My crowdfunding campaign did a little bit of that, you know, in the fact that I was able to launch with a hundred coaching sessions paid for, you know, but nothing else was done. I mean, it was just completely building the plane as we tried to get it off the ground.

A hundred percent, if I would have had the opportunity to give myself more runway, I mean, my goodness, I could have gone so much further faster. So two thumbs up, like I'm raising all my hands and all my feet, all my toes. I'm scared of two toes up.

Lisa: What did I even say? I don't even know. Two thumbs up. Two toes up. I mean, drop the mic with that. That is where you end - with that visual. We'll see you all later. I'm thinking of Brea's toes right now. Bye for now.

Brea: Bye.

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.

Today's episode is a question that comes up every time we prepare clients for a training event that includes StrengthsFinder. The question today is whether you can take old or existing results and use them in a team or leadership training event today.

I know this question is a bit tactical and technical compared to our usual topics, yet I thought it would be important to answer because we get asked so often. As you listen on, you will hear both HOW to find existing results (even if you think they're wayyyy old), and we will offer a quick reason WHY it's important to get old results.

You'll also get a list of books that you may have used a code from that you can import into the newest, snazziest report layout and dashboard. Even if you have your personal results already, if you're a people manager or strengths champion, this could be an important question for you to know the answer to because your new hires or future people you'll coach will likely have this question.

Have You Downloaded Your Strengths Tools?

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths-based culture is to offer an appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. Get started by downloading this awesome tool that offers you 127 Easy Ways to Recognize Strengths on your team.

What To Do If You Have Existing Results But You Don't Know Where They Are

If you have existing results, you can use your credentials from any of the old Gallup sites to import your data into the newest version of the Gallup Strengths Center. If you're working with a leadership and strengths training company like mine, you'll get asked for each person's individual results so that we can give you better insights and make custom company level reports that take the individual insights and turn them into team level conversations. 

Over the years, there have been different landing pages and dashboards for all of these different places where you could get started with strengths. Although the books were different, the assessment is the same. So you can take your login information from those old sites and use the same credentials in the Gallup Strengths Center. If you do that, it will import your old results into the most recent report layout and dashboard. 

This is helpful if you're a busy person and you have a calendar already filled with meetings and to do's — because when you have a training coming up and you'd rather not spend 45 minutes of your life answering questions you already answered when you did it years ago — you can just pull in your existing data. The problem is that people say, "Oh geez … I did StrengthsFinder like 3 jobs ago. I have no idea how to find it."

Or if you're like me and you first did the StrengthsFinder assessment over 15 years ago, you'll probably have no way of guessing your username and password from those days.

If You Had An Account At One Point But You Have No Idea What Site To Log Into Or What Your Credentials Are

My recommendation is to first go into the Gallup Strengths Center, click Sign In at the top right (or if you're on mobile, tap the main menu in the top left to get the sign in). THEN do a test with your old email addresses. Check your old work and personal email addresses you might have used with the forgot password function. On their site, their version of "forgot password" is a link called "Need help with your username or password?" If you do this first, it will help you confirm whether an account exists at Gallup with a given email address.

For example, I found mine with a yahoo account from the 1990s. If you type in your old address and it works, you'll get a message back from Gallup saying they sent you an email to update your account. Boom you're in.

Even when you are unsuccessful, It helps you narrow down the accounts. For example I typed in my old email address from the employer I worked for in those years. And I got a message that says, "Your email address does not match any accounts that we have on record. Please try again or create an account." So it's a step in your sleuth work to tell you whether you used that address back in the day. 

Now, of course if you no longer work there, you would not be able to get the password recovery data in your inbox — because that inbox no longer exists. If that were to happen where you learn that the account exists but you can't get the recovery by email, you can use the Gallup Strengths Center support team. They are extremely helpful. I will link to their support page in the show notes so you have access to that too. Their Contact Us page from there also has a phone number where you can troubleshoot with a human if you don't want to do it by email. 

You Think You May Have CliftonStrengths Results But Your Book Or Assessment Had A Different Name

There are also a bunch of books from Gallup press that have a code for StrengthsFinder. Over the years, you may have used a code from these books and now you want to import it in for your team StrengthsFinder training. Only the most recent copies would have flap with a CliftonStrengths assessment code. All of the older ones would have called it StrengthsFinder. It's the same assessment — just a name change to honor Donald Clifton, the original creator. Regardless of the original Gallup website you went to to redeem the code, you can get them all imported into the Gallup Strengths Center site today.

Here are 5 of the books our corporate clients most commonly used when they're importing "old" StrengthsFinder results in:

1. StrengthsFinder 2.0 
2. How Full Is Your Bucket? The Expanded Anniversary Edition
3. Strengths-based Leadership
4. StrengthsQuest or CliftonStrengths for Students
5. Strengths-based Selling 

If you originally did StrengthsFinder through a code in one of those books, you'll want to get yourself transferred into the new system. And when I say transferred in, I mean remember your login because your old credentials will work over on these (if you remember them).

It Has Been A Long Time, So Should You Retake StrengthsFinder Anyway?

There's a whole episode-worth of conversation on that topic, but the short answer is we recommend using your original results. Here are a couple of links from Gallup on whether your strengths change over time and how retaking the assessment can change your results (even decrease the accuracy of the results).

Another Step If You've Done The CliftonStrengths (StrengthsFinder) More Than Once

If you have already taken StrengthsFinder more than once, you can contact the Strengths Center support team to have them combine your data so that it represents the data of a single person (versus making it appear that two people have similar results). Gallup takes their data integrity seriously, so they would appreciate having the most accurate database possible. And It also helps us make you the best charts possible because our comparisons against the entire database will be more accurate, which means that your team charts will be more meaningful if you help us keep a nice and tidy database.

Remember to Downloaded Your Strengths Tools

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths-based culture is to offer an appreciation of strengths in action. Get started by downloading this awesome tool that offers you 127 Easy Ways to Recognize Strengths on your team.

Enjoyed The Podcast?

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.

In this episode, Lisa answers the question: Will a strengths approach work in different cultures and countries? She the shares how leaders can use strengths to fulfill the five different needs of Mazlow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Have You Downloaded Your Strengths Tools?

Remember to grab the strengths-focused 1x1 and team meeting resource to get your 12 weeks of conversation starters. That will help you start applying the conversations to your cross-culture understanding.

Will A Strengths Approach Work In Different Cultures and Countries?

Today a question came in from Molly about whether strengths-focused development will work across any culture or country. If you manage a team of people from around the world, or if you're about to roll out a strengths approach across your company or university — this is an important question to ask!

The short answer is, yes strengths-focused development will, in fact, work around the world. Let's break the question down from a literal translation standpoint and then the conceptual.

Can You Translate Strengths Language?

Yes! And If you want to give team of people a native language experience, I definitely recommend looking at Clifton StrengthsFinder or the VIA Character Survey. Both of them are available in more than two dozen languages, so whether your native language is Polish, Croatian, or Indonesian, they have you covered. I think that's an important factor to know because if you're answering questions about your natural thoughts and feelings and behaviors (on a 20 second timer), you can't waste time looking up vocabulary words because it would impact your results. The other good thing is that you'll also receive your reports in the native language.

Something you might find fascinating or surprising is that even after millions of people have used the tool, the data shows us that the differences are negligible when you break them down by race, gender, age, and nationality.

If you're into the data side of things, you can also find some interesting factoids in different countries, like with CliftonStrengths, the #1 talent theme in India is Responsibility, whereas you see Learner #1 in Mexico, Panama, and Argentina. And then you see Maximizer and Harmony in the #1 and #2 spots in Japan.

As you can see, different countries do have some different "typical" top spots, and yes, those differences by country probably tell us something about the strong effect of cultural values.

But one thing we haven't been able to isolate with empirical research is how much of this is nature vs. nurture. Our hypothesis is that it's both. Your environment, your upbringing, your family values, your experiences, and your DNA all play a role in how your strengths show up and what your unique lineup of talents is.

How Strengths Can Bring Understanding Across Cultures

This question about whether strengths can bring appreciation across cultures first made me think of Grace. She's a client in Taiwan. And she was thrilled about StrengthsFinder because she works for an American manager and it gave her a way to map work conversations to her values and her natural way of thinking.

If you've ever studied different cultural dimensions, you might instantly think about the potential for Grace, with her #1 Harmony and #2 Responsibility to be on a different page from her manager with #1 Individualization and #2 Competition because she's from a country high on the collectivism scale and her manager is from a country high on the individualism scale. And their personal talent themes happen to reflect their country's values pretty closely.

Using the language of strengths, it gave each of them a way to describe what they bring to the team. And it helped Grace find a language for talking about her potential contributions to the team without feeling like she was running against her country's values of saving face, being humble, and showing loyalty to the team — even when it means putting her personal agenda last.

By the way, if you've never studied cultural dimensions, it's totally fascinating. You can see how each country maps on continuum across 5-6 categories. The super quick preview is that these continuums cover your relationship to people, power, certainty, and time.

My favorite resource on cultural understanding is the book Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands. It helps you understand each country's government, religion, decision making values, negotiation styles, and how they tend to process information. It goes even further to help you out with gestures, gifts, and clothing so you can be sure that you know the basic expectations and keep you from making a fool of yourself.

Different experts use different labels, yet most look something like this:

• Individualism <——> Collectivism
• Accepts Unequal Power <——> Rejects Unequal Power
• Uncertainty Avoidant <——> Accepts Unknown
• Cooperation <——> Competition
• Short-Term Orientation <——> Long-Term Orientation

To bring this back to strengths, I look at it like another layer of understanding. Cultural differences can run sooooo deep. And we don't know where we might view a topic differently from another country.

I remember the first time I visited India and learned how uncommon it is for men to wear shorts. The more traditional view is that if they have shorts on, something must have happened to their pants! I also found it so fascinating that it's totally normal to wear a sari to work and show your midriff. Whereas in the US, it would not be okay to show your midriff and work. Don't even get me started on how hard I worked to tame my left-handedness. It took a few visits to work that one out.

My point is, when you are working across cultures, there are a million ways for people to spot their differences. Of course, the visual ones like clothing are the easiest to spot. Then there are many ways to accidentally offend colleagues during conversations. And there are some stressors when team members bring their local assumptions about how work relationships work. And they assign meaning to things differently — not just the meaning of men's pants.

Strengths give you a language to talk about these things in a productive way. For example, Grace, with her Responsibility talent, would naturally see ways that she could jump in to help the team meet its commitments. But before having some strengths-focused conversations, she didn't volunteer because she was used to a more hierarchical approach where she would wait to be assigned those responsibilities.

How Strengths Can Help Leaders Create Significant Meaning For Their Team

Now let's add one more important layer: it's that basic human needs cut across all cultures.

No matter where you live in the world, your team shares the same basic needs. Most people remember hearing something about food, water, and shelter when they think of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

If you do some digging on this topic, you'll see that there are a bunch of others that managers can impact. And these others are where you're really helping people feel seen, heard, and appreciated in a way that gives them purpose. And strengths-focused conversations make it easy and natural for that to happen. Let's look at each of these 5 needs.

1. Physiological Needs

If you look at this like the typical pyramid, you'll see physiological needs at the bottom. Yes, that's where you get your food, water, shelter, and sleep. After you get past this one, it gets really interesting as you layer in strengths.

2. Safety & Security Needs

The next one is safety needs. In Gallup's extensive leadership research, Stability is one of the four primary "follower" needs. Yes there are some safety needs that have nothing to do with work, but employment stability, social stability, and sometimes health are items that you can address through strengths.

Or, you can think about your natural talents and how they might lead you, at your default, to make your team feel un-safe. For example, my Maximizer talent constantly leads me to change things. Over the years, I've seen how that can feel unstable because people don't know what to expect from week to week. And strengths have given me a way to look at that with a different lens because I can acknowledge that people need to feel a sense of stability.

3. Love & Belonging

Yes, there are friendships, family, and other parts of life where people fill this human need. Now switch over to work. People want to belong. They love knowing that they're contributing to the team. They love knowing they're doing important work — that the 8 (or 12) hours they spend every day is for something that matters. They love accomplishing something bigger than themselves.

So when you use strengths, you can use their talents to help them see their superpowers. You can use their strengths as a lens to help you see when to recognize them. And you can help them feel the connection between their actions and the bigger cause they are a part of.

If you want to help your team members feel a bigger sense of belonging by connecting their strengths to the contributions they can offer the team, be sure to get the conversation starters in your 12-week Activation Series.

Each week, you'll get a strengths-focused 1x1 conversation starter and quick team meeting topic so you can keep learning more about what puts your team members at their best so that they can feel like they are a meaningful part of the team.

4. Self-Esteem

Moving up the scale, you have self-esteem, which includes things like feeling respected, being recognized, knowing their strengths, and achieving. Strengths help you create a culture of recognition. It helps people know what they're great at.

And I call them your "easy buttons" to high performance. If you provide your team members an easier path to high performance, they'll achieve more and feel better about themselves, which tends to create a virtuous circle where they feel better and better about their contributions and they continue to achieve bigger things for the team.

5. Self-Actualization

Finally, you have self-actualization. This includes deeper life meaning and living up to their potential. It's all about being the best they can be. It even gets into things like innovation and creativity because their outputs reflect a unique view of the work that no one else could bring.

Now think about this in terms of strengths and workplaces. When teams are in turmoil with RIFs, re-orgs, and conflict, they revert back to safety mode. They give less because they're trying to survive the explosion of uncertainty or despair.

But if you contrast that with a fully functional team, you can start to imagine some moments and some team members who have been way up in this self-actualization zone. And as a leader, you have the ability to move people through these categories. Of course, it's not 100% on you. They have to take personal accountability in their lives. Yet, you have a heck of a lot of influence on helping them unlock these other categories.

Basic Human Needs Exist Across Cultures

It may have surprised you that the question on culture led to this angle for an answer. Yet when I think about international businesses and organizations, the best ones cut across cultural differences by getting to the humanity of it all. We all have some basic needs, and strengths can give you a way to have conversations about these human needs without feeling weird.

And when it comes to the cultural dimensions I brought up at the beginning, each person's talent themes can give you a great doorway into talking about how their personal thoughts, feelings, and actions line up with cultural norms. I can't tell you how many times someone has told me, "Aha! No wonder I am a fish out of water at this company (or in this country)." And then rather than feeling bad about it, their strengths give them a way to see the other side of it — the side that brings value.

Remember to grab the strengths-focused 1x1 and team meeting resource to get your 12 weeks of conversation starters. That will help you start applying the conversations to your cross-culture understanding. It helps you open up topics like their ideal work culture, their untapped strengths, and even get them to fess up about the soul-sucking elements of their job. Each week, it gives you one question to ask in a 1x1 and one question for the team. That way, you can spend your time having these conversations rather than spending a bunch of time trying to come up with new strengths conversations.

Enjoyed The Podcast?

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.

In this episode, Lisa answers the question: How can you share your awesomeness without sounding arrogant or entitled?

Have You Downloaded Your Manager Tool For Strengths Conversations?

If you're a manager and you want to help your team members feel less awkward about speaking positively about the contributions they can make to the team, please please please, open these conversations and make them a regular part of how you operate with each other.

And since it's tough to put this into practice, we actually have a 12-week series made just for people-leaders. You'll get 12 weeks of conversation starters for strengths-focused 1x1s and quick team meeting topics so you can keep learning more about what puts your team members at their best. 

Resources of the Episode

• Manager Activation Course
• "More Of" Resource
• The Quit Alternative: Instead, Take That Job And Love It – With Ben Fanning
• You'll find lots of other StrengthsFinder, leadership, and team tools on our Strengths Resources page

Awesomeness Without Arrogance

Today you'll explore a question that came up in a strengths workshop I did with a group of high potential team members who want their talents to shine, yet they don't want to seem like braggadocios jerks. Their question was, "How can you share your awesomeness without sounding arrogant or entitled?"  

What an important question. I hear it from all levels, and even from every cultural background I've experienced so far.

For example, Australians will tell you about the tall poppy syndrome. This concept is about cutting down someone who is higher in stature or prominence to bring them down back to size. Of course, many Aussies are reluctant to talk about their standout areas because it has been such a cultural faux pas to try to stand out. 

