Latest / SisterSmart Leadership / 7: The Research-Backed Tools That Will Help You Know Your Genius

Transcript

7: The Research-Backed Tools That Will Help You Know Your Genius · SisterSmart Leadership

• 0:00
  Jill Avey: Leadership experts like me will tell you that one of the most
• 0:02
  important skills as you rise up into senior leadership is self-awareness.
• 0:07
  Yet, most people don't find it so easy to know how they're feeling
• 0:11
  inside or how others see them.
• 0:12
  I have one of the less common personalities, especially being
• 0:16
  neurodiverse on top of that.
• 0:17
  So it's helped me a lot to get to know myself so that I can feel
• 0:20
  like I have a place to fit in.
• 0:22
  And most of my clients feel the same way too.
• 0:24
  It's so refreshing to take a quiz and see the answers come up and tell
• 0:28
  you there's nothing wrong with you.
• 0:30
  You're just an Enneagram three, or you're an E N F P.
• 0:34
  When I combine that one result with all the other ways that I can define
• 0:38
  myself in this vivid mosaic, that gives me a picture of the real me,
• 0:43
  that me isn't like anybody else.
• 0:45
  And I can tell you from going through this process with over
• 0:48
  a hundred clients that no two of them are anything like each other.
• 0:52
  It's one of my favorite things to see.
• 0:54
  We are all so different as humans, and yet it's sometimes hard to see that.
• 0:59
  So in this episode, you'll learn the 12 tools of self-awareness, and
• 1:03
  I'll also share examples of how my clients have used this knowledge to
• 1:07
  build their confidence and ability to interact with their team members.
• 1:10
  By the end of the episode, you'll be ready to improve your own self-awareness
• 1:14
  with this new set of tools.
• 1:15
  I'm Jill Avey, a career success coach, and this is Sister Smart Leadership, the
• 1:21
  show that explores how women can rise from director to vice president and beyond
• 1:25
  by fully leaning into their feminine energy as their biggest advantage.
• 1:30
  Let's get you one step closer to the recognition and promotion you deserve.
• 1:35
  Jill Avey: It's amazing how little we actually know about ourselves.
• 1:38
  I mean, we walk around in this body all day, but how much time have you
• 1:41
  actually spent getting to know yourself?
• 1:44
  I feel like most people, it hasn't actually been that too much time.
• 1:47
  Yet when we talk about playing to our strengths, like we did in the
• 1:50
  last episode with Sister Smart Coach Sarah, we have to get to know
• 1:54
  ourselves better than we do now.
• 1:57
  How do you do that though?
• 1:58
  I love journaling as a way to tap into our inner wisdom.
• 2:01
  It's a great way to get that quiet voice inside of you out.
• 2:05
  But the downside of journaling can be that you only know what you know, and it can
• 2:09
  lead to rumination if we're not careful.
• 2:11
  So let's talk about how we can know our genius through research back tools.
• 2:15
  So the very first thing to start with is a strengths assessment.
• 2:19
  We use what's called the strengths profile in our program, and that gives
• 2:22
  you four categories that I really love.
• 2:24
  So you have realized strengths, these are the strengths that are the things
• 2:28
  that you know you're good at probably.
• 2:29
  And when you walk into a meeting, everybody knows that, that's you, you're
• 2:33
  the person who's good at those things.
• 2:35
  these are inherent things that you're going to bring
• 2:37
  from situation to situation.
• 2:39
  And you would use these strengths in your personal life, in your work life.
• 2:42
  These are what people know about you.
• 2:44
  The unrealized strengths are the things that you're using less of.
• 2:48
  These are the things that you could, you know, bring up a little bit more.
• 2:51
  So we want to be careful when we're talking about our realized strengths
• 2:55
  because the thing about realized strengths is that it's every strength becomes
• 2:59
  a weakness when we use it too much.
• 3:01
  It's easy for us to really lean on those things that we know
• 3:04
  we're good at and overuse them.
• 3:06
  So what we want to do is we want to use our strengths with caution.
• 3:09
  And so it's the unrealized strengths where you could lean more into those.
• 3:13
  Those would be the things that you know are kind of up and coming,
• 3:16
  but it's not your go-to thing that you know you're great at.
