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There is a lot of talk about using our strengths and here on The Super Fantastic Leadership Show, we also refer to this as living in our genius. Basically, what are the things that we do naturally that allow us to get the most bang for our buck with the least amount of effort. We covered this topic in a previous show too so if you want to hear even more about the science, you can listen right here. But, let’s get on with this week’s show.

This week we dive into the process of discovering our strengths and what the best way is to do that. Attempting to discover our genius qualities isn’t as easy as we would think because first of all, they are our unique talents, gifts and strengths that create a quality of ease for our daily lives. This matter of creating a sense of ease is one of the biggest reasons we can struggle to discover our strengths. We just make the assumption that everybody can do what we do and do it the way that we do it. We also have a bit of a story that work is supposed to be difficult. Therefore, when we are having an easy go of it, it can feel a bit like things couldn’t be this easy.

But, how do we really discover our genius? Well, there are a lot of surveys and tools that we can use. There is the Gallup Strengthsfinder tool which is a very researched and popular tool primarily focused on the tasks that come naturally to us. Then, there is also the VIA Character Strengths tool that looks a bit more deeply at our deeper nature. However, all of these surveys have one big bias that shows up in any “self-report” survey and that is our social desirability bias. We all have a certain way that we want to be seen in the world. And, sometimes these qualities show through and sometimes they don’t. So, how can we know for sure? Well, it turns out that the best way to discover your genius is through the process of getting feedback from others via the use of the Reflected Best Self Exercise. You can find the actual pdf for that exercise right here that explains it all in detail. This comes right from the Yale School of Management too.

We can wait to here what you discover! What are some of your genius qualities?