My Japanese clients tell me about the saying, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." 

In Western cultures I hear things like, "Don't rock the boat" or "Don't make waves." 

Regardless of the country, most of these sayings are meant to keep you humble and remind you to not run around being an arrogant jerk. Yet, unfortunately, they also keep a lot of people from sharing their gifts with the world.

So, back to thinking of this in a self-reflective way, how do you begin to offer your personal strengths to the world while also staying humble and being perceived well? Here are three steps to becoming known for your talents without having to brag about them.

Step 1 - Know What You Want To Be Known For

First, take some time to imagine what you want to be known for. Yes, this can be knowledge, skills, or abilities. If you're thinking about natural talents, think about how you would be getting work done if it brought you energy — if you were totally in flow — and things even felt easy. Imagine the kind of work you'd be doing and how you'd get work done.

To help you with this, try the "More Of Inventory" where you'll see a list of phrases to spark your ideas. You'll can imagine that someone who picks "give advice" and "poke the bear" as the two things they'd want more of — well, they would be more of a status quo busting person who wants to push the team forward and get people on the edge of discomfort — maybe even someone who loves living risk-taking mode.

And you can imagine another person who wants to "ensure quality" and "work carefully" — well, they would be way more excited about a project or role all about operational effectiveness or safety or compliance.

That's why it's important to do this step first. If you don't know what you want to get known for, you'll get known for what you did well last. I've seen way too many people become known as the quality assurance guru or the best team notetaker or the one who delivers the quarterly ops review presentation — and they're only known for it because they did it well last time. 

When actually, it may have sucked the life out of them. It may have taken up all of their mental energy for days. It may have drained them and felt dreadful, but when you're a highly accountable high achiever, you'll try to knock it out of the park. Even on work you hate. 

You'll use brute force to become competent, even in your weaknesses so that your performance is solid. And if you're not a complainer, no one will ever know you don't like that work. That's why you need to spend a bit of time thinking about what you'd really love to be known for. In your ideal world. Then you can start aligning to that reputation over time. 

Step 2 - Focus Outward

This is all about taking an outward focus. It's thinking about a business outcome your talent can serve. It's thinking about a person you can help. Since your talents will help you feel ease, energy, and enjoyment on the job, people will see the enlivened version of you while you serve another person or a team goal or business outcome.

For example, if you've been nerding out on the peer-reviewed Journal of Applied Physics literature on the understanding of dark matter — and you happen to have the Clifton StrengthsFinder talent theme of Input — you could move toward the enlivenment scale by sharing your findings with the team rather than just reading the journals for your personal education.

You could summarize the key findings and mention a team goal that it applies to. This would be fun for someone with the Input talent and it would also help the team. They'd see your awesomeness and would appreciate it. 

And if you offer your talents this way, you'll often uncover where one person's trash tasks are another person's treasured tasks. That can lead you to task swapping opportunities where you can do a task-switcheroo with teammates to get more of the work you love. 

You can also volunteer your talents. You may have heard my interview with Ben Fanning where he talked about finding all of the things you look forward to on your to do list or your calendar. Then he encouraged you to find the trend in the things you enjoy.

He also suggested seeking out more of them by volunteering to help a teammate in one of those areas. Or offer a Lunch and Learn to the team on something you get jazzed about. Offer data or articles on topics that would be helpful to the team. It's basically sharing things with others that would be fun for you to do anyway. 

This is all about finding ways to offer up your talents as a contribution to the team — and not waiting for someone to offer you the golden-ticket job. It's more about creating small moments for yourself that put you in a state of flow or energy or enjoyment so that over time you can become known for that. And once you build a reputation for it, the offers for project work and roles and assignments (even at small task levels) will begin to match up with your strengths.

Step 3 - Talk To Your Leader About It

This is an important step, of course, because your manager has a lot of sway when it comes to the tasks and responsibilities of your role. 

Here are three flavors of conversations that work well when you want to put your strengths on your leader's radar. These are great for 1x1s. Or you could tweak them for email. Put them in your own words, and you're on your way.

Flavor 1: I Want To Support A Team Or Company Goal  

"I've been thinking a lot about how I can personally support [goal], and wanted to volunteer some help around [talent or thing you want to build a reputation around]. Are you game to hear an idea?"

So an example might sound like, "I've been thinking a lot about how I can personally support [our goal to increase customer retention by 15%], and wanted to volunteer some help around [our contact center coaching]. Are you game to hear an idea?"

And then, once this conversation opens, you could volunteer a small or large contribution — anything from the creation of a quick cheat sheet resource, all the way through spending one day each month coaching contact center reps in your area of expertise.

Flavor 2:  I Want To Bring My A-Game To The Company

"As you know, I've been digging into StrengthsFinder and thinking about how we can amp up our performance. It got me thinking about what puts me in A-game mode, and one of them is [talent or thing you want to build a reputation around]. Next time you're assigning a project like that, would you consider me for it?"

So an example might sound like, "As you know, I've been digging into StrengthsFinder and thinking about how we can amp up our performance. It got me thinking about what puts me in A-game mode, and one of them is [that I'm really on fire when I'm pushing my limits of learning]. Next time you're assigning a project that has a steep learning curve on a short timeline, would you consider me for it?"

Managers in my training sessions tell me that they'd love it if they knew what kind of projects their team members want to be considered for. A simple "please consider me …" request increases the chances that when they're making decisions in the future, they'll think of you.

Flavor 3: I Will Be Applying Self-Development To A Project And Would Love Feedback

"This has been a year of big development for me. I've been thinking a lot about how to amp up the contributions I make to the team. One talent I've decided to consciously leverage more is my [talent or thing you want to build a reputation around]. It's different from the way I've approached my projects in the past, so wanted to mention it to you for feedback purposes. If you see or hear comments (both good or bad) about me, I'd love to hear them. I'm going in thinking that it will be well received, yet it's different from how we normally do it so wanted to get your antennae up for it."

So an example might sound like, "This has been a year of big development for me. I've been thinking a lot about how to amp up the contributions I make to the team. One talent I've decided to consciously leverage more is my [natural ability to build an use a network]. It's different from the way I've approached my projects in the past because we've stayed pretty siloed on this project, so wanted to mention it to you for feedback purposes. If you see or hear comments (both good or bad) about the new collaborations, I'd love to hear them. I'm going in thinking that it will be well received, yet it's different from how we normally do it so wanted to get your antennae up for it."

Three steps for bringing awareness to your awesomeness without sounding braggadocios. And if you're a people manager, as many listeners are, you can see why these strengths-focused conversations are so tough. They're awkward for people. Yet if you initiate the conversations, you give them permission to unleash their talents. Ask them what puts them at their best. Ask them what their most favorite and least favorite elements of the job are. Ask them what they would love more of. 

Extra Help For Managers

Remember to grab the strengths-focused 1x1 and team meeting series. You'll get 12 weeks of conversation starters for strengths-focused 1x1s and team meetings. It's super simple in format. It opens up topics like recognition, motivation, and their favorite elements of the job. Each week, it gives you one question to ask in a 1x1 and one question for the team. That way, you can focus on learning more about them rather than spending a bunch of time coming up with new strengths conversations.

Enjoyed The Podcast?

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.

In this episode, Mike Ganino joins Lisa to answer the question: How can team culture be shaped by strengths?

Have You Downloaded Your Strengths Tools?

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths-based culture is to offer an appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. Get started by downloading this awesome tool that offers you 127 Easy Ways to Recognize Strengths on your team.

How Can Team Culture Be Shaped By Strengths?

055-how-can-team-culture-be-shaped-by-strengths

If It Is So Important For Managers To Build Culture, Why Can I Only Find Articles About Offering Stand Up Desks And Pinball Machines - Perks That Hr Offers?

Ohhhhh, culture, we love to talk about it, write about it, read about it, and even watch the 2,000,000 videos on Youtube about it. We love to blame it, leverage it, and try to change it. We spend billions of dollars and a whole bunch of hours on employee engagement and culture improvement initiatives to try to improve it and yet we keep coming up empty.

Is it really all about office fun slides, cold brew coffee on tap, and nap rooms? Do the rest of us have a chance at dipping into the power of culture without the budget of a tech giant who seems to print their own cash?

If you're only managing a project, a team or a division in a bigger organization, do you have any chance of fixing things if the culture and the wider organization isn't promoting the kind of vibe you're looking for? Before I answer all of those questions, let's get clear on exactly what culture is and what it isn't.

Does The Physical Environment Create Culture?

So culture is not about the stated values written in the handbook or hanging on a wall somewhere. It's not about the mission that adorns the company website or the funky design of the open office floor plan. It's not even about how often you get together for happy hours. It isn't about making everyone happy all the time or being a pet-friendly workplace.

Yeah, I get it. I love the idea of an office full of cuddly little Corgis as much as the next guy, but I know it won't help improve the business or the working conditions for the team. It's possible to have a great culture even when the perks are best in class. Yes, even when there aren't fancy modern Norwegian looking desks all around.

Manufacturing plants and ships in the ocean and military bases can have great cultures. Sorry to break it to all those fun committees out there, but we don't need another group picnic to have a great culture.

Now I'm not saying that all of those things aren't useful and aren't helpful. I mean, the point of them should be in getting people to connect with each other. So if you are one of these fun committee folks out there, don't despair — but I do want you to change your objectives a little bit.

Instead of getting people to sign up to go have fun together outside of work, make sure that the events are helping people build relationships — helping them connect with people they don't normally talk to — because if we all go to happy hour and we all just talk to the normal people we talk to, it isn't improving your culture.

So if you are doing fun stuff, make sure you're getting the best out of it by making sure that you're encouraging people to talk to people they don't normally interact with.

Culture = The Existing Beliefs On The Team

OK, back to the topic at hand. See, culture is actually the collection of beliefs on your team and don't worry, I'm not going to go all hippy dippy here and ask you to start meditating or saying namaste day to each other.

But culture is still the beliefs that your team has about what it's like to work there. The beliefs they about leadership, about what matters. It's the beliefs about how they act, how they work, how they build relationships. Those shape the way we treat each other.

If I were to meet you and I thought, hey, this is someone pretty awesome. If my belief about you was that you were a good person and I thought I wanted to get to know you, I would act a certain way. If my belief about you was that you were out to get me or that you were somebody who was ... you know, not so fun to be around, then I would treat you a different way.

To Get More Practical, Think Of The Beliefs As Stories Or Examples That Get Passed Around

I like to think of those beliefs as stories. The stories we tell at work, the stories we tell ourselves (and sometimes we tell each other at work) are our beliefs. They impact the way we choose to act, the way we choose to work and the relationships we commit to at work. The stories that we tell each other become the culture of the company.

Every company has stories that are unspoken expectations about things like:

• The way things get done
• When it's a good idea to speak up (or stay quiet)
• What kind of people and behaviors wins or lose (and how the game of work is played)

That becomes your culture. The stories your employees tell is where your culture lives. Think of what they say. What is their story about their first day at work or their first week?

What are their beliefs about performance reviews? What are their beliefs about speaking up in meetings and contributing their best ideas to projects? Do you know what they're telling each other? Do you know what you're telling your new hires or even what they're telling themselves? Because all of those things are being played out.

When it comes time to sit down in a meeting and contribute, when it comes to showing up for a performance conversation and saying, "I'm invested in this because this is about making me better." All of those stories are ultimately what shape and drive your culture.

Now, I'm not saying that you need to just basically go and create a whole new world of storytelling at work. There are a lot of storytelling folks out there who focus on brand and marketing storytelling, which is really about controlling the narrative. No, no.

Is It Effective To Try To Guide Or Control The Stories That Get Passed Around?

I'm not telling you to control your culture or control your narrative. In fact, I don't think you can. What I'm saying is, as a leader, as a manager, as somebody who wants to make a difference, you have the power and the ability to fuel a different kind of story, and when you fuel that different kind of story, you create a different set of beliefs which creates a different set of actions from your team and those sorts of actions. You probably guessed it. Those create your culture.

The way we decide how to show up every day is the culture and some of that is based on how we see leaders responding. A lot of it is based on what the expectations are every day. So what do you do if you're a leader and you say, "Hey, I want to start thinking about culture in a different way. But we can't get the insurance to do a slip and slide through the grass in the grassy area outside of the office."

Well, you don't need to do any of that and in fact I wouldn't recommend it. It sounds weird and creepy, but what you can do is start to source the stories that your team is telling.

How often do you ask and listen to and document what's really going on with them outside of an annual employee engagement survey? How often do you look for the common variables and the stories they tell?

Are you collecting long form survey data more than just a score on a piece of paper? Are you asking questions like, "What do you believe leadership cares about here? What do you think matters most? Or how do you think people get ahead in this organization?"

Uncover The Stories That Highlight What You Already Do Well As A Team

You can use the stories that you hear to start to uncover common trends in your culture. Then I've got a maybe not so surprising thing for you — you'll start to recognize the strengths from your team. You'll start to see what your culture is strong at. You'll start to see what your leaders are strong at and I'd imagine that those start to look like things that you would have found in a StrengthsFinder assessment. You'll start to see ideas and words resonating.

If your team is all about taking action, you're going to notice that your team is all about moving forward and not stopping to consider lots of options. You're going to see that and you're going to recognize that as one of the strengths that people have.

What's interesting is that you can also use those to start to develop a clearer story for your culture. Once you understand what the strengths of your team and the strengths of your culture are, then you can start to get specific about telling more stories like that. You can start to use that in the way that you interview people and the way that you talk to people.

Leveraging your strengths gives you a really interesting opportunity to create a new kind of culture. So let's go back to culture for just a minute.

If You Work For A Large Company, Create A Culture Pocket

When you think about culture, a lot of times what happens is that we think of this big, big culture of the entire organization. That might be true if you're working for a small company where there's only 20 of you. Then yes, the culture of the team is probably the culture of the company and I would argue that the culture of a 20-employee team probably matches up pretty closely with how the leader believes and the stories the leader creates.

As a company gets bigger and bigger and you start to go into national and global territory with the hundreds or thousands of employees. You start to see that cultures gets pocketed almost. There's a chapter in the book where I talk about cultural pockets and I show how even in a huge organization there are all of these little cultures that exist.

You have the ability to create a culture pocket for the way that your team interacts. You don't have to worry about having perks and happy hours and food trucks outside of your office every day in order to get top talent and be known as a great place to work. You know, Lisa always says that differences are differentiators and I can't agree more when it comes to culture.

Notice What Already Works - What Already Attracts People To Your Team

If you start to use the stories and the strengths of your team, you'll start to see the differences on your team. You know, Apple is a very different place to work than Google. Both are interesting companies creating cool new products and services, but it feels very different to work there. They both have cool offices and perks and benefits, but it feels different to work there. The digital component of Disney feels very different than working at Netflix. Why? Because of culture.

At the end of the day, the three weeks of vacation, the ping pong tables, the catered lunches — those don't necessarily drive the experience with each other. These perks don't change the relationships or the stories that we have about our coworkers, our manager, or the work we do. These perks are easy to copy and if all that it took to build a great culture was having the perks, then everyone could do it.

By leveraging your strengths to tell new kinds of stories about your team and the way you work, you can start to find the thread of your culture and then you can leverage it, communicate it and double down on it so that you can get the kind of people on your team who can help it grow. Whether you're a team of 10 or you're a company of thousands, leveraging those parts of your strengths to create new stories will drive your culture.

Don't Worry - You Don't Have To Create A Circus Of Entertainment At The Office

Look, you don't have to treat people like preschoolers who need to be tickled, entertained, and fed every hour to have a great culture. It's about diving in, listening to the stories, promoting those stories, and creating new ones.

As a leader, your job is to create the culture on your team that creates the kinds of stories based on the strengths of your team and the group. So go out there and start thinking about culture in a new way. You don't need 5 tips, 7 Hacks, 9 habits — you don't need any of that. What you need to do is start listening to the stories and changing the way your team works.

Get More Culture Learning From Mike

• Watch the video training on how to uncover cultural stories that highlight your strengths
• Company Culture for Dummies - Book by Mike Ganino
• Chat with Mike on Twitter about his Corgi, living in LA, or … oh yeah, team culture.

