How satisfied are you when you make mistakes? If you’re like most of us, you probably feel pretty bummed. And that attitude is holding you back from doing your best work. It is a good thing to make mistakes – in fact, you should be trying to make more of them. The best thing about […]
I’ve been told that curiosity is one of my super-powers, and yet I accidentally turned it into a weakness. Thankfully, I worked out how to turn it back into a strength! The curiosity cliche Did you know that ‘curiosity killed the cat’ is only half of the saying? I don’t know about you, but I
How I accidentally made curiosity into a weakness Read More »
Have you ever gotten caught up in the “New Year, New You” trap? It’s an almost guaranteed way to set yourself up for disappointment and failure. But there is a better way – and you already have everything you need to make it work for you. Why “New Year, New You” doesn’t work I don’t
Job interviews and client pitches can be tricky at the best of times – and they’re really hard when you get thrown a curly interview question that you aren’t sure how to respond to. Lots of people come to this site using the search term “3 weaknesses and 3 strengths”, and I know from conversations
Do you really, truly believe in your strengths? Or do you focus on your weaknesses instead? Most of the people I work with come to strengths coaching because they are struggling to believe in the power and goodness of their strengths. And that lack of belief holds them back from bringing their special brand of
Sometimes doing things in reverse can get you better results – and this insight has led to one of the most counterintuitive strategies in The Strenths Deck – reverse pairing. Some years ago, I was working with a client and discussing the strategies she was using to make wise use of her Genius1 strengths (the
The Zone of Potential is one of the five Zones in The Strengths Deck Matrix (which you can download a free copy of from here). It contains the things that make you say “I enjoy this but I’m not great at it”. People’s first reaction is often “Ah, so this is the stuff I should
One issue that comes up over and over again, whether I’m coaching one person, or speaking with a group, is the concept of strengths overuse. The usual question is, “If I’m good at something, isn’t it better to use it more?” Sweet or sour? Almost anything in life has a sweet spot – the point
I love the huge variety of strengths-based approaches that are out there, but many of them get one key thing wrong. They focus on the extremes of super-strengths and worst weaknesses, and make only passing mention (or worse, completely ignore) what sits in the middle of the spectrum. It’s as though they don’t realise that
