How many of you have ever taken a personality test?
Personality tests are really fun. I remember one time we were sitting in our house with all of our kids and we decided to all take this personality test. And it was so fun to have each of my seven kids take the tests and see their results and what they revealed about each one of them. Some of the results were pretty surprising, not at all what I was expecting, and that’s always so fun.
In my business, I’ve always had our staff members take a personality test when they’re first hired. Now, my favorite personality test isn’t actually a “personality test” per se, but I love what it shows. It’s called the KOLBE and it reveals a lot about your behavior, your actions, and about what you do. The KOLBE gives you a ranking from 1 to 10 in a few different behavioral areas.
You can come back as a Fact Finder, the person that likes to do investigations and find out all the information ahead of time; the Follow Through, the type of personality that will see something all the way through; the Quick Start, someone who will jump out of the airplane and build your parachute on the way down; the Implementer, someone who likes to work with your hands; and the Visionary, someone that can envision a solution in their head.
Knowing your strengths, and the strengths of people on your team, keeps you from getting frustrated.
Rather than spending all of your time trying to figure out how to accomplish something you’re not good at, you can find someone else who thrives in that area, which means you can spend your time doing what your business needs you to do — your own personal strengths. It’s so important to stop being negative to yourself about the things that don’t come naturally and, instead, just embrace your strengths, the things that you’re really good at.
One of my strengths is that I am visionary. The opposite of this is that I am not hands on at all. Please, whatever you do, don’t ask me to actually physically print something with a printer. I promise you, I will break the printer. Every. Single. Time. It is a running joke in the office. If you want the printer to break, ask Nicole to print something!!! But you know what? My clients don’t need me to print things with a printer. My clients don’t need me to build an office chair. So, why should I worry about those things? What I need to worry about is embracing the things that I’m good at, focusing on those things, developing those things even more, and being able to leverage those things in my business. When I do this, I can provide more value for my clients.
At the same time, you should also realize that sometimes your strengths are also what blocks you from success. Because I love to plan, I’m not a Quick Start, and that can really get in my way. When this happens, I have to remind myself, “Yes, this is not planned out 100%. That’s okay. It’s planned out 50%.” Sometimes you just have to jump into it with both feet, move forward, and push yourself out of your comfort zone and away from your natural behavior.
Embrace your strengths.