Enjoyed The Podcast?

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.

In this episode, Lisa answers the question: What should you do when two talents contradict each other? Don't worry — you'll be fine if you work on situational fluency and communication.

Resources of the Episode

You'll find lots of StrengthsFinder, leadership, and team tools on our Strengths Resources page.

Have You Downloaded Your Strengths Tools?

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths-based culture is to offer an appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. Get started by downloading this awesome tool that offers you 127 Easy Ways to Recognize Strengths on your team.

What Should You Do When Two Talents Contradict Each Other?

This question came in when someone in a virtual StrengthsFinder training said, "Uh oh, my Top 5 might be bad news because two of my strengths are opposites."

I said, "Sounds interesting, tell me more." He clarified by saying that his Ideation is the opposite of his Consistency talent theme because Ideation makes him come up with constantly new ways of doing things while his Consistency talent theme makes him want to do things the same every time to be efficient and clear.

One of the beautiful things about virtual events is that they're often big. So with 250 people in the same training room, it was possible to find someone else with those two talent themes.

I asked the other person, "How do these two work on you?" She said, "I'm more into fairness than anything else. So Consistency drives me to treat people the same. Consistency bosses around Ideation and tells it what to work on. So my Ideation's job is to find more and more ways to be fair in every part of life and work."

From that conversation, you can see the two important things to explore in your own Top 5 and in the Top 5 of your team members so that you can be extra effective when you work together.  It comes down to (1) Situational Fluency and (2) Communication.

Using Seemingly Opposite Talent Themes For Situational Fluency

By situational fluency, I mean being able to bring your best to a situation or challenge that comes up at work. Let's use Deliberative and Activator as the example StrengthsFinder talent themes because they're simple to understand, even if you haven't done anything yet with CliftonStrengths.

You'll often hear people using a car metaphor to describe Deliberative as a talent that likes to put on the brakes — to stop or to think carefully about risks before acting. You'll often hear about Activator as a talent theme that likes to push the accelerator and get going. 

Now think about your own talents in a tough situation at work. You've put 20 million dollars into a product launch that failed. Everyone thought it would bring about 100 million dollars in revenue last year, and instead, you lost money.

Half of the team wants to kill the product and cut the losses. Half of the team wants to tweak it and try to fix some issues before doing something so drastic. Meanwhile, you're bleeding out cash and the board expects a plan by next week. Your team has been spinning in circles. 

Now think about your personal talent themes. Which ones make you feel cautious? Which ones help you feel brave? Which ones put you into high collaboration mode? Which ones make you go into deep thinking? 

Depending on the situation, you might need different things at different times. So, if you think, "Yikes, I have two strengths that can't really work together well" — then dig into it more because, instead, you can think of it as having more tools for a given situation.

For example, go back to the car metaphor. You have headlights on the exterior and you have dash lights inside of the car. Think of those two as if they're talent themes. If it gets dark outside, you turn on the headlights so you can see. And in the dark, you don't need so much of those interior lights, so they go dim. Otherwise they're distracting. They're too much for the situation. 

Your talents are the same. In one situation, you turn it up. In another situation you turn it down. In some cases, both are in use, but one is bright and one is dim. Think of your talents like that. You can control how bright or dim they are. You can bring the right light to the situation. That's situational fluency. Rather than bringing all of you all the time, you bring the part that serves the situation. 

So watch for this. Next time you face a tricky challenge or debate like the example I gave you about killing the product, do a quick, mental run through of your talent themes to consciously decide which ones (and how much of them) to bring to the situation.

Communicating About Seemingly Opposite Talent Themes So People Understand Your Intent And Actions

After that Ideation + Consistency example came up in the chat box in the virtual StrengthsFinder training, the next comment was, "Don't worry. My report tells me that I have dual personalities." 

What's funny is that this comment comes up in nearly every workshop. It's because people imagine these paradoxes inside themselves and they realize the outside world may not be able to make sense of it. Most of us have a bunch of these. I can think of lots of personal paradoxes.

• Sometimes I'm a workaholic. Sometimes I'm a playaholic.
• Sometimes I'm a foodie food snob. Sometimes I eat green beans out of a can.
• Sometimes I'm a luxury buyer. Sometimes I go to thrift stores.

You have things like this too. And you can make sense of them. Yet to an outsider, they can be confusing. If you have the Deliberative talent theme and you love to be the one who makes people stop and think before they do something rash, it might be confusing when 25% of the time your Activator is talking and you're the one in the room saying, "C'mon, we've kicked this around enough.  We could have executed on all three possible solutions already. Let's go."

So if you fear you might be perceived as "of two minds" or someone who seems to act inconsistently, be sure to bring it up in conversation. This is why I offered this section on communicating your paradoxes. Of course, before you communicate it, you need to be able to understand it yourself.

For example, I talked to a person recently after a strengths-based leadership speech. She said this was insightful because her Activator shows up constantly in meetings. When there's small talk, she wants it to hurry up and be done. When people schedule three meetings and you have meeting deja vu because the same things keep coming up over and over again, her Activator is going crazy. It's dying for a little less talk and a lot more action. 

She also has the Deliberative talent. It doesn't take up many thoughts in her head during meetings. But when she has a big decision to make, it's prominent. When she needs to consider a complex situation, she leans on Deliberative heavily.

Her takeaway was that her direct reports hear her saying, "Let's do this" in meetings. And when she writes emails about big decisions, they hear her say "Let's slow down for a sec." She realized that's why they see her as indecisive but she doesn't see herself that way. And she left that event knowing that the simple act of communicating this seemingly opposite viewpoint is exactly what her team needs in order to make sense of her two modes. 

To bring it all together, here are two action steps for you as you think through your personal paradoxes:

1) Apply Situational Fluency. Pick a talent and think about when it needs to be the bright headlight you lead with and what situation calls for the dimmers. Know this in advance so that you can bring the situation what it needs.

2) Communicate So Your Paradoxes Do Not Confuse People. Spend the week watching for your potential paradox-perceptions. Where might you look like you're of two minds? How can you make sense of these two things that live in perfect harmony inside of your head so that others around you know what to expect of you and where these two perspectives come from?

Enjoyed The Podcast?

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.

In this episode, Lisa answers the question: What do strengths look like under stress? She shares the three things that will highlight the shadow side of your strengths under stress, and then gives you ways to reframe them from bad to better.

Have You Downloaded Your Strengths Tools?

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths-based culture is to offer an appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. Get started by downloading this awesome tool that offers you 127 Easy Ways to Recognize Strengths on your team.

What Do Strengths Look Like Under Stress?

Today the question is about whether strengths look or act different when they're under stress.  

This is such a timely question because I woke up today ... well, not at my best. After an awesome team StrengthsFinder event in NYC last week, I sat next to a prolific cougher and sneezer on the plane. I'm pretty sure he's the one that passed me this horrible funk that has taken over my body.

Today, I woke up out of sleeping hard. My head hurts. My throat hurts. My ears ring. I coughed all night — as you can probably hear in my voice. And to top it off, my comforter was covered in puke. Not my puke. My dog's. Apparently, my dog Monkey is also sick today and she jumped in the bed to get me to let her out. I slept through that.

So, why are you hearing this gross story right now? It's because, no matter how great your life is — no matter how much you love your job, you'll still have bad days. And you need to know how your talents show up when you're under stress, when you're sick, and when you're burned out. It's good to know what do to with them on the days that you want to hide under the covers and do nothing. 

Like me, you probably have client meetings, deadlines, and commitments that lead you to get out of bed anyway — even on a really bad day. You tough it out. I know you've had days like this — where it all seems to be going wrong before the alarm even goes off.

Well, those days can definitely bring out the shadow sides of your strengths. Those days can expose ugly sides of your talents — the side that doesn't normally show up, even though you haven't invested fully in that talent. The ugly side doesn't show up day to day, yet it will rear its ugly head when you're having a terrible week at work. 

For example, if you lead with Activator, you might snap at someone because you're feeling exceptionally impatient with her lack of movement. If you lead with Consistency, you might throw the rule book at someone who constantly asks for exceptions and today, you're so done with it. If you lead through Intellection, you might "hole up" in your cave and isolate yourself from the team.

You get the idea here. Now that you have a couple of examples in mind, here are three stressful situations that might expose the dark side of your talent themes.

Three Things That Will Highlight Your Strengths Under Stress (And How To Reframe From Bad To Better)

Three things that will highlight the shadow side of your strengths when under stress are:

1. Having A Bad Day 
2. A Person (or Team) Who Frustrates You
3. An Environment Where You Feel Mismatched

1: Having A Bad Day Or Week —> Your Strengths Can Strengthen You

When things are frustrating, what's your typical response? For example, maybe you lead through Restorative and you resent the very problem that gave you the bad day. Maybe your Learner talent is annoyed because your team moves too fast to give you a chance to become the deep subject matter expert you want to become to put you at your best.

Think of yours. You probably have a thing you get frustrated about or have a typical reaction, regardless of the cause of the bad day. 

One way to use your strengths in this situation is to rely on old faithful. Of your Top 5 talent themes, you probably have one that's easy to call on in tough times.

Maybe your Strategic talent allows you to see simplicity through the overwhelm. So turn up the dial on your Strategic talent today. Maybe your Empathy theme gives you unlimited doses of patience. Or your Focus talent allows you to feel some calm in knowing that you'll knock out today's list one item at a time, and that it can keep you on task even with the urgent issues exploding all around you.

So that's it. When you're having a bad day or week, rely on one that's easy to call on. Crank up the volume on a different virtue that can shine through despite the craziness around you.

2: A Person (Or Team) Who Frustrates You —> You'll Make Partners

Think of someone at work who you don't love working with. If you lead through Responsibility, maybe it's someone who constantly misses deadlines. For me, I remember feeling eternally frustrated with a woman who treated our sales team poorly.

If you lead through Context, maybe it's a person on the team who refuses to acknowledge and learn from the failures the team already experienced and you feel that they put the vision out to the organization foolishly because that same vision has failed four times, the only difference is that they called it by a different name each time.

Think about that person for you. Try to concretely imagine a specific person who has been tough for you during your career.

So what do you do about it? One is to identify where, specifically, you think the person is different from you. Even if you don't know their StrengthsFinder talent themes, just think about what they seem to value and where they're coming from. As tough as it might seem, assume they have positive intent and imagine a possible positive thing they could bring to the situation.

For example, the person who is frustrated because her teammate misses deadlines could notice (when she looks carefully) that it's because her colleague wanted to be absolutely sure that the data is correct. He delayed because new information became available, and because he leads through Analytical, there's no way he would put out misleading data. He'd rather be late than wrong.

In my personal example, think back to the woman who treated the sales team with constant snarky and dismissive comments. Well, when I looked carefully and open-mindedly (and assumed positive intent), I noticed that my team member had an operational focus. She was great at standardizing processes and making us efficient.

So rather than coming at the angle with the frustration about how she treated sales people, we could first find common value in the fact that she made those rules in order to create a good customer experience. We both valued that. When it came time to solve her problem of the sales people not filling out her forms (which is why she was rude to them), we could use the customer experience to keep our conversation aligned to something we both wanted.

The idea here is that even when someone drives you crazy, there's a thread of something good that they bring to the team. Look for that thread rather than the irritant.

In many ways, you get what you look for. If you see the good that this person brings and you acknowledge it, they'll bring you more of that good stuff. And you'll notice that their way of bringing good stuff is probably not how you love to operate. So you should be celebrating it. You can think, "Wow, I'm so happy someone wants to obsess over the data because I'd rather brush over that and get to the customer messaging" or "Wow, I'm thrilled that someone likes to deliver presentations to customers because I'd rather be off in my R&D think tank, speccing out the next product."

This is the ultimate case of how one person's trash is another person's treasure. You probably have a few tasks or responsibilities that you'd like to throw in the trash. And you probably have a few that you treasure.

And amazingly, these are different for each person, so it's possible to literally swap out your trash tasks for treasured ones. Or you can partner up with someone where you divide out the parts of a project or task so that you each take the part that lights you up rather than the one that highlights your dark side.

3: An Environment Where You Feel Mismatched —> Your Differences Are Your Differentiators

Think of one of your talent themes that you didn't want to own when you first saw your Top 5 StrengthsFinder talent themes. I often hear things like, "This description of Input makes me sound like a hoarder" or "This description of Competition makes me sound super judge-y with all of these notes about how I love comparison."

Or someone tells me they don't think their talent is good for them in their environment. For example, a woman recently told me that she gets negative feedback about her Communication talent theme. Her manager told her she talks too much and that she's coming on too strong for her teammates.

Looking at the team DNA charts, we saw how that could be an easy place for her to feel mismatched because her team was exceptionally high in Relator and Intellection. Most people on the team were academics who were used to communicating formally, and only after having thought deeply on a topic. On the other hand, she likes to talk things out. She actually does her thinking through the act of talking. And she felt like a fish out of water.

When you feel mismatched, think about how the team needs the diversity of thought. Think about how the team could benefit from other ways of solving problems and interacting with the world. In the case of the woman with the Communication talent we just talked about, she was able to use this as a differentiator.

She became the go-to on the team for PR and customer communications because her teammates preferred to stay behind the scenes. It was a way for her create value for the organization rather than deciding she should squash it or hide it. As she put it, "Now they like it when I talk a lot because it means they don't have to talk to customers as often."

Another women with the Competition talent decided to use her constant comparison to become a cheerleader for the team. She would dig into the metrics, both inside and outside the company, to highlight where other people were their best in their roles or in their industry.

She helped people see that they were good at something that they didn't even know about. And it showed the team that Competition didn't mean she wanted to beat them, it meant that she gets a charge out of winning. And that includes helping the company win and helping other team members win in their roles.

Strengths Resources

To take the "Under Stress" exercise further, explore your talents at the Yucks page. Ask yourself which 1-2 of the words or phrases are big hot buttons for you. Then consider what situations call on that "Yuck" often.

It will give you clues about how to avoid it, get less of it, or to reframe it like you did in this episode. Very often, you can address that same situation through another one of your talent themes. Or you can partner with someone who doesn't see it as a Yuck at all. 

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In this episode, Lisa answers the question: Would StrengthsFinder make a great hiring tool? Although it might seem logical, once you dig a little deeper you realize it might not be a great idea. But don't despair — Lisa also gives you tips on how to use your team's natural Strengths to compensate for the ones it is lacking.

Have You Downloaded Your Strengths Tools?

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths-based culture is to offer an appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. Get started by downloading this awesome tool that offers you 127 Easy Ways to Recognize Strengths on your team..

Would StrengthsFinder Make A Great Hiring Tool?

Today the question is about StrengthsFinder as a hiring tool. This usually comes up when one of my StrengthsFinder training clients happens to also have an open position while we're doing a team-building event. Or, this question comes up when a leader sees a visual map of their team's natural talents. They spot holes. They want a well-rounded team. And the logical next thought is, "Oooh, this would be the perfect tool to help me find new hires who have these talents we don't naturally have on the team."

I'm with you. That feels totally logical, yet there are at least 5 reasons that this idea is flawed. Yup, I'm telling you that StrengthsFinder isn't a hiring tool. Whahhhn. Wahhhn. So hang on. If you're thinking that you want to use it to vet your candidates, slow down juuuuuuust a sec while you consider the whole picture.

Reason 1: StrengthsFinder Shows A Stack Rank, Not An Intensity or Maturity

Take two candidates: Madison and Abraham. Madison's #2 talent theme is Focus. You're psyched because that's the talent you're missing on your team DNA charts. Abraham has Focus at #10. So on the surface, Madison wins because she has that elusive talent you're looking for.

But wait! One thing you need to know about the tool is that it tells you each person's top talents ... for them. But it doesn't give you a measure of how well developed that talent is. And it doesn't give you an intensity level for that talent theme. So Abraham's #10 Focus could be stronger and better developed than Madison's #2 Focus talent. 

Reason 2: CliftonStrengths Was Designed As Development Tool, Not A Hiring Tool

CliftonStrengths (or StrengthsFinder as many of us know it by), is a tool offered by Gallup. Gallup is well known for their research, and they take their tools seriously. They designed the assessment as a professional development tool, not as a hiring tool. They recommend offering it to new hires when they join your company on the first day.

