Your Strengths Are Your Best Material ©

The other day one of you wrote to me, "David, why should we focus on our strengths? We can do some more work on what we're already good at, but why not just get right to our weaknesses?" Let me tell you about an experience I had with one of my daughters.

The other day Eliana, my four year old, came into the kitchen with a big smile and a "rattling" box in her hands. She walked past me, climbed up on a stool, and dropped the box on the breakfast counter. I had barely enough time to read the box cover, "Jewelry Making Kit," when Eliana said, "Papi, let's make a bracelet."

Eliana and I delicately strung beads on a bracelet wire. We used beads of all colors, beads with numbers, and we even spelled Eliana's name. One hour later and our bracelet was complete.

There was just one problem. The bracelet did not fit Eliana's wrist! I couldn't believe it! After all that effort, it was too small!

I wouldn't accept it; I had invested too much time to give up, and I didn't want to disappoint Eliana. So I tried everything to make it work. I took off beads. I made the knots on the ends smaller. I tried to stretch the wire. And then finally, somehow I found a way to hook the bracelet, but just barely.

I was relieved until I heard a yell from the play room five minutes later. I ran in to find Eliana, and Ariela, my 3 year old, looking at the floor. Not only had the bracelet popped off, all the beads were now buried in our carpet!

The bottom line; the bracelet just didn't fit. It didn't matter what we did, there was not enough material to work with. We did not have enough bracelet wire.

The same is true when we try to do great things in our lives by spending our energy focusing on our weaknesses: we get coached, we get trained, we get motivated, we get inspired, but there's only so much we can do. Why? There's just not enough material to work with; that's why they're weaknesses.

The science of Positive Psychology focuses instead on how we can use our most natural strengths to achieve our greatest and most gratifying successes in life. Most people focus their life on simply building skills to meet their job responsibilities. The best leaders know that this approach is incomplete. They focus instead on bringing out their top strengths, developing them, and maximizing their use in support of the outcomes they are determined to achieve. Then these leaders turn to skill building to complement their natural power. They start with strength, and then add skill.

Your chances of success as a leader increase greatly when you follow what I call the ADAPT Strengths Model of Leadership Development. Leaders do best when they become aware of their strengths, develop them, apply them to their work and life, partner with others to amplify their strengths, and find ways to work around their lesser strengths. They then implement this same approach with the teams they lead.

The most important thing you can do in your life is to use your most abundant strengths and passion to live your best life possible. Don't make bracelets that won't fit.

The best place to look for greatness is inside our strengths. Go where you have the best material.

David J. Pollay is a syndicated columnist, and an internationally sought after speaker and teacher on how to build positive momentum in your business and life. Mr. Pollay is the founder and president of The Momentum Project, a training and consulting organization with offices in Delray Beach, Florida and Washington, D.C. Prior to founding The Momentum Project, he held senior leadership positions at Yahoo!, MasterCard, Global Payments, and AIESEC. Mr. Pollay holds a Master's Degree in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and an Economics Degree from Yale University. Email him your stories at david@themomentumproject.com, or call 561.265.1165.