You know how some people like a fancy accomplishment wall, with all their diplomas and certificates proudly posted? That's cool for them but that's not my style at all. For many years my college diploma was in storage under my bed. As I write this, I realize I have no idea where it currently is. Hmm. In any case, that makes it even more surprising that I went through the process to become a certified Gallup strengths coach. Going for this credential was an accomplishment that became perhaps inevitable over time—and it starts way back.

In 2003 (back before Beyonce had ever released a solo album), I was a new manager working at the Teach for America national office and somebody gave me the book "First, Break all the Rules." It was focused on managing successfully, and I took my new responsibility of managing a team of five seriously. One of the main tenets of the book is how important it is to focus on strengths. They back up their arguments with research showing that if you spend time trying to make up for your weaknesses, you may get to a fine place, but you'll never have that be a place where you shine. Rather, the research shows, spend that same effort on your strengths and you will see stratospheric growth and you can unleash the power that you didn't even know you could have. As humans, we are hardwired to see the negative (which makes evolutionary sense, right?) and while this was counterintuitive I found it really appealing. Being deficit-focused as a person and as a manager exhausted me: the book flipped my thinking on what successful managers did.

The sequel was called "Now, Discover Your Strengths" and there have been various iterations including StrengthsFinder 2.0. For almost 20 years, I have taken the assessment and used it to guide my own actions, leveraging my strengths as I have grown in my career. I've used it with teams I've directly managed, as well as with teams I've indirectly managed through layers. Now, when I say "use" —it was my bootleg made-up version of what I thought made sense. People took the assessment, we made a team strengths grid, and I used my teacher muscles to plan sessions that had the team taking away both a common language to use with each other as well as the idea that the ROI (return on investment) was always more if you focused on strengths.

So, I decided in February in 2021 to become a certified strengths coach. I have been a huge Gallup Strengths Geek for over 15 years, so why not spend four 10-hour days on Zoom? I wanted to learn in detail about strengths not in my top 10. I wanted to understand how different strengths influence each other: how do they play together? Peanut butter is great, jelly is great and yet— peanut butter & jelly is a whole new level of greatness! When I combine my Activator with my Empathy (which is my number 2 strength) what does that mean? What does that do? How does that work?

To get certified, I spent four days on Zoom, took a 100 question test and did coaching for people so that Gallup could collect their evaluations and make sure that I was legit. I'm now officially strengths certified and excited to add this credential to my portfolio (not a wall yet though—I'm still me). It's part of—but by no means—the only thing I do in my business, and it's really helpful because I bring this lens to everything I do. There are strengths to be found in any situation, there's always assets to be found and always something to build on. This is what I truly believe in my soul—which may be because of my third strength, Positivity!

The benefits of working with a Gallup Strengths Coach are fantastic - schedule an Intro Call with me today to start leaning into your strengths and achieving results for you and your organization!

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