Reg Gupton's Top 10 tips: Focus on your strengths

Hi there,

Working on what you are good at is a good idea. Learn why.

These are taken from "Now, Discover Your Strengths," by Buckingham and Clifton, published recently and based on years of research by The Gallup Organization. You'll love it!

1. Your talents, your core competencies will be with you for a lifetime.

Your strengths, your unique talents are created by the way you and your brain are hard-wired. Current research says that changing these natural talents is a real struggle and beyond a certain age, you own them pretty much for life. The bad news is if you don't like them they are difficult to change. There is good news. And it is great news. You have them for a lifetime because they'll always be with you.

2. It's the only way you'll reach consistent near perfect performance, which is the goal.

Smart people can learn to do just about anything and perform adequately. But as the pressure increases performance will falter. When you're working with your strengths, you're in the zone. You are in the flow. You aren't working; you just are.

3. It's the only way you'll derive deep satisfaction from what you're doing.

If you're working in your area of strength, it's almost what you can't help doing. One way to find out if there are doubts is to look at what you do when you aren't being paid. What kind of tasks are you naturally drawn to? I made a list and I continue to be pleased.

4. It will energize you, not drain you.

Trying to get good at something that is not natural for you will exhaust. Period. Compare this to working on something that is a strength. It will energize you.

I love speaking to groups. The larger the better. I may be tired because of the energy but I am still jazzed about the time in front of an audience.

5. It will make you sharp, not well rounded.

The goal is to be a sharp person -- someone who has focused on their skills and honed them until they function consistently nearly perfectly. This runs counter to the current trend to make employees well rounded, working on their weaknesses.

Work to roll the boulder down the hill, not up like Sisyphus.

6. You'll be transformed!

When you give up and accept the way you are and work in the areas of your strengths, it will appear to others that you've been transformed; that you've changed. What you've really done is QUIT changing.

7. Knowledge and skills can be acquired, but strengths are innate.

With practice as a pharmaceutical rep, you may learn to describe your products well (knowledge) and how to ask the right questions to find the doctor's needs (skill), but you'll never learn how to push at exactly the right moment and in exactly the right way to close the deal.

8. You'll get even better under pressure.

General Colin Powell is the consummate public speaker and once he's on stage , he just keeps getting better and better. He seems to look out over the sea of faces and better words come quicker and faster. Skills will help you perform, but they won't help you excel. General Powell has a talent that allows him to become MORE articulate on stage.

9. If you aren't working from a strength, learning a skill is a survival technique.

If you want to reach excellence in what you do, concentrate on the areas where you have natural talent.

10. You'll live to work, not work to live.

I love marketing and have used it in my career and studied it for many years. I was recently elected to a local non-profit Board. The first committee I volunteered for was the Marketing Committee so I could ... market. I love speaking with anyone at anytime about marketing. I give away my knowledge and experience for free. I don't view these conversations as work. They are pure fun for me.

To your continued success,

Reg Gupton