Sometime during the last quarter of last year, I was searching for a life coach to walk through with me what I should be focusing on for the second half of my life.
The first half for most men is usually characterized by a relentless drive to build one’s career, make enough money to get married, buy the first house, raise young kids and save enough to afford little luxuries like holidays, cars, etc. And ofcourse on top of these demands, there’s the insurances policies that need to be purchased and education and retirement funds that need to be build.
No small feat by any account!
Once a man draws close to hitting the big 40; achieves some level of financial stability and career success, that’s when he probably will began to take stock of what he has accomplished to date and revisit of the question: “What the heck is my life about?”
In other words, the”why’ behind the “what” becomes important for him.
I guess I kinda intellectually grew “old” early. I first asked myself that question just before entering primary school. I still remember the night while lying in bed, I was staring at my two palms and asking that age old question: “What is the purpose of my life?”
Thus began a life long journey in search of THE answer for that mother of all questions.
The next time I took a serious and deliberate timeout to rethink about my earthly role was last year just after turning 44. It was during a conversation when I was introduced to an assessment tool call the StrengthsFinder developed by the Gallup Organization.
Through an online assessment consisting of one hundred questions to be completed within a specified time, StrengthsFinder helps individuals to discover their top five talents.
Backed by more than forty years of robust research by scientists at Gallup, this tool has helped millions to discover their natural God-given talents and empower them to do what they love and what they do best everyday. StrengthsFinder is build upon the philosophy that if we invest in our talents as opposed to just trying to correct our weaknesses, we can attain the level of greatness that we are meant to achieve.
In surfacing the top five talents of the individual, the personalized report generated from the assessment provides a detailed and structured outline that consist of
Section I: Awareness – A brief description for each of your top five talents, your personalized insights which describe what makes you stand out from others and questions for you to answer to increase your awareness of your talents.
Section II: Application – 10 Ideas to take actions for each of your top five talents. This section also prompts you with questions to answer in order to help you apply your talents. Suggestions are made on how you can work with other with the same talents as well as how you can complement others or seek help from those with different talents to build successful teams. Potential pitfalls, relating to your talents, to avoid are also highlighted. This section also suggest the fields of work that you will likely to perform well in.
Section III: Achievement – Examples of what each of your top five talents “sounds like” through real quotes from people who
also have the talents in their top five and provides steps for you to take to help you leverage your talents for achievement
Here’s my top five talents resulting from my assessments:
- Empathy
People who are especially talented in the Empathy theme can sense the feelings of other people by imagining themselves in others’ lives or others’ situations. - Input
People who are especially talented in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information. - Positivity
People who are especially talented in the Positivity theme have an enthusiasm that is contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do. - Adaptability
People who are especially talented in the Adaptability theme prefer to “go with the flow.” They tend to be “now” people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time. - Intellection
People who are especially talented in the Intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions.
I think the report is spot on for me and most of my friends whom I consulted about the report thought so too.
The report suggested that I will do well as a journalist, teacher, researcher or in customer service. I tend to agree!
It is one thing to to have dreams and passion. But they are incomplete without an honest self-assessment of one’s talents. To be successful, you need to marry what you love and what you are capable of doing.
StengthsFinder is a proven tool backed by decades of scientific research to help you to assess your talents objectively.
And you certainly do not need to wait till you are halfway through the journey of life to find out more about your talents. Better to know yourself early on in your journey in order to have a great start. And if you are like me, hitting the so-called “mid-life”, its never too late either.
That is why Fathering Champions, in collaboration with StrengthsAsia, is running a series of talks and workshops to introduce the StrengthsFinder tool to anyone from the age of seventeen. Check out our first talk on discovering your top five talents.
Whether you are a parent, single or a fresh graduate, this talk is for you.
I have always believed and communicated to others that we only live but once; we need to stretch our God-given potentials to the edge and beyond. Then we would have lived! It is our responsibility and accountability to our Maker.
So register now for our first talk on discovering your top five talents. Check out the details here.
Here’s some great quotes on talents:
” A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.” – Larry Bird
“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.” – Erma Bombeck
“The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it. ” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.” – Pope John Paul II
“Our talents are the gift that God gives to us… What we make of our talents is our gift back to God” – Leo Buscaglia
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