Imagine what a cool change-up that would be: being a new hire, coming in for your first day, and spending your onboarding experience learning more about what will put you at your best. That sounds so much better than filling out paperwork all day!

Gallup does, in addition to CliftonStrengths, have a consulting practice around Analytics Based Hiring. They have a whole segment of their business focused on employment, predictive analytics for a role, and custom assessments for hiring.

Most listeners will be saying, "Thanks Lisa, but I don't have a five or six figure budget for that kind of consulting." No worries. Of course, the main thing is to know how the research scientists designed the tool so that you don't get yourself into liability hot water.

Reason 3: You Might Make Your Search Tougher Than It Already Is

Here's a reaction I get constantly. It's something like, "Oh my gosh. Not a single person on the team has the Command talent theme. We need to add some bold, decisive people because we have tough client base, and we need people who can hang. The next new hire absolutely has to have Command."

Here's the thing. If you tried to act on that thought, you would be creating a search for a needle in a haystack. See, the Command theme is the least commonly seen talent in the entire database. A small percentage of people will have that theme. And once you find this elusive person, they may not be qualified for the job.

Imagine that Madison has Command at #1, and she has spent her entire career as an accountant. Abraham has Command at #19, and he has spent his entire career nerding out on rare coding languages. If you're filling a role for a software developer — and you need one of those critical and tough to find skills — you would be absolutely silly to prioritize Madison's Command talent over Abraham's rare skills. Not to mention, you would be dipping into reasons #4 and #5 …  

Reason 4: Searching By Strengths Might Distract You From Outcomes

When you look at a strengths DNA chart for your team and you see that your team has no one with Focus or Discipline, you might think, "Oh no, we're doomed. We'll never be able to make a plan and follow it to completion."

You could take this deficit mentality and start obsessing over how your current team doesn't do well with written plans. But don't lose sight of the bigger goals. Ask yourself: What are the outcomes your team is responsible for? Do you currently meet them? If you do, you probably use the existing talents you have in a way that acts like (or gets the same results of) a talent theme you're missing.

So maybe you have a person on the team with Activator who gets projects off of the starting blocks. And another guy with Arranger and Adaptability who shuffles things around seamlessly during your mid-project madness. And another team member with Achiever drives you to get-it-done status by keeping an eye on the finish line for each milestone.

As long as you're meeting the outcomes, it doesn't matter which talent gets you there. And finally, here's reason #5.

Reason 5: If You Prioritize Natural Talents, You Might Diminish Critical Hiring Factors

This one is, in my opinion, the most powerful of all. It's that your hiring decisions take into account a lot of factors about a candidate. You interview someone to vet their Knowledge, Skills, Experiences, and Talents.

A lot of times, you have critical timing factors as well. So for example, say you landed a big contract with a client. Your marketing team is creating a piece of cutting edge geo-targeted advertising software. You need this person yesterday (isn't that always what it feels like?).

If you hired by talent themes, Madison's Command and Focus would tell you she's the one. But if you consider Abraham's specialized coding languages, his experience with the client's specialized urban agriculture industry, and the knowledge and skills he built in the last 10 years in marketing, it sounds like a no-brainer that Abraham will be a top candidate.

So remember: even though talent is important, it's one of many factors.

Leverage Strengths To Build The Team

With all of that, you'll want a takeaway beyond a list of watch-outs. What do you do if you are still thinking that your team is hurting because you're missing a couple of talents? Three things:

1: On your existing team, have a conversation about how to partner up the talents you already have. In combination, they can act like the ones you're missing.

2: On your existing team, remember to focus on your team's strengths and easy buttons. Your talent gaps can stand out on a chart like a sore thumb and lead you to obsess over what you're missing, yet if you're building a strengths-based team, you'll want to focus on leveraging what you do have.

3: For the role you're hiring for, come up with questions that get to the thing you need. So, if you're lamenting the lack of planning on the team, rather than only considering candidates with the Focus or Discipline talent, ask questions and open conversations that get to similar outcomes.

Things like: 

• Tell me about a time when you took a complicated project from start to finish.
• What's your process for creating project timelines and communications? How do you keep yourself accountable to your commitments?
• Tell me about a situation when you were given an unrealistic deadline for a product launch.

You get the idea here. Think of the things that you want from the talent theme you don't have. And then ask about those things. You'll find that people can get to those same outcomes through many different talent themes — and the label doesn't matter as much as the result.

Strengths Resources

To get more of these strengths-focused conversation starters, check out our resources page — there are a bunch of tools related to StrengthsFinder, strengths-focused leadership, and on noticing what works so you can get more of what works.

Enjoyed the podcast?

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.

In this episode, Lisa explains how knowing your strengths, and the strengths of others, can help you get along better at work. You'll also find out what grizzly bears have to do with the workplace!

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths-based culture is to offer an appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. Get started by downloading this awesome tool that offers you 127 Easy Ways to Recognize Strengths on your team. Look for the box that says "Great Managers Notice What Works."

In this episode, you'll get a conversation guide you can use in your one-on-ones as a way to prevent conflict at work. The root of most conflict and consternation at work is missed expectations. As a leader, you have expectations of your team and they have expectations of you.

Interestingly, built into each of the 34 StrengthsFinder talent themes, you'll find some inherent needs and assumptions. For example, imagine an employee named Connor. He's on your team and he leads through the Includer talent. He needs to know there's room for everyone's opinion — including his. No surprise, since it feels good for an Includer to be included.

Each talent also often comes with the assumption and expectation that others might notice or value the same thing they do. It's natural for all of us to not realize how unique each person's assumptions and expectations are.

So in that example, Connor would notice that someone's ideas are being ignored. And he'd probably expect you, as the manager of the team, to rectify the situation. And then when you don't, he might wonder why you're such a jerk to flagrantly ignore the situation. Meanwhile, you lead through Analytical, Activator, and Command and it never occurred to you that someone has an issue. After all, if you had an issue, you'd say something quickly and directly.

The source of most conflict in the workplace is missed expectations. Usually these expectations are never spoken of. It's like we keep secrets in our minds. Well, not exactly. But we often assume others think the way we think or instantly understand what we expect from them. Our natural way of thinking and acting is so innate that we often don't notice we're doing it or that it's different from anyone else's perspective.

Here's an example to illustrate how conflict comes from missed expectations. I went to Glacier National Park for vacation. The most exciting hiking trail is called the Highline Trail. It's one of those trails that is only the width of the footpath. Teeny. There is a rail attached to the face of the mountain so that you can hang on because if you are the least bit afraid of heights you will think you are about to fall off the mountain to your death. So of course that is the trail I wanted to go on! We showed up at the visitor center ready to go, but there was a sign that said the Highline Trail is closed. Boo! Written on the whiteboard, it said they closed the trail because there's a carcass in the way. I was so bummed because it was THE attraction I wanted to experience at Glacier.

From the View of the Manager. Now let's break this example down in the context of expectations. Let's take the person who closed the trail. Imagine they are the manager on the team. They had to look out for the best interest of the team. They were afraid that hikers would be attacked because wildlife were trying to eat the carcass and we might be in danger if we got anywhere near the carcass. This is quite similar to what happens to managers at work. As a leader, you have to consider the broadest perspective. Without fail, you have conflicting demands — the things people want from you. And those things are rarely in alignment. A team member wants something different from you than your peer. And that request is different from what your leader is asking for. And that's different from what your customer has been requesting. And … inevitably you have to make tough decisions that disappoint people, in the same way that the park ranger's decision disappointed me at first.

From the View of the Team. Now, imagine grizzly bears, wolves, and mountain lions on the team. Where else do you hear a business show that tells you to get in the mind of a grizzly bear. Ha!  If they see a carcass on the trail they ar

e going to get it. If a tourist comes by, they will see the tourist as a food thief. They see someone who threatens their survival. They will assume that I want to eat that carcass and they will attack me. It is an incorrect assumption, but if you get in the mind of a mountain lion or grizzly bear you can absolutely understand. Likewise, you have seen this at the office before. This is why silos exist inside of companies. People are protecting information or status quo in order to ensure they can survive or thrive in their environment.

From the View of a Colleague in Another Department. And then there's me as a character in the example story from the hiking trail. I represent your disappointed colleague, visiting from another department. When I got the news that the trail was closed, I pouted for a minute (only in my mind, not out loud). I lamented the fact that the mountain lion and grizzly bear cannot understand me and just let me pass by. This is very much what happens on the job when you imagine people in other departments at the office. You wonder if they are blocking your progress on purpose. You wonder if they are ignoring your request or failing to trust you for any good reason. You know all you're trying to do is get your project further down the hiking trail.

Now to bring this (sort of silly) hiking metaphor into action, take a look at how StrengthsFinder can help you overcome these assumptions and expectations that lead to disappointment and conflict.

Each party is probably doing the best they can with what they have or what they know. Very few people come to work intending to sabotage. If you are lucky enough to know each other's StrengthsFinder talent themes, consider that person's top five themes to give you perspective on where they might be coming from. It will help you look for the good they are attempting to bring to the situation.

Understand what their talent themes need at the office. At leadthroughstrengths.com/resources I posted a conversation guide to help you prevent conflict by using StrengthsFinder. Look for a thumbnail image that says "strengths tips for teams" at the top and "prevent conflict" in the middle.

This document outlines the inherent needs that every one of the 34 talent themes has. If you can have an open conversation with the person on your team about these, you can prevent these missed expectations before they happen. If possible, you will want to have this conversation in a one-on-one meeting when you're not in the middle of a conflict. Knowing these things in advance will help you not assume things and will help you understand your team members' natural assumptions. If you use this guide during a conversation, here's what you do: Have the person look at their top five talent themes on the document. See if the Needs listed for their top five resonate with them. For those that do, ask them about what they would naturally assume or expect based on that need.

For example, if you have a new team member who leads through Consistency, he might expect that you have documented processes. That's one of his needs listed in the conversation guide. Then, when you ask about Assumptions, he tells you that he assumes he can and should enforce policies related to these processes. Imagine how good it would be for you to know that if he's replacing someone who was willy-nilly about things. Your new team member will likely be frustrated by the cobbled-together mess he's inheriting. And people from other departments will be surprised by his policing efforts. Yet if you know these things before conflicts happen, you can turn it around into a celebration of how he's going to get an efficient operation established.

If you want to make this Expectations and Assumptions one-on-one ultra–effective, come to that conversation having already prepared your own document. Of course, it's always good to be self-aware. It also allows you to show them an example so that they know what you're getting at. It keeps them from raising the skeptical eyebrow wondering why you're asking these things. Most of all, the reason to look inward first is that you have your own assumptions and expectations that you naturally view the world with. It's important to know these because it affects the way you lead.

For example, I expect that if someone sees something broken, misspelled, or incorrect, that they will fix it in the moment, regardless of whether it is their job description or not. This expectation comes from my Maximizer talent. And if you look at the document I made for you to download, you'll see that there's an inherent need that talent has — it's to respect quality as much as speed and quantity. On the other hand, It's perfectly reasonable for someone on the team to take a note of something broken and plan to fix that thing they noticed ... later. Well, reasonable to them. See, this is exactly why it's helpful for you to know how your expectations might be different from your team members. And, it's critical that you get comfortable verbalizing them to each other so that it's not only about you making demands of them. It's about an open conversation so you understand where each person is coming from and you can avoid the conflicts before they happen. In all directions.

To close out, here's one more example using the Connor with the Includer talent and the manager with the Analytical talent. Imagine you're the manager and you assigned a research project to Connor. He starts by collecting information from peers who are in a similar role. He gathers feedback from customers, from peers, and from end-users. Meanwhile, you are waiting for a spreadsheet to help you make a Go vs. No Go decision by using charts and graphs and data. Both are natural assumptions. Connor, the Includer, uses relationships to inform decisions through people's past experiences and feedback. You, leading with Analytical, find truth in data. One is qualitative. One is quantitative. Both are valuable. And if you don't know this about each other, you'll drive each other crazy! And of course, if you do know this about each other, you can make a powerful partnership.

Speaking of data, I'll end this episode with a bit of data for you. This is from Gallup's Q12 Employee Engagement research. They found that Employees who regularly apply strengths at work are 5.1x more likely to strongly agree that they know what is expected of them at work. Interesting, isn't it? That makes a direct and unexpected connection between the application of strengths and clear expectations.

Remember, if you want to use the document I made for you to explore Assumptions and Expectations according to their StrengthsFinder talent theme, get it at leadthroughstrengths.com/resources. Look for the "Preventing Conflict" image. Remember, the root of most disappointment and conflict at work is unmet expectations. You can get ahead of that by using StrengthsFinder to explore these default assumptions and expectations with each person on your team.

• Glacier's Who Eats Who chart - just for fun since you might wonder who was interested in that carcass.
• Prevent Conflict document

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.

050: What do StrengthsFinder Colors Mean?

In this episode, Lisa answers the question: What do the StrengthsFinder colors mean? She describes the three things you need to consider when looking at your colors: your thoughts, your demands, and your filters.

Have you downloaded your Strengths Tools?

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths-based culture is to offer appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. On our home page, you can download this awesome tool that offers you 127 easy ideas for recognizing your team. Scroll down and look for the box that says "Great Managers Notice What Works".

What do StrengthsFinder Colors Mean?

Today's question is: What do the StrengthsFinder colors mean? This question comes up straight away because smart people see the DNA icons on the Gallup Strength Center dashboard, or they notice there are some colors on their Signature Theme Reports or their Insight Report.

There are four of these potential categories, which Gallup calls Leadership Domains. The blue ones are Relationship talent themes, yellow are Influencing talent themes, red are Strategic Thinking themes, and purple are are Executing themes. Those words make the acronym RISE, so it makes it easier to remember: R-I-S-E for relationship, influence, strategic thinking, and executing.

Once you have that information, then what? I'll give you three ways to think about your color lineups or the StrengthsFinder colors you see for the people on your team.

One thing that's important to mention is that getting into the real detailed nitty-gritty of how to use these domains, or as I call them demands, is a more useful exercise once you have explored a lot of other elements related to StrengthsFinder. But, the question often comes up right away, so I'll give you three quick things to think about:

1. Your thoughts
2. Your demands
3. Your filters

Your Thoughts

Number one: your thoughts. These are your thoughts and reactions to actually seeing these colors. And the major point here is don't panic if you're looking at your own, and don't stereotype if you're looking at someone else's.

So, for example, you have no red in your lineup? No worries. Everybody still thinks, even if they don't have Strategic Thinking talents in their top five. Have no blue? You might say, "Oh, no, I can't even build a relationship? I'm a people manager. That sounds terrible." Well, everyone has relationships, unless you're a hermit living in the woods.

There's a concept that came up from a senior practice consultant at Gallup, I think it might've been Jacque Merritt. The idea is that there's not a brick wall that separates these four categories, it's more like a chain link fence.

You might have one category that is highly present in your top five that makes you think, "Oh look, I'm missing one." So, for example, I personally have no Executing talents on my top five, but I don't say, "Oh no, I'm doomed. I don't get anything done." My company would go out of business if that was the case, so we know that's not true. With this idea of it being more like a chain link fence, you can see how the concepts can flow into each other and you can make one color act like the other.

So that's the first one. Don't panic. Your strengths look the way they look and they are perfect for you. And if you see something on a teammate, don't stereotype them and assume they're going to be a certain way, because they are going to combine their whole 34-strength lineup to create who they are. Don't oversimplify things.

Your Demands

Number two: your demands.

Gallup calls these colors the Four Domains of Leadership because they originated from Gallup's study of team leadership. Their research found that the most cohesive and most successful teams had clusters of strengths.

There are 34 potential StrengthsFinder talent themes, but there are specific clusters in four areas. These clusters are useful for thinking about how each person might naturally contribute to a team and how a leader's personal lineup of talent will impact their leadership approach. Those four domains (and the four colors) are relationship, influencing, strategic thinking, and executing.

I actually call them the four demands, because most performers at work have to do all these things, not just those of you who are people managers.

