What's your superpower?
Ronan Wall
20 replies
I recently found a copy of ‘Gallup strengths finder’ that i completed 10 years ago. It was a revelation for me back then. On the back of it I changed my approach, from spending 100% of my time trying to fix what I wasn’t good at (no matter how unhappy it made me) to focusing 50% of my time getting even better as what i was great at. It made me so much happier (and successful) in my work and brought a lot of good to those around me
For the record, my top strength was Responsibility and, after completing Gallup, instead of avoiding responsibility in my life, I sought it out. I put my hand up instead of keeping it in my pocket
What's your top strength and how do you lean into it?
PS I’d like to retake a strength test, so any good quality (and preferably free) alternatives to Gallup that you can recommend would be welcome
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![Jasmind Thomas](https://ph-avatars.imgix.net/3001374/50941d91-8ae5-485d-ae09-cc5f7abcaa3e.jpeg?auto=compress&codec=mozjpeg&cs=strip&auto=format&w=36&h=36&fit=crop)
Jasmind Thomas@jasmind_thomas
Wow @ronanawall this triggered me to check out my Strength Finders from 10yrs ago too. Then I found a similar test to take for free: https://high5test.com/strengthsf...
My results ended up being very similar and solidified things about myself that I knew but couldn't express. Thanks for this reminder!
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@ronanawall @jasmind_thomas this is great Jasmind. Thx for sharing, I’ll do this and report back!
I completely agree. My superpower is blogging and SEO. In 2014, I decided to stop participating in any type of business that did not have to do with blogging or SEO. 2014 was a wasted year that I spent working on a subscription box business.
After that, I focused all of my energy on my blog and built it to over 1 million monthly visitors by the end of 2015. In 2016, I launched a blogging and SEO course. Three months later I started a blogging podcast. This year, I am launching an AI SEO Toolset SaaS.
Because of this shift, I now have three blogs that get a collective 5 million monthly visitors, a podcast that has millions of downloads, and a diversified revenue base that feeds off of each other.
@brandongaille Amazing story! Congrats on your success! What blogs are you running? Would love to know more :)
@brandongaille Thats such an inspiring story, thx for sharing. As @blanka_polkadot
said please the blogs. I need the help, blogging is definitely not in my Gallups strengths : )
@ronanawall My podcast is a solo show that covers most of the tactics I use. The episodes average around 8 minutes. They are no fluff and straight to the point.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/po...
@blanka_polkadot My main blog covers mostly business and marketing topics. It is brandongaille.com. My podcast teaches the tactics I use on my blogs. You can find it on Apple podcasts by searching for "blogging millionaire."
@brandongaille Awesome! Congratulations :) Thanks for such an inspiring story that help motivate others.
Mostly agree with you, but I feel there's always things you can explore if you have a superior motive, even if they seem tough in the beginning. You would eventually start getting around the hardship if have bigger motive than just fixing what you aren't good at.
But yeah, agree with you on most of it, You could excel in 1 thing and then once you are really good at it, you could start getting into stuff that has overlapping concepts. This makes it easier to learn a lot of things, way faster.
For example, I was really good at Graphic Designing, then I started learning UI/UX Design, eventually HTML/CSS and. then Javascript and then moved towards learning Back-end development and Database design.
Although, Designing still remains my strongest skill.
I also did my first Strengths Finder test around 7 years ago. Today was the first time I revisited my results since then. Apparently, my top strength was "Intellection" which still sounds as stuck up as it did back then! Probably why I shied away from it.
But after reading through it again, I was reminded that it rung true in many instances. I'm the type that'll get pretty deep into a rabbit hole of thought. I've been called "cerebral" by people, though, I never liked the characterization.
I don't consider myself an "intellectual" but I can't deny that I like thinking about a lot of things! Oftentimes to the detriment of the poor soul who's waiting for me to respond. And while I may always cut close to deadlines because I was just too busy overthinking things, I will almost always attempt to provide a thoughtful response.
I don't know if I've managed to hone it to the point that I'd call it a Superpower, though. And shouldn't something only be considered a superpower if it can be used for evil, too? Oh hell, maybe I'm just overthinking things again ;)
This is pretty interesting. I would love a free alternative too, though looking through the descriptions I can make a pretty good guess as to which are my 5 strongest themes. Most of mine fall under Strategic Thinking domain. I'm really curious to find resources to figure out how to focus and get better at these themes.
I'm also thinking that people searching for co-founders might want to pair up with someone stronger in a different domain. Kind of curious which types might work well together.
Hm... my strength seems to be my obsessiveness. Then again, that's also a liability!
I would say I'm quite strong at the combination of design + front-end coding although I've worked as a product manager for most of my professional life 🤷.
I'm also an expert at failing
I control time.
Solid. Can you fast forward us to the end of Coronavirus please @chrisdancy1
I found a free one here:
https://high5test.com/
Never took one before. My top one is "Philomath" so still not too sure what to do with it. I was on track to be one of the world's youngest professors since I started university as a child but things fell through.
I've found that I'm pretty good at stock market investing and also advising companies. The startup investing and advising is really rewarding and the ones I help think I'm world-class but they're all very early-stage companies and back of the napkin math tells me this probably isn't really prudent.
My second one is 'Story Teller' and I'm getting closer now to doing something useful with it since I help people with pitches and decks which is a better fit than my previous job as a research scientist.
@ronanawall can you tell me what 'Analysis' is? Didn't get that one. I was at one point a very strong chess player and I spend lots of time reading financial documents and helping people with their pitch decks.
@ronanawall @mike_xie I didn't save the results & explanations but from memory it implies numerical ability and an aptitude for number crunching / excel / statistics. Sounds like it might be one of yours too