• 3:19
  Then there's also learned behaviors.
• 3:21
  These are the things that we're good at, but we had to learn how to do them.
• 3:24
  And it's good to identify these things because they are the things that are
• 3:29
  going to really sap your energy and you want to spend as little time as
• 3:32
  possible in these learned behaviors.
• 3:35
  Then you get to your weaknesses.
• 3:37
  I love talking about weaknesses because we all have them.
• 3:40
  So the strengths profile is a profile of 60 strengths.
• 3:43
  Nobody's going to have 60 realized strengths, that would be impossible
• 3:47
  and it wouldn't even be desirable.
• 3:50
  So we all have this category of weaknesses that are at the bottom of
• 3:54
  our list of strengths that are the things that we're just not great at.
• 3:57
  And I want you to celebrate that stuff.
• 3:59
  I want you to really own those weaknesses because when you do that,
• 4:04
  you can say, Hey, that's not me.
• 4:07
  This is me.
• 4:08
  But That's not, and that's not what I'm great at.
• 4:11
  That's not my zone of brilliance.
• 4:13
  And so we don't want to fix weaknesses.
• 4:14
  We're not trying to get our weaknesses over to the strength
• 4:17
  side and make them strengths.
• 4:19
  What we want to do is we want to own them, and we may need to build scaffolding
• 4:23
  around them so that they don't become a problem or an Achilles heel for us.
• 4:28
  So that I totally support.
• 4:30
  And easy thing that you can do is do the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment.
• 4:34
  It's very popular.
• 4:35
  The Gallup website is where you can find the StrengthsFinder
• 4:39
  and anybody can take it.
• 4:40
  It's wonderful.
• 4:41
  There's a top 10 and there's a 34.
• 4:43
  I would pay the extra and do the 34 because then you also get
• 4:47
  to see those weaknesses, those ones you really want to embrace.
• 4:51
  So with some thought, you can probably figure out which are the middle
• 4:54
  ones are unrealized and learned.
• 4:56
  StrengthsFinder doesn't particularly say that and pick those out.
• 4:59
  But you, but you can figure that out I think.
• 5:01
  So that's where you can go with your strengths.
• 5:04
  Next is the personality assessment.
• 5:06
  So there are several good personality assessments you
• 5:08
  may have done the disc at work.
• 5:11
  That's one that we often use in the workplace for teams and things like that.
• 5:15
  And there's the Enneagram, which the Enneagram iss actually the my
• 5:19
  favorite assessment because it goes very in depth into how you are in
• 5:23
  different situations, in different stress levels and things like that.
• 5:28
  It's a very interesting personality assessment that I, I think is, has
• 5:31
  a lot of really usefulness to it.
• 5:34
  And then there's the Myers-Briggs which has been around a very long time.
• 5:38
  It's a little bit controversial in that it wasn't based on science originally.
• 5:43
  But millions of people have taken the Myers-Briggs now, and, I really
• 5:47
  feel that after this amount of time that we have really shown that the
• 5:50
  Myers-Briggs does hold a lot of water.
• 5:53
  I have done the Myers-Briggs with over a hundred clients and no one has
• 5:57
  ever said, this doesn't sound like me.
• 5:58
  In fact, the opposite, where it's like, yeah, that all rings true.
• 6:02
  And I love all the tools that are built around Myers-Briggs.
• 6:05
  There's a book called Do What You Are, which can help you figure out what jobs
• 6:11
  might be good for this personality type.
• 6:13
  That's a tool that we use and I think it's very good at seeing how you are on a
• 6:17
  personal level versus how you are at work.
• 6:20
  So I, I personally find the Myers-Briggs very helpful.
• 6:24
  The one that's really research backed is the big five.
• 6:27
  So that's the one that, you know, we know that that has a ton of research behind it.
• 6:33
  It's very valid.
• 6:34
  And that's kind of your go-to if you're really looking for
• 6:36
  research backed assessment.
• 6:39
  I'll put a link in the show notes with a website where you can do any
• 6:43
  of these personality assessments.
• 6:45
  The next way that we can get to know our genius is by understanding our saboteurs.
• 6:49
  This is sort of our shadow side, and it's really important to understand
• 6:53
  both, you know, the, the bright side and the shadow side of our personalities
• 6:58
  because boy, they all show up.