So, rather than limiting them to be leadership domains, I like to call them demands because it includes people in team sessions in a way they can understand. And they can relate to them personally because they, too, have reports that have colors all over them and they also need to make sense of them.

Even when you don't have a given color in your top five, you likely have that demand on you in your workplace. What you can do with this is ask yourself what talent you have that can act in a way that compensates for the missing color.

I mentioned earlier that I don't have any Executing talents in my top five, but I definitely do execute. If I ran through my top five, I could think, "Well, how do these help me execute?"

My Strategic Talent helps me sort out options really quickly so I can decide how I'm going to do things and how I'm going to take action. I can do that quickly, rather than getting bogged down in analysis or holding more meetings about meetings. It helps me take fast and decisive action. So, it helps me execute, but it's actually a Strategic Thinking talent.

Let's look at some others. I have Positivity, Individualization, and Woo in my top five. Those three really combine as a lineup to make me a person with a lot of relationships in my life, relationships that I've nurtured over a long period of time.

So, when something needs to get done, they me find smart people who can get a given task done better than I can. Or, if I need to call on help from people, I inevitably have someone in my network where I can get a question answered easily. These are based on my Relationship and Influencing talents, but they still are helping me execute.

In the last example, I would use my Maximizer talent. That's an Influencing talent by category, but it also makes me want things to be better all the time. It creates a strong drive in me to get things done, to realize the latent potential that I see all over the place — the things and people and processes that could be better if we just put a little more execution effort into them.

Even though Maximizer is not an Execution talent, it's like an Execution motivator. You might not have a given color that represents that domain or that demand, but you can certainly apply it in that way.

Your Filters

Number 3: your filters. These four colors are also like a first filter — they define how you see and approach the world when something happens to you. They are your initial reaction.

Let's use an example of a big reorganization at a company, and I'll run through each of the four colors and talk about what it might look like if you were really heavy in that domain.

Relationship talents: Maybe you had a lot of blue Relationship talents, and a big reorganization gets announced. Let's say you work for a very large Fortune 500 company and you're going to have a merger or acquisition that will make your company double in size. You're going to go from huge to gigantic, and you know that's going to bring a lot of reorganization and questions about what is going to happen to different elements of work, who does what, what teams you'll be on, or whether you'll be redundant.

If you get that announcement and you have three or four Relationship talents in your top five, most likely you're going to be thinking first — your first filter — "Who is this going to affect? How are they going to react to the change?" Especially if you're a people leader, you'll be thinking of each person on your team who reports to you and how they're going to take this news and what they might be thinking about it.

Influencing talents: Let's take the example of Influencing talents. If you hear about a big reorganization and you're a people leader, you might be thinking, "Okay, how am I going to communicate this to the team? What is it going to sound like? How can I cast a vision that will make people want to come along? How can I make this exciting? How can I get momentum for the change going?"

Strategic Thinking talents: If you had four or five red Strategic Thinking themes, your first reaction to something like that might be to go do some deep pondering. Or it might be to crunch some numbers and really consider what this is going to do. You might learn all you can, collecting tons of information. It's a cerebral exercise. When something big happens, you go inside your head.

Executing talents: If you had three or four Executing talents, instead of thinking of this big picture merger, you would likely go straight from that 30,000-foot view of a merger down to the 3-foot view. How is it going to affect the operations? Who is going to do what? What will it look like at a task-level and a man-hours level? How will it affect the operations? What about redundant systems? How are we going to approach this great idea of what these two companies can become? And how do you make it practical and work for the everyday?

What if you're heavy in one color?

You can see how all four of those filters are really important for people to have in an organization., and it's great for all four to be represented on a team. But I also want to make sure that you don't feel like it's a bad thing if you are heavy in one color. This is a reaction I get often where people think, "Oh my gosh. I'm just a one-dimensional person. I have four or five in one color."

Remember that Strengths-based development is all about what comes naturally to you. Your natural talents are how you think and feel and behave at your natural best. They are your easy buttons for great performance. If you start lamenting what you're not, you're doing the opposite of Strengths-based development. You don't have to covet the people that have the Skittles mix with all sorts of colors in their top five.

What if you have all the colors?

Now, if you do have all four of the colors presented in your top five, you may have a hard time relating to the concept of the first filter — your first filter may not be strong in one of those areas like it would be if you had three, four, or five in one color. If you have the Skittles mix of colors, I would suggest you just consider which of your top five talents speaks loudest when there's a big change.

For example, for me, it's probably Woo because I'm instantly thinking, "How are we going to message this? How can I make this change palatable or likeable to people on the team? How can I make this exciting?" I also might be thinking things like, "Who else do I need to meet and learn from to become who I need to become to reach this next goal?" So, I would say that Woo is the loudest and my first filter. You might recognize one talent as the strongest, even if you have a big mix of colors.

Conclusion

So that's it. If you just took the StrengthsFinder assessment for the first time and noticed these colors and are wondering what they mean, you're smart and you picked up on something very nuanced.

Just remember these three ideas:

1. Your thoughts: Manage your thoughts and your reactions to seeing the colors. Don't panic, don't stereotype.
2. Your demands: You actually have the four demands on your personal leadership, or the four domains if you want to refer to them that way.
3. Your filters: Think of your Talent Themes and see if they offer you a first filter when major things happen to you.

If you want some other Strengths-focused tools to use with your team at work, check out LeadThroughStrengths.com/resources. There you'll find at least one handout that references these four demands, plus a lot of other tools related to StrengthsFinder and Strengths-focused leadership.

I look forward to hearing how you and your team members will claim your talents and share them with the world!

Subscribe To The Lead Through Strengths Podcast

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.

In this episode, Lisa tackles the topic of managing employee burnout. She uses the example of an overwatered plant: if you see the leaves turning yellow, your first thought is to add more water. But sometimes yellow leaves are a sign that the plant is overwatered—by adding more, you're just drowning it. In the same way, many actions managers take to help their employees actually make things worse. In this episode, Lisa shows you how to discern the true causes of burnout and teaches you how to help in the right ways.

Strengths Tools

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths-based culture is to offer an appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. On our homepage, you can download this awesome tool that offers you 127 easy ideas for recognizing your team. Scroll down and look for the box that says "Great Managers Notice What Works".

Can Working In Your Weakness Zone Lead To Burnout?

I made a comment in a team StrengthsFinder session the other day. It was that when you find yourself procrastinating on the same task over and over again, it might be a sign that it's in your weakness zone.

A few faces in the crowd made the lightbulb look. A few had this look of, "Whoa, I never even considered that." Pretty quickly, they started asking about what signs and symptoms to look out for.

There are three important symptoms that are clues you're frequently working in your weakness zone:

1. You're frustrated.
2. You feel soul-sucked.
3. You're burned out.

As a regular listener, you hear me say all the time that using your strengths at work will strengthen your performance. So wouldn't it also hold true that using your weaknesses at work would weaken your performance?

When you think about yourself, it's easy to notice these symptoms: You know when you're personally in a state of burnout or frustration. You know when work is feeling like soul-sucking drudgery, even if you're trying to not show it on the outside. Sometimes these symptoms can sneak up on you over time, yet once they hit you hard, you know they're there. Now you simply have to figure out what's causing it and do something about it.

If you're a people manager or a talent management professional, this gets tougher. That's because often the same symptoms show up in people who are disengaged out of boredom or lack of care are the symptoms that show up when someone is giving every ounce of energy to the job … only it's in a weak area, so it sucks the life out of them.

People are kind of like plants in this way. You know how the leaves turn yellow if your plant needs water and is unhealthy? They show the same symptom when they're overwatered. So you might have a plant that is drowning and you think, "This plant is yellow. It must need water." So you water it. And it drowns more. It gets worse.

People are the same. They might be soul-sucked from working in their weakness zone. Rather than turning yellow, they turn disengaged. They appear bored or detached. They have less fire and zeal in their attitude. So you try to find them more work to offer them a challenge. And oops … you were over-watering their weakness zone already. Things only get worse.

My mother in law helped me fix this with my plants — she gave me a moisture meter. If a leaf is yellow, I can stick a probe in the ground and see if it's too wet or too dry. Yessss! I stopped killing plants. An easy fix. But what about humans? They're not that easy. There's no strengths-zone probe. You have to have conversations to dig deeper.

Let's look at an example for each of the three symptoms so you can explore the kind of conversations you might have as a team to uncover these draining weakness-zone responsibilities.

1. Frustration

What to do about it: If you have a team member who is mature and highly accountable, they're not going to complain and kvetch. So be on the lookout for the tiniest comments about a project that's eating them up. For example, they may make light of banging their head against the wall.

Even if you can't assign them fast-moving projects without red tape because you're in a culture with a lot of bureaucracy, think about things like assigning them to the front end of a project and then handing it off to a partner who thinks it's fun to get to the finish line and use persistence to solve problems. Or, you can keep an eye out for projects that create something new versus maintaining or changing long-standing traditions.

2. Feeling soul-sucked

What to do about it: If you have someone calling on talents that run counter to their values, it is going to suck their soul. You can often see this one on people's faces. When people are performing regular job duties that insult their personal values, they will procrastinate. They will resist. They will roll their eyes. Even if they're mature and they wouldn't literally roll their eyes, you can usually see subtle signs show up in offhand comments or in how they act.

Be on watch so you can open up a conversation that helps them reframe it by approaching the situation through another talent. Or, help them address the conflict constructively so that they can have a productive conversation with the person or team who hold the conflicting value.

3. Burnout

What to do about it: This one is easy to spot in yourself, yet tougher to spot in high performers. When top performers are burned out, they try to keep going. They often use brute force to keep performing. They'll stay up later. They'll skip workouts. They'll push through. There will often be few signs of trouble, at least for a while. For other employees, burnout is easier to spot because they appear and act disengaged. That's easy to see and address — it's your top performers that you need to check in with more deliberately because they often won't say anything for months.

Unfortunately, I've heard way too many stories where burnout led top performers to start a job search in the background because they don't want to ask for help or appear like a weak performer by bringing up their burnout.

Now you have three symptoms to look for in yourself or on your team, four if you count procrastination as a bonus symptom. Of course, there are many actions you can take to get out of your weakness zone.

Action steps to take after you see symptoms

• Swap tasks around on the team.
• Partner up with someone who loves doing that thing you loathe.
• Use one of your Top 5 StrengthsFinder talent themes to get the same outcome in a new way.
• Name the situation, because simply knowing that it's driving you crazy will often diffuse a lot of the stress from it.
• Make a Stop Doing list — ask stakeholders, managers, peers, and customers more questions about how they use the results of the work that you're doing (the work that's sucking the life out of you). Often, participants from my training events tell me that the task isn't even required any longer.
• Reframe the situation. For example, a recent virtual training attendee told me that he was late on his expense reports 100% of the time. He got scolded for it every month and didn't care. That is, until his colleague in the accounting department told him that he was killing her — she was staying late and missing her deadlines for closing out the books every month. He quickly mended his ways by tapping into his Relator talent, which made him care about the outcome because he cared about her.

Questions To Ponder

What's going on with you at work? What makes you feel frustrated regularly? What happens in the weeks and months when you feel burned out? What responsibilities feel soul-sucking?

Then apply this to people around you. If you supervise people, this is important to watch for. Open up the conversation. Talk to your direct reports in one-on-ones about what responsibilities and projects make them feel alive and excited and which ones make them feel consistent dread and stress?

Since your team members will have stronger performance by working in their strengths, what can you do to align their work and their thinking with their natural talents?

Subscribe To The Lead Through Strengths Podcast

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

What do math dreaming, crowdfunding, and Sunday night heart palpitations all have in common? You'll have to tune in to find out! 😀

Join us for some real talk about the common fears and hesitations many aspiring coaches face when starting their business, like feeling unprepared or overwhelmed by the need for a perfect plan. But fear not! You'll be encouraged to embrace the messiness of starting out, and reminded that it's okay to pivot and change your business model as you grow.

So, whether you're in the dreaming phase or already knee-deep in your entrepreneurial journey, this episode is packed with insights, encouragement, and a few laughs to help you navigate your own path. Join us as we explore the ups and downs of starting a coaching practice. Let's celebrate the beauty of building a business that aligns with who you are!

🌟

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 team workshops and retreats at the Lead Through Strengths site. For 1:1 strengths or life coaching, check out the Get Coached link. For independent coaches, trainers, and speakers, get business tools support with our Tools for Coaches membership.

Takeaways

●      Embrace the journey: Every entrepreneur has their own unique path to success. And it doesn't happen overnight. Whether you stumble into it or plan meticulously, what matters is that you keep showing up.

●      Use your strengths: Instead of following what others say you should do, focus on what feels authentic and enjoyable for you.

●      Don't fear imperfection: It's okay to experiment, pivot, and change your business model as you learn what works best for you.

●      Community is key: Finding a supportive community can help you build belief in your abilities and access resources to navigate challenges.

●      Assess and Adapt: Regularly step out to evaluate your business. What's working? What's not? This reflection can help you make informed decisions about your business direction so you can grow with intention and maximize your impact.

●      Do it scared: Sometimes, the best opportunities arise when we least expect them. If you're feeling stuck or hesitant, remember that action often leads to clarity.

🎧 Tune in to the full episode to hear more about our personal stories, the challenges we faced, and the lessons we've learned along the way. Whether you're a seasoned coach or just starting out, there's something in this episode for everyone!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on these takeaways and your own coaching origin stories. Share your experiences in the comments or connect with me on LinkedIn! Let's keep the conversation going!

#Coaching #Entrepreneurship #BusinessJourney #Strengths #Community #Podcast

Let's Connect!

●      LISA: Website | LinkedIn | Facebook

●      BREA: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram

AI-Generated Transcript

Lisa: I'm Lisa.

Brea: I'm Brea.

Lisa:
Hi, I'm Lisa. And I'm Brea. And in today's episode, we're going to talk about Sunday night heart palpitations. Oh my gosh.

Brea: Wait, what happened on Sunday?

Lisa: I mean, actually, we're talking about starting a coaching business. That is part of my origin story. Instead of it being from starting a coaching business, it led me to start a business. But I just thought that was Yeah. Just a little teaser.

Brea: Yes. Like you were not looking forward to Monday. So you were getting stressed out.

Lisa: Well, you would think. But I would literally have this every single week in the job that I was in. And I loved my team and the CFO that I reported to. Like, it was just super cool on so many levels. And the role was a bad fit for me. And I literally had severe palpitations every Sunday night. And I would just I would sit on the couch and I would do breathing exercises. And you would think that I would, being such a health nut, that I would care about my cardiovascular health or otherwise. But it took a moment where my husband was actually in the room with me and he said, what was that? Because I had this hitch in my breath where I was like, and just trying to kind of breathe through the, the, the janky body systems. What was that? And I was like, sending out heart palpitations and he was like, uh, you need to quit. And he was like, you need to quit now. That is severe. And, and I was like, wait, are you serious? And he said, yeah. And I'm like, oh, um, that sounds really exciting, but I haven't planned anything. I don't know what I would do after this. And I am mega planner. I would totally have written it up differently, but I thought that would actually be a good part of this story because I didn't do it at all the way I would do it if I planned and I worked my regular system. But it was a time where a little intervention was called for and it took someone else noticing how bad it was for me to do the wake up.

Brea: Wow. Okay. I like this. I mean, it's just so good to hear what other people have gone through. And I know that there are other people that are listening that have had a similar palpitation or a similar hesitation of just, I've thought about going for it, but I just, I don't have all my ducks in the row. I, I'm not quite there yet, you know, and very different experience on my end, but also similar in the way of, If I knew then what I know now, I probably definitely would not have done it the way that I did it. No preparation, you know, I mean, really, it was bootstrapped from ground zero. So similarities and differences in our story. Yeah, this is exciting. Okay.

