HOW CLIFTONSTRENGTHS HAS CHANGED MY LIFE
[Lisa Cummings, Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach] Knowing my Strengths, knowing my talents and seeing how
they show up on me, it’s done a lot. It’s, from a great side, the things that were already going well, it’s helped me lean into those proudly. Personally, it’s given me permission, it’s
allowed me to give myself permission to really live in to who I am in a stronger way. So getting to know them on a really deep level is great so many ways in life, in personal life, in
work life, it, it works like a holistic piece, but it just gives you the self-awareness and the language, and the lenses through which you think about yourself to be able to become more of
who you are and really add your value to the world.
[Helen Holton, Coach It’s changed my life for the better. It’s given me confirmation and affirmation to what has lived intuitively within me for
many, many years. Since I was young and had no idea what I was going to do in life. It’s changed my life.
[Jenn McCloskey, Director] Professionally, it literally changed the course of my career.
[Shari Rodriguez, Learning Program Manager] I’ve got to know myself more and the ability to articulate it to the people around me, my coworkers, my boss, my family, I
know that I eliminated some disruption in my house when I understood my son better. Maximizer versus Competition. Just those small things around, I know who I am and I think
the biggest thing for me is understanding that not everybody’s going to approach it like I do.
[Troy Aitken, Organization Development Manager] It’s helped me recognize that there are strengths and things that often I might have been told that there’s something wrong
with you or it’s something that’s not great and it’s a realization it’s a strength and being able to harness that and move it from perhaps being raw in some places to really focus
in and achieve my goals. And, particularly, when I’m very conscious of it and I think about a piece of work I’ve got and I think about my Strengths,
I’ve found I’ve been a great success in achieving them.
[Mike Finnegan, Assistant Professor] Strengths have changed my life. I’ve got to pause for the goosebumps. The, in a very profound way. I always knew
that I was high energy. I always knew that I had a connection and a passion for people. And then when I read Woo, Winning Others Over, and naturally talented at breaking the
ice, I thought about my role as a faculty member with the School of Leadership Studies. And I make a commitment to get to know every one of my students by name. Even if I’m
teaching a class of 120 students. And so knowing people’s names is important to me, but that’s also my Woo in action. To say hey, if I know your name, I can engage you in the
conversation that we’re having today and so then the Woo and the Maximizer, the Positivity, all those Strengths play in to my role as an educator. And the Adaptability Strength
really gave me permission to lesson plan, but it also allowed me to throw the lesson plan out when it didn’t meet the needs of my students, depending on the week. And so I default to
my, my Strengths more so than I default to authority. Because, at the end of the day, if we’re all living our Strengths, that should be the one authority that we follow,
because we’re living our natural way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. So it’s been life changing.
[Michele Cox, Manager, Learning Strategies] I have to speak about the thing that impacted me the most over the past few years – I had cancer. I had known a little bit
about my Strengths before cancer, but I really leaned into them. In particular Positivity. So you feel like you’ve lost control of so many things and yet my Positivity gave me the
hope of you know what? This is, this is a season and, I really believe that it was my Positivity that was given to me to tell me you can do something other than let cancer define you.
You can be something beyond that. So you can’t stop the fact that you have cancer. You can’t stop the fact that you have treatments. What is it that you can own? What is it
that you can be all yours? And it was my attitude.
Learn more at cliftonstrengths.gallup.com