• 7:00
  And so the saboteurs we use what's called Positive Intelligence
• 7:04
  Framework for our program.
• 7:06
  And that was developed by Shirzad Chamine.
• 7:08
  And it's an incredible framework that really helps people understand
• 7:12
  the saboteurs in a very simple way.
• 7:14
  So he's boiled down the saboteurs to 10 universal saboteurs.
• 7:19
  That way we don't have to figure out which ones are ours.
• 7:22
  We can just take an assessment and find out what's going on for us.
• 7:25
  So the universal saboteur, for example, is the judge . This saboteur is the one
• 7:31
  that's that inner critic voice that tells you like, it's never going to work out.
• 7:34
  You're not good enough.
• 7:35
  You're never going to make it, that kind of voice that we all hear.
• 7:39
  In fact, it's kind of running all day every day.
• 7:42
  We have the inner critic, we have the outer critic of criticizing
• 7:45
  other people, and we also have the critic of the environment.
• 7:48
  So we may be criticizing the environment that we're working in, or the company
• 7:53
  or the world or our society or whatever.
• 7:56
  That's an example of the judge Saboteur.
• 7:58
  Saboteurs are built, they're created in childhood.
• 8:02
  So when we're little kids, we don't have a lot of tools to be
• 8:05
  able to make sense of the world.
• 8:07
  And so It's a brilliant piece of our psychology that our brains create
• 8:13
  these saboteurs to help us make sense of the world and help us feel safe.
• 8:18
  What they do is they protect our ego, so it helps us to understand that these
• 8:23
  were originally something that were a protective mechanism for us that
• 8:26
  helped us get through our childhood and helped us make sense of things
• 8:30
  that we couldn't make sense of as kids.
• 8:33
  As adults, they've usually worn out their welcome, shall we say,
• 8:37
  and they're usually getting in the way more than they're helping.
• 8:40
  So it's good to be able to work with those saboteurs and
• 8:44
  understand when they're coming up.
• 8:46
  And what we can do is how we can shift the conversation with them and we can
• 8:51
  have them be more supportive of us and not holding us back because these saboteurs
• 8:56
  are running in our subconscious all the time, and until we know how to work with
• 9:00
  them, it's really hard to be catching them when they're holding us back.
• 9:04
  There can be a lot of negative effect from them if we're not careful.
• 9:08
  In our program, we also do what's called the PQ Bootcamp, and that's a
• 9:11
  six week intensive with the saboteurs that can be really powerful for people.
• 9:16
  Like one client she found this so liberating and she
• 9:20
  was able to do so much more.
• 9:22
  The people pleaser is a, is another saboteur and that was her big one.
• 9:26
  And she was always feeling like she was having to do everything for everybody
• 9:29
  else and to say yes to everything.
• 9:31
  And this really set her free to be able to say, this is not right for me.
• 9:36
  It's not what I want to do right now, and so I'm going to go ahead and pass.
• 9:39
  And so that's a real powerful thing to be able to do.
• 9:43
  So understanding the saboteurs, that's a piece of our makeup and it's
• 9:46
  a piece of our genius, because the saboteurs are based in our strengths.
• 9:51
  And a saboteur is kind of a strength overused like we were talking before.
• 9:55
  And so that can really help us when we understand that when we overuse
• 10:00
  something, it can actually hold us back.
• 10:03
  We can still have success with saboteurs, but we'll never have success and happiness
• 10:07
  at the same time with the saboteurs.
• 10:09
  So that's an important piece.
• 10:11
  Next would be the values.
• 10:13
  So in, in our program, we use a, a values exercise that is a three-part
• 10:18
  exercise and it starts out with going through your life in three parts.
• 10:22
  By going back and looking at the different experiences you've had in
• 10:25
  your life, it can be very informative.
• 10:27
  In fact, one of our clients in the Sisters in Leadership program just said the other
• 10:31
  day that she was doing that exercise and she was able to see a pattern in
• 10:35
  her life that she'd never seen before.
• 10:37
  And so these things can really help inform you on how you want to move forward too.
• 10:41
  The final thing that we do is really looking at your skills
• 10:44
  and what I call the secret sauce.