Lisa: I think this is a fun conversation for listeners because just like you said, some people are in the midst of the heart palpitations. Some people have been wanting to leave for 10 years, but they can't figure out like what it actually means. How do you know when your ducks are in a row? And some people are busy kind of filling their minds with this. But hey, like I've met people who had a pension and then they retired and they had money coming in forever. And they could use that to fund the business and not be scared. Or you must have had a buku bucks saved up, ready to go. And that made you confident. And I don't have the advantages that other people have. And the truth is, for a lot of us, it just takes courage, I would totally be the person who had preferred a plan. I would have done it absolutely differently. I would have spent a year or two figuring all those things out up front, because that would feel great to me. But it's not how it turned out that night, the heart palpitation night. We actually stayed up really late, which is odd for me. I'm like a be in bed by 10 o'clock kind of person. And it was one of those, like, stay up until 1 a.m. talking about all the things, like, what if I don't sell anything? Am I going to make us lose the house? What is the repercussion if I'm terrible at this? What if it all goes wrong? When it came down to it, after fast forward through like four hours of what's the worst that could happen, my answer was, if I lose it all, we'll go live in an RV. We're going to be camp hosts at some beautiful state park and life's going to be fine. And that never came true. But it did give me it gave me the confidence to to be like, all right, I'm not going to suffer and starve literally.

Brea: Yeah, that's so interesting, because that conversation would have sent me running for the hills. I would have been scared out of my mind and never would have jumped. But for me, I didn't have the luxury of even asking myself those questions. I accidentally fell into being a business owner. And that's the honest to God truth, I never set out to like open my own business. I had an unfortunate series of just a lot of instability in different jobs. And at one point a contract was ending and I was just like, what am I going to do next? And strengths had always been something that I was very passionate about. I've used strengths in different jobs, different companies, different capacities on my own, but never really explored being a coach or doing that as a career, let alone owning my own business and doing that full time. That was never a part of my thought process until There was no next step. And it just so happened that the very next week after my contract ended was the certification course to become a strengths coach in Omaha. I was living in Omaha at the time. I walked out of one job and into the certification course and I was like, I know this is my next step. How was I gonna use that? I have no idea, but I'm gonna do it. How am I gonna pay for that? I have no idea. I've been a missionary for four years. I'm not making a lot of money. I don't have a lot in savings. So do you know what I did? I crowdfunded $10,000 to pay for my certification. And I went into my certification course with 100 paying clients, people who paid in exchange for coaching. So think of it like a pre-sell. They were on the books. I came out of that certification and I coached a hundred people in less than 60 days. And they were all different kinds of people. Stay at home moms, students, couples, professionals, people who were in job transition, people who were in the C-suite, people who were business owners, people who were individual contributors. I mean, I got so much experience right out of the gate and built the business just because I could, you know, one step at a time.

Lisa: Yeah, and in the what went well column, I am hearing this brilliant thing that happened out of your creativity. And desperation, okay. Which does create a lot of stamina and motivation, right? Yes. That thing that happens often with coaches setting up their business and they are like, I don't know what I want to specialize in. I don't know what my niche is. I don't know what I love the most. And you coming out having a hundred people in 60 days. You got exposed to that wide swath of types of people and types of coaching that you just described. What a brilliant way to get in there and actually experience it. Because you're only guessing and hypothesizing. Like, if I would have picked my niche, and I would have done my year or two planning, doing all the things, I would have been guessing, and I know I would have guessed wrong, and I would have remade a lot of it, because I did that anyhow after I created it. What a beautiful way to get a head start on clarity of what you like and what aligns with your strengths.

Brea: You know, it, it did bring a lot of clarity. Even more than that, it brought a lot of practice. You know, I just got a lot of reps really, really fast, which also brought a lot of confidence. And the thing that I love the most about crowdfunding was my life before strengths was a lot of marketing and sales and being a missionary. So by running this crowdfunding campaign, people seeing me every day posting different things about the campaign and strengths and all the things. Like, people knew Brea as the strengths girl, right? Instead of Brea the missionary or Brea, however we first, you know, connected and came to know each other, they knew about this change. So it was possible for me to make this. Not even a career pivot. I mean, this is a huge jump a huge change and I was able to bring people along because They were part of it. They were the bridge that got me there. So if you're listening and you were Part of that go for Brea campaign. Thank you so much because look at what we did It's amazing.

Lisa: Go Team Brea. That is so cool. I definitely would mark that in the What Went Well column on about four different tallies. That's great. And I did mine differently, but I think we were both using our strengths for this What Went Well category. So I started a podcast and I felt really comfortable. This was early days of podcast. It was actually called Pinch Yourself Careers. I thought I was going to do more career transition coaching. And that is what the original name of this podcast was. It was the name of the business entity. And I'm just bringing this up because people are like, oh my gosh, I got the name wrong. I got the thing wrong. Me too. Me too. This podcast was totally a different niche than I ended up choosing. Pinch Yourself Careers, very different from the CliftonStrengths focus of today. When they were in career transition, I asked people, hey, What questions do you have? If you are in a career transition or you know someone in a career transition, send it through and then I'm doing Q&A and they would send an audio question through or even just a one sentence question and I would answer it in the podcast. So, I thought it was a really cool way to get the word out that I was playing in that space and I didn't have to have my sales pitch refined yet. I didn't have to have all that sitting down yet. It was, I was self-sponsoring my own podcast. And I was adding value out in the world. And people were getting to know me for being a career coach, then later, people development coach, then later specifically, team development and big corporate with CliftonStrengths, with, with team dynamics through CliftonStrengths. So, It evolved, but it was very comfortable. And I think because I felt good going back to my existing network, and I had a big corporate network because I always kept in touch with people, that felt like a natural way to plug in, be of service, and also start to spread the word that I was out there on my own offering a service.

Brea: Yes, that's so great. That's a lot of ticks in your win column as well, using what has worked for you in the past in the pivot that you made. I think that's awesome. I definitely relate with the feeling of, oh my gosh, what am I going to name my business? What is my brand going to look like? And what is my website going to look like? And I have to get it all right because This is what people are going to see and this is how they're going to think of me. I don't know the answers. I'm just figuring it out. So how can I do all those things? But I need those things. So like, oh my gosh, it's so overwhelming. It's OK. You can change your mind. I just want everybody listening to hear you just get started. It's really not that big of a deal what you call your business. It's really not. It feels that way, especially if you have communication. Number one, hi. I get it, but like it's really not that big of a deal. Just so true. Get out there and go.

Lisa: And even literally, like if you're in the U.S., not every listener is of course, but in the U.S. there's literally a thing called a doing business as. So on top of whatever entity you already bought, you set up a doing business as and you can add, you could have four of them. You can keep changing your name until you figure out who you are and then it's going to be fine. It is not a huge deal. It's not.

Brea: It's really not. I love that. You know, I have a lot of things in the I wish I would have done it differently column as well. Okay, so the crowdfunding campaign was playing to a lot of my strengths. And I'm believing what the internet is telling me. I'm getting sucked into all the things that I hear and read from all the other business owners and the social media influencers that are telling me I have to do this. I have to do that. I have to do it like this. I have to do it like that. What were some of the whispers that were getting you? Oh my gosh, I was spending hours a day creating graphics to post and finding the right words to make the perfect post that would convince people, influence people to go for Brea, right? To pledge toward the campaign. hours a day. I mean, that's exhausting. When I realized it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to get out there. And the easiest way for me to do that is talking. My talent is telling stories. My talent is on video. So I was just like, okay, Facebook Live, here we go. And I pushed a button and I would just talk and then it was done and it was out there and I couldn't edit it if I wanted to. So hours a day turned into minutes a day and the impact was so much greater. People were commenting and liking and sharing and pledging. The impact was there, the results were there when I started using my talents and stopped doing it like I thought that I should. So don't use my experience as a prescription of how you should move forward, but hear the underlying theme of use your talents to build your business and build your business around your talents. Create offerings that make sense for you because when you show up at your best, I mean, that's better for everyone else that you're serving.

Lisa: Yeah, that sounds so amazing. I could just feel the momentum shift, even though you're taking us back via story, but I could feel the difference like, oh, I'm spending hours worrying about it. It's the same today. We hear the same story from so many people who are like, oh, I just labor over trying to create the perfect social or get myself on video and I don't want to be on there, but I should do this. I should do that. This is the formula. And the great question, it's so obvious being a strengths coach, but even those of us going into strengths coaching, we forget to say, what would be fun? What would actually make us feel alive? And then, of course, you're going to attract people to you who want to be in your circle. That's the kind of customer you want to attract when you're at your best. So perfect. Yeah, that's right. I did very different things. So if we want to just give a contrast on not taking Breas as a prescription, and then what are some other ways people get started? I lead through Maximizer. And I lead through Strategic. And so I'm always thinking of things like, Every time I would ask myself the question, every time I would create something, I would say, How can I maximize this over and over again? Can I recycle content? Can I put things out there that are so timeless, someone could use it? four months later, and it's still just as relevant. If I'm going to go out on social media and post something, it's going to disappear out of an algorithm within 20 minutes. So why not use it over and over again? I had that thought from the beginning, and it felt so cool to use that as a filter from the beginning. And so if I'm going to make a podcast episode, then I'm going to turn that into a blog post as well. I'm going to turn that into email marketing. it's going to be content that someone could enter at any time five years into the future or today. And it's going to be just as useful for them. And I'm going to put together a series so that everything I do compounds on top of the next thing. And it's like baby steps, building one thing after the other thing after the other thing. And all you have to do is put one foot in front of the other. So from the beginning, I was really strategic about that. And it felt wise, even though it wasn't the fastest momentum, I knew it was wise. And I knew that it was exciting to be able to take something and reuse it. And it really, really worked. It got me out of a lot of pinches later when I needed to step away from the business. And then I was still showing up because I was showing up in automations. that I had created years before. But it also, I was like, this is going to add up, even if I'm really busy and I only have time to do something once a month or once every two weeks, everything matters. And years later, it looks like years worth of content. And it happened really slowly. If you want everything to be lined up and perfect, and that leads you to do nothing, it's better to do something regularly. And I think that's a great lesson for anybody who's starting up

Brea: That's right. I love so many things from what you shared. I want to dub you the evergreen queen. It's such like a, just a court to who you are. I don't know, hearing that, that was so natural for you, even from the very beginning. I think that that's a real superpower that you have. Yeah, that's cool.

Lisa: Thank you. Yeah, there was another one. I think that one really spoke to my maximizer. One that I would say I both did well and I would do differently is when I was picking what I would focus on and what the business model would be, I remember going through strengths and thinking, all right, I lead through activator. I lead through strategic. I lead through these fast moving talents. I do not like having open loops hang over my head. And so I just decided I love kickoffs. It's sales kickoff meeting. It's your team summit. It's your team retreat. I love doing them and people need them and have them. So that is a what went well column. What I would do differently, though, is I might think a little more deeply about What could I have done to serve those customers more actively without it being a consulting engagement? Because I kind of wrote it off, like, it's either going to be kickoff and I'm out, which felt good, or it's going to be kickoff leading into a giant engagement. And I didn't like the idea of a giant consulting engagement. So I think what I would do differently there is I would have come up with more strategies to go deep in service of that customer without it having to be a consulting model because I was acting like there are only two choices, this way or that way. But that meant every sale I have to start over. Every prospect is a new prospect. And sometimes you get, you get spinoff business, you get repeat business, you get things like that. But I could have been more strategic about leveraging the accounts that I already had trust with and already had a relationship with. So give me a win tally because it was aligned with my strengths, but also give me a ding that I allowed myself to have to start over with the selling process.

Brea: 100% that is my experience as well. And I am not surprised because we share some similar talents that I think are contributing to that pattern. But yes, I definitely wish that I would have put some more thought into how do I continue to nurture and maintain those relationships.

Lisa: So you've worked with a lot of coaches also, we both have. What do you see they wish they would do differently after they come in and they feel frustrated, they feel like an incompetent business person and they're about to leave and go back to their former work lives?

Brea: Wow, what a loaded question. You know, it might just be because I bring marketing experience, so these might be the kinds of coaches that I attract, but I hear a lot of, I need to be doing social media, I need to be doing email sequences, I need to be doing more of that, more marketing, more messaging. Which, yes, there is so much value in that. And also, I don't have an email list. I never have. Really? It sucked the life out of me. Yes.

Lisa: What? No email list?

Brea: Yes. I know. I know. It's a shocker, right? It's like a doctor whose kids never go to the doctor or whatever.

Lisa: I see an email marketing fan, Lisa, over here. I'm like, what? No way.

Brea: But here's the thing is I choose as a consumer don't love being on email lists. I don't like sitting behind my computer and doing it. And I also, because I have high communication and a lot of training around how to craft a message, I don't like paying people to do it because they're never going to nail my voice like I will. So, it's either I do it or nobody does it and I just choose to connect with people in other ways that feel better to me. So, that makes sense for me. It is possible to run a business without an email list. Yeah. There's a lot of value in having an email list and doing it well. But, you know, I also kind of stopped. I mean, I haven't done my Instagram in almost two years. I haven't posted anything. And that's a big like.

Lisa: No, no in the marketing world and still it's possible, you know to like grow a business media Yeah, social is not my level English It's funny because I love email marketing because I love the automation of it and all of the evergreen part being evergreen Queen But I the same reaction I had like, oh no, no email. I'm the same on social media where I'm on social media and There are so many ways. I mean, that's the thing. So many ways to do it. Yeah. It's just like we understand this about strengths. There are so many ways to get a thing done and it's the same. There are so many marketing channels. You can run ads. You could write a book. You can run challenges. You can do cold calling. You can go to in-person conferences. You could run it on an email list. You could have a great blog. You could have affiliate sales. sell for you. You could be an affiliate for somebody else as your full business model. You could be on older things that other people are off of like Telegram or Snapchat. I mean like. Carrier pigeon anybody?

Brea: You could.

Lisa: You totally could. You could be a podcast guest. You could be a podcast host. There are Dozens of ways you could build a business and they don't all have to be social media. I love that. Think of all the possible channels and especially for those of you who are listening who are like, yeah, I have three clients, but I need 30 to have a solid book of business. How did you get those three? What is your easiest channel? What is your most effective channel? And a lot of times that's your answer where to drill into because you probably like it and people have responded well to it. And meanwhile, you're over here thinking, oh my gosh, I have to be on social media or whatever you're putting yourself under pressure for. But your answer is over there and your three clients that you already attracted and why they came to you so naturally.

Brea: Right. Did they come to you from social media? No. Do they come from your email list that you don't have? No. Then why do you think you need those things? Where did they come from? What is working? Lean into that. Lean into that. That's something that I wish I would have done earlier in my business journey, but a lot of grace. I've learned as I've gone. It's fine. I wish I would have done more of that looking backward, even just once a year, but quarterly, kind of assessing where is my profit? Where's my revenue coming from? What is turning the biggest profit? Those are two questions I didn't ask myself until I was, I don't know, maybe three years into business. I had no idea where my clients were coming from. No idea, you know, and I was just, whatever was in front of me was what I was doing. And I, there was no strategy. It was all just reacting, which is in line with my talents. So it serves me in a way. And I have other talents that love to plan and could have, I mean, I have strategic number six. there was room to refine a little bit and build a little bit more intentionally. So look to your talents and look to what's in front of you.

Lisa: Yes, you have data right in front of you. Just start playing with numbers. What do I need? How do I need to do this to get people in and how many does it need to be? And if you already are attracting people into your funnel in some way, all you have to do is back into how you've already gotten customers and your answers will be right there.

Brea: That's right. Yep. And because you're the boss, like you can see the data in front of you and decide that you want to keep going in that direction. Or you can say, okay, that serves me to this point, but now I want to try something different. You know, you don't have to be scared about what you're going to find because the data is just information. It's just helping you make a decision. You know, I love one of your coaching questions is how can you add a zero? Yes. There's a great book out there called the 10x book. What's that called? How to how to 10x your business or something.

Lisa: Oh, it's the same thing. Adding a zero is 10xing. I didn't know. I don't know that book.

Brea: Oh, well, it's such a great question. How do you add a zero, right? It's also a good question for an upsell, downsell situation. You know, if you come in with, we'll just do a hundred bucks for easy math because my math does not math very well in my head. Let's say you're offering a coaching session for $100. You need an upsell and you need a downsell, right? So how can you add a zero or take away a zero to give them an easier step up or an easier step down if that signature offer or that standard is not working for them?

