Strengths Vision Casting 8 November 2014

We are unique and there is no one else in the world who is exactly like us.

One of the keys to happiness and success is discovering our talents and investing the time to develop our talents so that they become our strengths.

When we focus on our strengths rather than weaknesses, we are liberated to accept who we really are and free to become more of ourselves rather than someone else.

Unfortunately, we live in a world that is bent towards correcting our weaknesses as opposed to celebrating our strengths. From the school report books to the corporate staff appraisals, attention is often on the low grades and what can be done to correct them.

There is perfectly nothing wrong with managing our weaknesses. In fact, it is necessary.

However, Fathering Champions strongly believe that every child is born with unique talents and more should be done to help every child to discover his/her uniqueness and build upon their God given talents. We believe that every child is born into this world with a purpose. See our earlier blog post.

In this respect, Fathering Champions work with partners like Strengths Asia to help fathers mentor their children to realize their purposes and thereby live fulfilling lives.

Many adults today go through life without knowing their natural gifts and chose their education and career path according to the expectations of others or environmental shifts.

It is never too late to take action to know who you really are by discovering your talents and redefine your direction if necessary. It is important for every parent to help their young children to discover their talents so that they can make choices early on in life according to their design.

In collaboration with Strengths Asia, Fathering Champions organized a talk on discovering your strengths through Gallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment tool on 8 November. This was the second talk following an earlier successful run on 20 September.

Like the earlier one, it was very well received with lively exchange of views. These were couple of feedback after the talk:

That was really good! Will love to meet and discuss more. Kim Pong is a very good speaker. Truly inspired from this morning and I hope it is a message I can preach to others: focus on your strengths.

Awesome! 

One of the participants, Jasmine Wong, took immediate actions after the talk and completed the online assessment on the same day. Here’s how she felt after the talk and taking the assessment:

I really did not expect to take away this much from a short 60 minutes talk.

The whole idea of honing your strengths instead of focusing on eliminating weaknesses had resonated with me on a very deep level. I have been very lucky and hardworking in school and at work in terms of doing well. But it was never enough for teachers, colleagues and even my family because, as Kim Poon said it, they are always focusing on how I can do even better on the areas which I was not particularly strong in.

These past months, I have been questioning myself and those close to me: “Why are we not celebrating each others’ achievements and/or strengths instead?”

So this talk, or shall I say affirmations from the talk, has greatly inspired me.

After taking the assessment, I was both surprised and consoled. Surprised that my sensitivity to others and their problems was in fact “Empathy”, and that “Ideation” was a strength because people always tell me that my ideas are lame. As for “Activator” and “Command”, those aren’t surprising to me because I have always been a go-getter and enjoy a good challenge.

Taking the assessment was a great way to find out more about yourself. Even if they are not anything new to me, it acts as an affirmation to what you believed in yourself but have been doubting due to naysayers.

It has been a real positive experience and I guess that’s why I am so eager and have that much to share this quickly.