When Benson Smith and Tony Rutigliano wrote "Discover Your Sales Strengths" the two Gallup organization research specialists departed from traditional thinking that had companies and individuals working on correcting weaknesses and spending inordinate time trying to fix faults. What they discovered after years of research on successful sales professionals is surprising and strategic for anyone who wants to improve by leveraging the special gifts that each of us are uniquely endowed with. The book provides plenty of insights and practical exercises and a fun and insightful component is that at the end the reader is invited to take a an online exam, by use of a secret access code provided in the book. The exam registers one's top five strengths and further encourages the reader to build on those strengths as an efficiency mechanism towards success and ultimately happiness as well. I recommend "Discover Your Sales Strengths" as an interesting, practical and useful tool in helping understand one's own motivations and perhaps gaining some insight into why some activities or endeavors seem to come to us so naturally and why, in others, we struggle as if swimming against a current.
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I have made it part of my life's work to think about identifying and encouraging strengths - sadly, not often enough my own, but rather of my two daughters. I have lived a life passionately complicit with them, living and breathing them fully, again, sadly in response to the lack of a deep emotional connection with a partner. The good thing here is that I, as most mothers, through my intimate knowledge and enjoyment of their differences, can acknowledge their unique gifts to the world, thereby empowering them. It's a lovely thing to know someone well and it was one of the greatest sadnesses in my life to terminate my long term relationship with someone I knew better than he did himself. That body of knowledge was intoxicating and I doubt that I will experience it again in my lifetime as there is just not enough time to do it again. I recently learned that I am capable of devoting much energy to understanding those I love and value, a bittersweet discovery as this gift is not universally appreciated or valued.
Now I look forward to the role of observer to see how my daughters use their strengths, if they address their weaknesses and come to their full expression. Present circumstance in my life has required me to learn to influence them mostly through the power of example, so appealing in its gentleness. As they are now embarking on their own paths, this allows me the freedom to finally take a closer look at myself. Having always enjoyed living the examined life, I find it a thrilling prospect and perhaps the very reason to exist. Although no guarantee of success or happiness, it is one of life's greatest gifts to know thyself.
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