Lisa: So many things we've learned along the way. Math dreaming is a thing. Obviously, I've told Brea about my Add a Zero challenge before. This started off, at the time, the biggest contract I had ever sold was $29,000. And I was like, $29,700. So what I have to add to sell a package for $297,000. So I went off and sold a package for $297,000. One single transaction. Come on! Yes! Yes, but I had to dream it up first, you to say like, what value would have to be added? And how can I say it to us with a straight face? And who would I have to say it to? And what conditions would have to be present for them to want to buy it? But then I've also done the thing where I'm like, what's a $300 product that would just be super easy, that would be really attainable for somebody who doesn't have a budget, that would be a nice add-on. So going lower ticket, higher ticket, play with the math, play with the numbers. I swear it's fun. It can be fun.

Brea: It can be fun. Absolutely.

Lisa: You're like, yeah, yeah, that sounds great.

Brea: No, it can be. And I think this goes in the, I wish I would have done this sooner or known this sooner category. It's so easy for us to just get caught up in the moving forward. The momentum is here. We find ourselves working on this or saying yes to a project. And so then we just kind of keep moving in the direction that we're going. You'll never get to that $290,000 contract if you don't give yourself permission to shoot for it. If you don't give yourself the target, you're not going to get there. That's not going to fall in your lap. I mean, never say never, but that's never going to happen. So take some time every now and then to step out and allow yourself to see where you are in your business today and then dream about where you want to go, what could be. And if you're stuck in that place right now, you haven't started your business yet and you're just in the dreaming phase and you're thinking, gosh, wouldn't it be amazing if I could start this business and here are my aspirations. You got to take the first step. You know, you got to, you got to get into the business. So I think that's my biggest takeaway. If you're in the business, Try to take a step out every now and then. Or maybe you're outside of the business, you're thinking about a business, you need to take a step in. Wherever you are today, just give yourself some time to also step in or step out.

Lisa: Yes, yes. And I will piggyback on that and say, closing thoughts here. Along the lines of what Brea was talking about, if you're not taking the time to dream and you don't have anyone else to dream with, it makes it more difficult to believe it's possible. So if I were to start over, I would do something like my tools for coaches membership, where you can spend a hundred bucks a month and you're in the presence of these other amazing coaches who have incredible businesses. They're living the dream already. And you can build your belief because you're like, Oh my gosh, they're already doing all those things that I thought I just imagined, but people are actually buying that they're doing it. And And it is such great motivation to both get inspired by them, build your belief from them, learn together. It's, it's really an incredible process. So if you have trouble believing, because you're not going to live into it until you believe it, if you have trouble with some of that belief, come join a group like my Tools for Coaches group. Just go to LeadThroughStrengths.com, click on Tools for Coaches. And we will help you because we will show you how we're living it out in all different ways.

Brea: I love that. I was never short on the belief. I believed in things that I had no business believing. I had no business for reality. I was never short on belief, but I wish I would have asked for help if I had known then what I know now. This community of coaches is just incredibly generous, and we are so much better together than we are alone. I had every belief that I could do it, that I would do it, that it was going to work out, that the world needs what I can offer. I mean, that was never a question. But how to do it, I had no idea. I mean, I really just built the plane as I was flying and I could have asked for more help. I could have reached out and I didn't know that. So if you feel alone, you are not alone. And you have two people here who would love to Love to come alongside you and be your cheerleader, provide resources, connect you to other people, other resources. So please, if that's you, go ahead and reach out to Tools for Coaches with Lisa or just come to my website. We can get on a call and see how I might be able to help you or connect you with the resources that you're looking for. That would be awesome.

Lisa: Go to BreaRoper.com. What if you want to coach? who will dream with you, who won't tell you your dream is stupid, who will help you build on what you already have and align your strengths to it. Brio would be so perfect for that.

Brea: Thanks.

Lisa: Now for the listeners, it would be so fun to hear other people's coaching origin stories, coaching backstory. How did you get started? So come over to LinkedIn and share yours.

Brea: I love that. Well, as they say in the music business, that's a wrap.

Lisa: That's a wrap.

Brea: See ya.

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.

In this episode Lisa answers the question, "If every person has unique gifts, shouldn't they be easier to spot?" She uses the example of her trip to Bratislava, Slovakia, to explain that it's hard to see what's going on in our own heads every day. To help us learn what our strengths are, and the strengths of others, Lisa provides individual and team exercises that are easy to follow. She points out that it's extremely important that you bring out the talents on the team. You can do it by noticing what's working so that you can get more of what's already working for you. This notice-and-say-something approach allows you to leverage areas of team potential that bring out your top performance in life and in work.

You'll find lots of StrengthsFinder, leadership, and team tools on our Strengths Resources page.

Here's the video of Lisa telling the Bratislava story as an example of not being able to see things in yourself that stand out to others.

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths based culture is to offer appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. On our home page, you can download this awesome tool that offers you 127 easy ideas for recognizing your team. Scroll down and look for the box that says "Great Managers Notice What Works".

You're listening to Lead Through Strengths, where you'll learn to apply your greatest strengths at work. I'm your host, Lisa Cummings, and today I'm here to help you answer this episode's question, "Hey, if everyone has unique gifts, wouldn't they be easy to see?"

This is such an important question. It came from someone at a recent StrengthsFinder training event. She felt totally competent on the job, but she didn't feel "gifted" in any way. Now, if you're listening as a people leader or a Strengths champion this is doubly important to tune in to, because it makes your role in strengths-spotting that much more important.

People often can't see their own strengths. One of the most important roles you have as a manager, or as a leader of a strengths movement, is to develop the talent on your team. There's so much power in you seeing and unleashing their talents. You can change the course of your team and whether it meets its goals. You can even change the course of your team members' entire careers - just by being able to tap into their potential.

So let's back up and get to the why of the original question.

The essence of the original question is, "Why are talents so tough to spot?" I experienced an example on a business trip that explains it really well. I went to Bratislava, Slovakia to deliver a training event, and on the way, I needed to pick something up from the store, and I'm noticing, as I'm driving through the city, that cars were double parked and they were blocking each other in. This was something I noticed at first and didn't think a whole lot of. I just thought, "Oh, maybe someone blocked someone in."

Then I noticed it was everywhere around the city, or at least everywhere to me. Everywhere I looked, I saw cars blocking each other in. They were stacked two deep all over the place. Pretty quickly I thought, "There's no way this is an accident, because this is not one rude person blocking another person in. There's something going on here."

So, the next morning I go to the event and I asked my host, "Hey, tell me about this thing. I noticed these cars parked this way. How does this work? What if you go into the store to do something fast, like buy a loaf of bread, and then someone blocks you in, but they wanted to shop for one hour? Are you stuck waiting for them for that hour?"

He laughed, because he knew where I was going with that, and he said, "No, no, we have a parking shortage here in Bratislava (and we all drive cars that are standards) so you can leave it in neutral, so that it can roll." Luckily it's a very flat there so cars won't roll down a hill. If you were the person who bought the loaf of bread and you came out and you wanted to leave, you would literally go to the car that's blocking you in...and you would push it with your hands.

Okay, guys, if you're listening to this, you're imagining, "Cars are really heavy." Most of the cars there are pretty small, so you can literally push it with your hands. And, in fact, if you're being courteous, you might even turn your wheel so that, as it pushes out, the car rolls out nicely into the aisle-way behind it. Isn't it crazy or what? I love this so much.

This is how they fixed the parking shortage. After you get your car out, you take the car that you pushed out, and you push back into the front slot. Now, as a side note, some of my clients who live in Bratislava, Slovakia today (we have fast-forwarded a few years later) - they said they're having fewer problems with parking, so you don't see much of that any longer.

What was so great about that moment is that he said, "Huh, this is funny that you asked me this question because the first time I visited Austin, Texas, where you live, I went to Target. I parked in the parking lot, and I was stunned at how far apart, side to side, the cars would park from each other." He thought, at first, that it looked rude, because if only they would squish in tighter to each other they could fit so many more cars in the parking lot.

Of course, you know where it's going here. In Austin, Texas, with this giant expanse of land, we can park far apart. The lines in the parking lot are even designed way further apart than the would be in Bratislava, Slovakia, because we're trying to be polite and not door-ding each other, because we don't have the same shortage in parking.

If you're listening and you've been to any other country in the world, you've experienced some thing like this where you go somewhere else, and you realize, "Oh, wow, this is really different here. I wonder what's behind it." Then you can really see the contrast. You can really see the differences, because it's something you're not used to.

Well, likewise, this all gets back to the original question of why talents are so tough to spot. It's because you live in your brain every day. You have to get out, as though you're in another talent country, to see how different your talents are from theirs. I hear every single day examples of people saying, "Well, yeah, I'm pretty good at that but it's not anything special. Yeah, that's just kind-of naturally how I think."

Catch yourself, and catch people on your team, when they're making comments like this so that you can make notes that, you know what, that probably is something very special that you have. In fact, it likely doesn't come easily to other people.

Just like in those moments when I was in Bratislava and I was noticing, "Oh, wow, this is so different here," and then he was able to show me how Austin, Texas, looked so different, I thought, "Oh, yeah, I can totally see that now but I wouldn't have noticed it without the contrast." This is how you, as a team, can get really good at spotting what your greatest talents are, and application on the job if you start spotting them as a team, and you start talking about them with each other. You can really bring out those contrasts that you couldn't see if you hadn't been doing it together.

What do you do with all this information? Show this Bratislava video to your team as an example, and then talk about what talents you can see in each other that they can't see in themselves.

In the "Self" part of the exercise, go on a personal scavenger hunt and you look for five things this week. Each one is described in more detail below.

Five questions to answer this week:

1. I've always nerded out on these topics and types of activities:

2. This comes easily to me, yet not to others (things you do or the way you think):

3. I get a jolt of energy when I'm:

4. I lost track of time last time I was:

5. Someone told me I'm good at:

1) Something you've always been into. When you're noticing these things at work this week, you start to see, "Oh, yeah, this is something that I've always had a penchant for." This item description is a bit informal compared with the rest (in the way that I ask the question). So as an example, I notice that I've always been into doing something physical. My first couple of jobs were 100% physical and active. I was a lifeguard and an aerobics instructor in my late teen years. Both were active jobs where I was moving a lot. It's no surprise that I got into the training field. It's up, it's active, and it's moving around. It's no surprise that inside of that I like to do a lot of StrengthsFinder activities that get people up and moving around and experiencing something physically. It's no surprise that when I work, I'm often at a standup desk, or that I'm a drummer in my spare time. So for this first scavenger hunt item, watch yourself in action and go, "Yeah, this is something that I've always been into. No wonder it's showing up like this today."

2) Something that's easy for you, but not to others. This is the time when someone goes, "Oh, yeah, you're so good at that." Someone makes the comment. Or you notice it in yourself. Even if you notice it in a negative way, give yourself some forgiveness. Even if you notice something really obvious and think, "Okay, what is up with these dum-dums? They can't think of this thing that was so easy." Well, that's something that was probably really easy for you, yet not for others so take note of that. And, of course, don't tell them that you thought they were dum-dums.

3) Something that energizes you at work. If you get a jolt of, "Oh, yeah, that was a cool moment," note that. If you feel good after completing a task, or something makes you feel alive and alert, write it down. That's one of the items in your scavenger hunt.

4) A moment this week when you lose track of time. You're in the middle of a project and you have no idea what time it is, or you could get lost in that for eight more hours if you didn't have a meeting coming up.

5) When someone notices you're good at something. Now, this one can be really hard because you think, "Well, gosh. What if I work from home, and I don't have a lot of feedback like that? And I don't have in-person moments for someone to say that I'm great at something?" Make this as easy as possible, so it can be the slightest comment. Don't wait for a trophy or an award or something really formal and big.

This can be a tiny moment where someone sends you an email to thank you for a spot-on response to a customer. Or you're having a phone conversation and someone goes, "Oh, duh, that was so obvious after you brought it to light." Take that as a clue to your greatness. Someone noticed you're good at something. They noticed that you had an easy way of thinking about something that they couldn't see, so take that as a sign that someone noticed something that you're good at.

These five things align with Gallup's work on the Five Major Clues to Talent. In the "5 Clues To Talent" image, you're seeing Gallup's version of them. I offered ours in the same order so that each number 1-5 corresponds with theirs.

The other part of this exercise is getting "Others" focused input. It's hard to spot talents because they're right under your nose. It's exactly like the Bratislava example, where you have trouble seeing what's in the "easy-everyday-obvious" category to you. This exercise will help you see things that stand out to others. It's called the Three Things Exercise. This is something that was originally inspired by Dorie Clark. Check out this Dorie Clark episode to get a deeper look at your personal brand. The Three Things Exercise is to get a group of trusted advisors.

This can be something that you do in person with a group of people. Or you can do a few quick phone interviews. Or you can literally post the question in social media. Ask people:

"When you think of me, what are the three words you think of?"

That's it. "What are the first three words you think of, when you think of me?" You're going to get adjectives that tell you whether your personal brand and your experience with your talents is the same as how they show up in the world. Now don't be scared of this exercise. A lot of times I mention it and people say, "Oh, my gosh, I don't know if I want to hear what people have to say." So far, to the person, I have had zero people tell me that anyone has ever come back and said anything but positive things. So expect positive words to come back. These are people who care about you and they're going to share three words that are virtues.

What's interesting is the trends, so make sure you ask enough people that you can see patterns in their answers. Ten is a great number. If you do it on social media, who knows...you might get 50 answers. But you start to see words that reemerge, and you think, "Aha! You know, this is really part of how I show up in the world, and this might be one of my gifts. I haven't been giving it any credit, because I don't even notice it's a thing."

The bottom line is, it is difficult to see something that comes so naturally and so easily to you. Yet it's extremely important that you bring these out, that you notice what's working so that you can get more of what's working for you. Do this so that you can leverage those areas of your greatest potential. They bring out your top strengths, and your best performance, in life and in work.

If you're a leader, I encourage you to do a version of the scavenger hunt or Three Things Exercise with your team. Spotting talents (and telling each other) can be one of the most meaningful, memorable experiences that people have together.

Step 1: Pass out one sheet of printer paper per person. Have each person write his or her name on it (really big in the center with a marker) so that it'll stand out. After that, you'll be passing them around, and everyone will use a pen on everyone else's sheet. So be sure to have paper, markers, and pens on hand. This works most easily if you're in a big circle around a conference table.

Alternate method: If you don't have tables, you can attach a string and wear your sign on your back. That sounds a little strange to people because wearing a sign on their back often has them associating bad memories from 3rd grade when someone wrote "kick me" on their back, so you'll have to do a strong reframe of what it means to have a sign on your back. As you can guess, if you use that variation, you rotate by walking to the next person rather than passing the paper around.

The rest of the description assumes you're doing this with the standard set up at a conference table.

Step 2: Pass the sheet to the right one time. Have each person write 1-3 words about the person whose name they have in front of them. Write adjectives that describe what you appreciate about that person. Then (this is important), all together...at the same time...all synchronized at once, you pass the paper to the right. Tell them up front that you will do the passing at the same time. Using a timer with a dinging sound can be effective.

Make sure you give people enough time to think of a few words. If you're asking them to do three words and not just one, you might even tell them in advance so that they can begin thinking of words that describe people that they work with. I mentioned how important it is to pass at the same time, and to set this expectation up front. If you don't, you will have a pile up. A few people will be really fast at this, and they will process people's papers by writing their words and sending them to the next person like it's a speed competition. Then it stresses out the slower people, who stop being thoughtful about what they write because the person beside them is giving them a pile of work.

I've seen teams do this activity and then keep the sheets so proudly. In fact, it's an exercise that I did with a team over 10 years ago, and I still have a piece of paper. The example you see in this post was from about 15 years ago. It still means a lot to me to see the words that people wrote, and they really were great clues to my talents. Also it becomes a memoir for the team and helps you understand what is valued about you as an individual. As a leader, it's a really great gift you can offer the team.

With that, I hope you'll take this inspiration and will do some level of this exercise personally or with your team, so that you can help them claim their talents and share them with the world.

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In this episode Lisa answers the question, "Is StrengthsFinder a personality test?" She uses proof from both research data and real-life examples. She shows that StrengthsFinder is actually not a personality test, but instead a performance-based tool.