• 10:47
  So what are the skills that you've built up over your career that
• 10:50
  you're really good at doing?
• 10:52
  These are more the tactical things that you do in your job day to day.
• 10:55
  So what are the skills that you're bringing?
• 10:56
  What are the skills that you're using when you're at your best place?
• 10:59
  So think about, you know, a project or a job that you've had where
• 11:03
  everything fell into place and you were just clicking along and your
• 11:07
  team was clicking and everything was working like a well-oiled machine.
• 11:11
  What were the skills that you were using at that time?
• 11:14
  That's going to really help you to understand where that
• 11:17
  zone of brilliance is for you.
• 11:19
  And then the secret sauce.
• 11:20
  What is it about you that makes you uniquely different from
• 11:25
  anybody else who would be doing this same job that you're doing?
• 11:28
  What is it that you are bringing to it based on all the stuff
• 11:31
  we've talked about already?
• 11:32
  You are going to be different.
• 11:34
  There is no other person in this whole world that is you.
• 11:38
  And I can tell you from doing these exercises with over a
• 11:41
  hundred clients, that no two people are even remotely alike.
• 11:45
  Even if they have the same personality type, even if they do the same
• 11:48
  job, even if they have the same skills, some of the same values.
• 11:53
  The rest of the picture won't be anything similar to that other person's picture,
• 11:58
  it's really interesting how all these things can execute so differently.
• 12:01
  So you have some secret sauce about you and really understanding that is powerful.
• 12:06
  It will help you have a bigger voice in meetings.
• 12:09
  It will help you define your viewpoint.
• 12:11
  It'll help you write your resume for sure, and really help you understand
• 12:16
  what it is that you are bringing to your job and to leadership as well.
• 12:21
  So that's how you can find your zone of brilliance.
• 12:26
  I would like to suggest three shifts for you when you're working
• 12:29
  with your Zone of brilliance.
• 12:30
  The first thing I would like for you to do is go take a personality
• 12:33
  assessment at Truity.com.
• 12:35
  They have a bunch of free assessments there for you, and you can choose
• 12:39
  which one you like to take.
• 12:40
  Would you like the disc, the Enneagram, the Myers-Briggs, or the Big five?
• 12:44
  They're all there on that website, and so you can choose which one's right for you.
• 12:48
  Next, I'd like for you to go to positive intelligence.com and
• 12:52
  take the saboteur assessment.
• 12:54
  They have a really great explanation for each of the saboteurs, and
• 12:57
  so you can learn a lot by that.
• 12:59
  You can also read the book Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine.
• 13:04
  Finally take the Strengthsfinder 2.0, do that full 34.
• 13:08
  It's really informative to go ahead and do the full 34, but if you're not
• 13:12
  feeling like you want to invest the money in that, you can just do the top 10.
• 13:18
  So I would love to hear from you in the comments.
• 13:21
  If you're watching this on YouTube, which one will you start with?
• 13:24
  Will you do the strengths?
• 13:25
  Will you do the personality, the saboteurs?
• 13:27
  Will you do the values?
• 13:29
  Or are you going to define your secret sauce?
• 13:30
  Let me know in the comments.
• 13:33
  I would love for you to pick one assessment and go do it.
• 13:36
  Go take some time and read through your results and reflect on each thing and how
• 13:42
  that comes up in your life, and really start to incorporate that information
• 13:46
  into how you understand yourself.
• 13:49
  So if you would like to dive deeper into women's leadership and how to
• 13:53
  move up in your career, subscribe either on YouTube or wherever you
• 13:57
  listen to your PO favorite podcast.
• 13:59
  I'm on a mission to help more women get into leadership and stay there.
• 14:03
  If that's aligned with you, I'd love to have you be part of this
• 14:06
  community and tune into more episodes on Sister Smart Leadership.
• 14:11
  We'll support you in becoming the leader you want to be.
• 14:14
  Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.
• 14:17
  If you're ready to fully lean into your feminine leadership and get promoted
• 14:20
  from director to vice president and beyond, hit that subscribe button so
• 14:25
  you'll get all the episodes to come and check out the recommended video here
• 14:29
  to see how women are rising up without playing by the old rules that built these
• 14:33
  male dominated industries and systems.