What Are Your Strengths?
They felt right all along. Now they have a name.
Here’s how I discovered my natural strengths.
They felt right all along. Now they have a name.
For the past 15 years, I’ve pushed the limits of plain text.
When I went independent, I knew that I needed to be organized enough to execute.
I implemented Getting Things Done, and took “getting everything out of my head” very seriously.
GTD uses lists. Lots of lists. And tags.
I crashed Apple notes. I experimented with vim. I sliced and diced with custom scripts.
For the past 6 years I have settled on Roam Research. It isn’t perfect, but it has everything I need, and the backlinks are a game-changer.
It took some work, but maintaining my note system over the years has been worth it. There really is gold in there.
It helped me find my answer to Peter Drucker’s first question.
Your First Question?
His first question is your own first question.
In Drucker’s essay Managing Oneself, he listed a series of questions to help individuals navigate times of great change, like the ones we are living in now.
He foresaw the time when established systems would no longer provide predictable and stable career paths.
He observed that organizations were structured to deploy individuals, not develop them.
That time is now.
His first question is fundamental: “What are My Strengths?”
Why are your strengths so important?
The old playbook tells you to make something of yourself. It implies a starting point of “less than”.
The new playbook tells you to be who you are. You already have what you need for success.
Without clear knowledge of personal strengths, individuals are prone to working in misalignment, against their grain, leading to sustained energy depletion and burnout.
Lists About Lists
To determine your strengths, Drucker recommended a feedback loop – making notes of your goals and comparing results over time.
I followed Drucker’s feedback recommendations for over a decade.
“The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis.”
— Peter Drucker
That’s where my lists come in.
If I were to drop them into a chat for seed context, my LLM would know me pretty well.
Re-reading it all now, so do I.
Looking back, I see a richer picture of myself, my strengths, my goals, and my accomplishments over time.
Here are some of my high-level lists:
It is true that…
This is my longest, and most mindful list
I have been told that…
By my friends
By my coach
By my professor
By my teacher
I love to…
I love to learn
I love to teach
I love to help people
I love to explain
I love to create
Once I…
Once I wrote…
Once I was very interested in…
Once I was very impressed by…
When I…
When I was younger, I…
When I started my business, I…
When I moved, I…
This is a partial list of my lists. Feel free to use mine as a starting point, but create your own.
One of my favorite lines is from my middle school teacher, who told me never to lose my curiosity. I haven’t and I won’t.
Be consistent about getting things out of your head as you notice them. This is a mindfulness process that compounds over time.
Energy Levels as Data
Another indicator of your natural strengths is your energy.
Some tasks energize.
Some tasks drain.
You can stay productive in all of them.
Personal energy level monitoring is a sound productivity strategy for high-agency individuals.
You may not need detailed lists, but you will certainly need mindfulness.
Your natural strengths are joined to energy levels.
As you work, pay attention to those tasks and responsibilities that energize.
These are tasks when you are likely to get into the productivity zone and stay there. You naturally have more energy for them.
Your initiating strength, or the strength that you naturally use when you are free to be yourself, provides your greatest store of energy.
When you know your strengths, you can manage your schedule to optimize productivity.
Some strengths are not your initiating strengths, but they are strengths nonetheless. These are tasks that you naturally have less energy for.
When you have less energy for a task, it doesn’t mean that you can’t or shouldn’t do it, or that you can’t do it well.
It simply means that you have limited energy, so breaks and recharge time are important.
You will be the most productive and energized when operating from your initiating strengths.
You will also be more resilient and less prone to burnout.
Enter Kathy Kolbe
You can and should journal, but there is another, more complete way.
While in my early journaling days, I listened to a podcast interview with Kathy Kolbe.
I found that the most accurate and trustworthy statement of personal strengths is the Kolbe A™ Result. Unlike other popular assessments, the Kolbe A™ Result does not change over time. It is unique to the individual, similar to a fingerprint.
Later, when I became a Kolbe Certified Consultant, I was pleased to meet Kathy virtually during my certification training.
"Success is the freedom to be yourself."
— Kathy Kolbe
My Kolbe A™ Result is 4-4-9-1.
It’s my volitional MO.
I innovate and drive change.
The last two numbers of my Kolbe A Result, 9 and 1, reveal that I am a natural innovator (9), and that I envision solutions (1).
My 9 isn’t “high”. My 1 isn’t “low”.
Neither is “strong” or “weak”.
Both are my strengths.
Both are who I am.
This self-knowledge provides the confidence of knowing the value you bring to each situation.
Your result will be different, faithfully reflecting your own unique strengths.
My Kolbe A™ Result also shows that I am 4 in Follow Through.
I work well with AI (and humans).
My best way of gathering and sharing information is to Explain.
This means that I gather essential facts when taking action.
My strengths include fact checking, clarifying details, adding context, and working within priorities and deadlines.
All of these strengths are particularly useful when working with AI (and humans).
Your natural strengths are complete, different from mine, and unique to you. There are no weaknesses, only different strengths, and different energy allocations.
Your Kolbe A™ Result will reveal them, and how you can use your natural strengths to be more productive.
However you arrive at your answer, your key question remains:
“What are My Strengths?”
Something to think about...
If you started your list today, with “It is true that…”, what would your first line be?
Can you think of a recent task when you noticed higher or lower energy levels?
What are your strengths, and how do you know?