You'll find lots of StrengthsFinder, leadership, and team tools on our Strengths Resources page.

To find proof points and stats that can help you make the case for focusing on Strengths at your organization, check out LeadThroughStrengths.com/stats.

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths based culture is to offer appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. On our home page, you can download this awesome tool that offers you 127 easy ideas for recognizing your team. Scroll down and look for the box that says "Great Managers Notice What Works".

You're listening to Lead Through Strengths, where you'll learn to apply your greatest strengths at work. I'm your host, Lisa Cummings, and I've gotta tell ya: using your strengths at work is one of the most energizing things you can do for your workplace.

Today, the question is whether StrengthsFinder is a personality test. I get this question often. It comes in many forms. Usually, it comes from managers or strengths champions who are asking me a question because they were trying to get strengths to be implemented in a bigger way in their organization, and they got stymied.

It sounds something like this, "Oh, no, not another personality test," or they take it to get approved and they hear, "Oh, we already had a personality test last year." Or, somebody says something like, "I'm not sure I'm into these personality tests."

It surprises many people to learn that StrengthsFinder is actually not a personality test at all. So, if you're making a case for rolling out StrengthsFinder or Strengths-focused culture tools, it is nice to know that it is something totally different. It's actually a performance-based tool.

I'll give you an explanation of how it's different from the typical personality test. Then I'll give you a proof point or two you can use in your workplace. I'll also offer you a way of thinking about this topic to explain the difference between what people do on the job, and how they get it done on the job.

I think this is an important thing to explore when you're rolling out StrengthsFinder because some workplaces are really focused on the knowledge and skills someone needs to do the job – that's the what part – but they don't spend very much time focusing on how people can show up at their very best.

Let's start with a proof point. If you're going to do an initiative like StrengthsFinder in your organization, you want proof points like Gallup's research that shows teams that focus on Strengths every day have 12.5% greater productivity than those who don't. And, at the end of the show, I'll give you a bunch more of those, a place where you can find the proof points that are most relevant to your organization and to your situation.

On the personality test question, the thing I think is most important for you to understand is that most of these personality assessments that exist are actually based on the five-factor model that you can learn about when you study psychology. If you have industrial organizational psychologists in your organization, they'll know all about the five-factor model. Even if you're not an I/O psychologist, you probably know about these because you've heard of DiSC, or Myers Briggs (MBTI), Insights, or Hogan. These are different assessments that are based on the five-factor model. Those 5 factors are things like Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. Most of those, although not all, throw out the Neuroticism category.

How is this different from StrengthsFinder? The answer is in the study of performance excellence. StrengthsFinder researchers at Gallup studied performance for decades. They discovered Themes that people use to deliver their best performance.

In Gallup's words, Talent Themes "are the areas in which an individual has the greatest potential for building strength."

There are 34 of these Talent Themes. When you get your Clifton StrengthsFinder results, you'll actually see that they're actually called Talent Themes. To put it in layman's terms, think of them like easy buttons...easy buttons that people use to approach their goals.

For example, say you lead a marketing department. There's what you do and then there's how you do it. In the "what" category, you have things like knowledge and skills and past experiences. Inside of a greater marketing department you have high-level knowledge and skill areas: things like marketing communication, product marketing, demand generation, pricing, etc. Of course, each area can go really deep into sub-level skills.

If you take something like a creative team inside of marketing, they're going to have really specific knowledge and skill areas: graphic design, color, Adobe InDesign, buyer psychology, all sorts of layers like that.

In those "what" categories (like the ones mentioned above), people are pretty good at understanding what they need to know. Those are easy enough to identify. You can tell when they are present or when they're not. And you can figure out how to go get those knowledge and skill areas.

The trickier part is "how" every unique human being approaches that job at their very best. This is why, of course, we're humans and not robots, so we're a little more complicated. Each person can't just approach the job in the exact same way and get the same results. As a manager, StrengthsFinder can help you tap into each person's best performance because it tells you what their easy buttons are, or "how" they can uniquely get that job done at their best.

If you manage that same team of creative pros, you'll see they're reaching their best output when you can get it done through their talents. For example, someone who leads through the Futuristic Talent Theme will want to know where that specific marketing campaign is going to take the company and the customer so that they can align to that.

If you contrast that with somebody who has the Maximizer Talent, they're on the same creative team and they have to get the same job done, but you may find that they're totally focused on something else. They're over there trying to reuse some video footage so that you can get more out of something that already exists. Or they're off creating actions in your Adobe InDesign software to save time on repetitive tasks - to free them up to get more time in their creative headspace.

You can see that within this same job, you can have two people who are off in their own worlds doing very different things, but those very different things are the things that put them at their best. This is how your StrengthsFinder Talent Themes, once you know them, can really help you unleash their easy buttons to perform at your best. Of course, as a people manager, this is like magic once you learn each of these things about your team members, because you can understand how to put them in that environment to get them at their very best.

To bring this episode all together, StrengthsFinder, in fact, is not a personality test. It is an assessment that was built on the study of performance and potential. If you want to look up, specifically for you and your organization, proof points that will be most supportive of the objectives you have in your organization, check out LeadThroughStrengths.com/stats. You'll see a page that has dozens of proof points and stats that can help you make the case for this in your organization.

A final note, if you're listening as a people manager or a strengths champion, one of the reasons I think it's important to answer this question about personality test is that I also see, when people take personality tests or surveys or assessments, (whatever you choose to call them), on the receiving end of them, your employees are often guarded about the conversations that follow.

They are nervous that you're going to come up with labels for them. They might have had some experiences in the past where they've been put into a box about how they are, or who they are as people.

Depending on who you have on your team, you might have to do some work in explaining how StrengthsFinder is framed: that it is focused on those areas of their greatest potential. Usually they see it very quickly and they're super psyched because you're talking about what makes them great.

When I do StrengthsFinder training programs, I don't find many resistors to the process (like I did when I facilitated programs based on personality assessments). It's one reason why I love StrengthsFinder so much. But coming into it, many people don't know this, and they don't know how it is all going to be framed up or applied on the job.

Depending on how they've been used in your organization in the past, or if you sense that somebody is a little hesitant about all of this kind of stuff, it's helpful to share how the point of going through the process with StrengthsFinder is to find their greatest area of potential so that you can unleash their strengths at work.

If you do this in a way that shows you, as a leader, are being supportive of them, and putting them at their best and that, in fact, when you're using your strengths at work you feel more ease and energy and enjoyment on the job, most people pretty quickly go, "Okay. I'll give this thing a chance."

Luckily, in my experience, the hesitant people have been a very small slice of the population. I would say, anecdotally, more than 95% of people in any given room or organization come in pretty excited about the future when we do StrengthsFinder or Strengths-based process.

In fact, one guy recently said,

"Oh, my gosh, that StrengthsFinder report was full of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me."

I thought he summed up really well - people's reaction to it when they first get exposed to StrengthsFinder, and how it can explain what puts you at your very best.

With that, I hope this helps you as you make the case to bring a Strengths-focused culture to your organization. From here, I hope you'll take this information and use it to help people in your company claim their talents and share them with the world.

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.

Austin, TX StrengthsFinder Training for Leaders

In this episode Lisa answers the question, "Should you stop using natural talents that cause you trouble at work?" The short answer is no. The talent, or combination of talents, that's causing you trouble is your natural talent. No matter what you do to squash it, it will pop out somehow and scare people. It's much better to work to find other ways to utilize that troublesome talent. Lisa provides two different exercises for you: one for you as an individual, and one for your team.

You'll find lots of StrengthsFinder, leadership, and team tools on our Strengths Resources page.

If you or your team hasn't completed the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment, you will find the list of adjectives on our website useful for the exercises in this episode.

One of the best ways leaders can build a strengths based culture is to offer appreciation of strengths in action. If you'll notice what works, you'll get more of what works because people can replicate what they've already done well. On our home page, you can download this awesome tool that offers you 127 easy ideas for recognizing your team. Scroll down and look for the box that says "Great Managers Notice What Works".

You're listening to Lead Through Strengths, where you'll learn to apply your greatest strengths at work. I'm your host, Lisa Cummings, and I gotta tell ya, using your strengths is one of the most energizing things you can do on the job. Today's question and topic is about what to do when your strengths are making trouble for you. I know it sounds completely backwards, but there's this concept I call troublemaker talents. What happens is that sometimes your greatest strengths, your talent themes, if you will, (if you're doing this from a strengths finder lens), they can sometimes be overused, underused, misapplied. They can be unrefined if you've been ignoring them, or squashing them down. Let me give you an example. You have someone with the Includer talent and he says, "You know, I don't like my Includer. When I saw that on the list, I wanted to give it back because it makes me too slow."

It makes me miss deadlines because I'm always getting everyone's opinion and I put the word out. I ask the question, I go one on one. People ask me for more time, and by the time I get everyone's input on something, I'm already behind schedule. Another one I've heard recently in a big corporate training was a woman with the Communication talent who said, "you know, I don't see this one as a strength at all. I get told I talk too much." I can also give you my personal example. It's my Maximizer and Strategic. They come in together like a one-two troublemaking punch, and it's me always tweaking things. I'm always trying to make them better, but this concept of me never being done, also sometimes means me never sleeping. On the surface, all of those things I just mentioned, yes, they are real troubles.

The thing is though, you can't just get the effect you're having on the surface and decide to squash it down, and stamp it out and say, "Oh, that one's not serving me. I don't want it anymore," because remember, your natural talents are patterns in you. They're how you think, feel, behave at your natural default so they're gonna come out. It's like the jack in the box. Do you remember that toy that you might have had when you were a little kid, and you push this toy down into the box, close the lid, and you start turning the crank and you hear that "Du, De, Du, Du, Du, Du, Du, Du, Du, Du Du Du Du Du Du to BAM! Then that thing jumps out and scares you when you least expect it. Your talents are really just like that. If you squash them down because you think, "ah, my boss doesn't seem to like that one."

"Ooh, I got bad feedback on that one once, so I don't want that one. I'll just put that one away." Or you stamp it down, because you don't perceive that the culture you work in is appreciative of that talent, so you decide, "I'll just use that one at home. I'll use that one at work." These are all things I hear in training constantly, but the thing is it's kinda like the jack in the box. If you try to squash out those talents, they are going to jump out and scare people, because they're your natural default ways of thinking and feeling and acting, so they're going to come out. Since they're going to come out, what you want to do is spend more time refining it, nurturing it, putting it to work, send it to the gym, get others aware. Think about how that talent shows up on other people.

It really will help you invest in it, in a targeted way. For example, you take that person who mentioned that about the Communication talent. Imagine how refined it would be, if she knows who is willing to talk it out loud. She likes to talk it out. She knows the audience of people who love to talk it out with her. She can do that. But she also needs to be aware of those peers who perceive it like a waste of time because they don't like ideas that aren't well thought out. So part of it is knowing your audience. Another thing she could do is really think about different modes where she could practice her Communications talent - email, spoken word, written word. Maybe she's getting this feedback because she was taking over in meetings, and not letting anyone else have a voice. So we're taking one situation (meetings) and one mode of communication (the spoken word) and she just decided, oh, I don't want this talent at all. It's not serving me.

Actually, she has all these other ways of applying it and refining it. You take the other example that I brought up with a guy who has the Includer talent. It was making him slow; it was making him miss deadlines,because in his way of applying it naturally, he was asking people for their opinion, but he wasn't giving them any time binding around his question. He would throw something out there in person or in an email and tell them he wanted to hear their voice, but he didn't give them a deadline. Something really specific here when he asks, now that he's refining it, he's still noticing people. He's still getting the unheard voices to be heard. He's still making people feel seen and heard and appreciated, but now he gives them deadlines, so he can also meet his commitments.

The other thing that he's been doing is running experiments for in-the-moment Includer. When he's in a meeting and he notices, everyone's spoken up except these two people, now he can say, "you know, John, we haven't heard from you, what do you think?" He started to give himself some script items that we haven't heard from you. What do you think? It's a great way to be able to feed the talent, without discarding it altogether. Don't squash them; refine them. Action item for you to apply. Now you're listening. You of course have your own personal set of talent themes, or natural strengths, that you bring to this world.

StrengthsFinder Activity: Experiment With New Ways To Use Your Talents

What's your troublemaker talent, or what is your combination of talents that kind of team up to create trouble, like I mentioned, my Maximizer and Strategic? Then, once you think of your personal answer, what experiments can you run to try them on in new ways? Remember, it's not an either/or. It's not that your strengths, or your talents, need to be turned on or off. Keep giving them new environments to play in, because the more you nurture them and experiment with them, and try them on and aim them to specific performance, the more refined they're going to be.

StrengthsFinder Activity: Work As A Team To Use Talents

Now, if you want to apply this at a team level because you're a strengths champion or you're a people manager who is awesome, here's an activity that you can do with the team.

Give everyone around the table a blank sheet of paper and then write down their troublemaker talent on that piece of paper at the top, like a title. If you've done StrengthsFinder, that would be one of your StrengthsFinder talent themes. If you haven't done StrengthsFinder then one resource on our website, you could use LeadThroughStrengths.com/adjectives, and that page gives you a bunch of words that might describe you as a person, and you can have people go through an additional exercise before you come to the meeting, where they get two or three words that define them most strongly, and usually each of those words, even though there are positively framed, they're going to have the great side of them, and they also might bring a shadow side with them.

It'll take a little extra work if you haven't done StrengthsFinder, but you can get there by reframing it into the troublemaker, out of that adjective list. Back to the sheet of paper, where you have your thing written at the top. For example, it might say Responsibility is the troublemaker talent for this person on your team. Then, they write one sentence about the trouble it's causing them; what is the pain? For example, if you had the responsibility talent, it might say, "I can't say no." If you're leading this exercise, be sure you've thought of your own in advance so that you can model for them what yours sounds like. You can use the example I just used, and then you give your own as well, and then they'll see how to make a nice crisp problem statement.

Then what you do, just pass it to the right one time. Of course they know who it came from, because it came from the person sitting right next to them, and as it gets passed you asked for the person who receives it to come up with one way you could address the situation while still honoring the talent That part, while still honoring the talent, is important because if you pass the Responsibility paper over and the person writes, "just say the word NO," that's not going to work for someone with the Responsibility talent, but maybe the person next to them writes something like "next time you feel yourself needing to set a boundary and having a tough time with it, imagine the other commitments this will put at risk if you say YES."

That's more of a thinking exercise. The next person might give a different tip, but it still honors the Responsibility talent and they give them a script, some words that they might use, that would feel comfortable for someone with the Responsibility talent. So they might say something like, "next time you feel like you want to say no, but you can't find the words. Tell them, 'Ooh, that project sounds really valuable. Let me look at my calendar and review all of my commitments and I'll get back to you by tomorrow.'" Essentially they're offering a stalling tactic, so that they can get their head together and find the right words and the right approach instead of just saying yes in the moment, so you get where I'm going here. The idea is to give the person ideas that can solve this challenge while still honoring the talent.

If you know all of your talent themes, what can be really cool with StrengthsFinder, to make this even more layered and get people learning the StrengthsFinder talent themes and get them to really honor the person, is to write all five of their talent themes in a corner and then do the same thing I already mentioned, so that when you see the person with Responsibility also has Command, also has Includer, also has Connectedness, also has Individualization. Then, you can give an answer that is, Ooh, look, this person has Individualization, so in this way the person with Responsibility would probably find it important to give a custom answer to every person who asks for something from them, so you could give them something like a formula for finding the words we're saying no, but that also allows it to be customized to the person who's receiving it, so that's the exercise. I like passing it to the right three times because you get three different layers of answers and then you send it back to the original person, and it just gives them a way of thinking about the world that isn't in their typical mind-frame. It's a nice way to help them brainstorm some potential solutions and see how other people view the same situation at work.

A final thought on troublemaker talents is to remember there's not an on and off switch as the right answer here because something's not serving you today. Don't shut it off, squash it down, stamp it out. The idea is to refine what you have. It's gonna come out anyway, like a jack in the box. It will jump out and scare people if you choose to not invest in it. So with that, I'll see you next time and I can't wait to hear how you've claimed that talent invested in it and shared it with the world.

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.