How to Develop Your Strengths

Below is audio plus a transcript of the conversation, including time stamps.

So you know what your Top 5 CliftonStrengths are. Where do you go from here? How can you develop your talents so they turn into strengths and are making a difference in your life and work? Austin Suellentrop, CliftonStrengths Community Channel Manager at Gallup, brings insights on how you can develop your strengths, to help you get unstuck and start on a journey toward a life in which you reach your full potential.

[Strengths] only develop in relationship to other people. So no matter how much effort and energy you put into it, at some point, you're going to have to interact with somebody.

Austin Suellentrop, 29:38

Study your own successes -- it's one of the tenets of the strengths-based mindset. Figure out how it worked for you in the past, right? And then you sort of fit strengths into that new habit you're trying to build.

Austin Suellentrop, 9:37

Jim Collison 0:00
I am Jim Collison, and welcome to the CliftonStrengths Podcast. On this podcast, we'll be covering topics such as wellbeing, teamwork, professional development and more. Now enjoy this episode. This episode was previously recorded on LinkedIn Live.

Jim Collison 0:17
Austin, let's get to know you a little bit.

Austin Suellentrop 0:19
Yeah, sure.

Meet Our Guest on This Episode

Jim Collison 0:20
Tell us a little bit about your background and what you do for Gallup.

Austin Suellentrop 0:22
Yeah, absolutely, Jim, thanks for having me. So, I'll start with I discovered strengths in the spring of 2012 was when I was first introduced. So, golly, it'd be 10 years in February. And my background: When I discovered them, I was working as a Leadership Development Expert in an organization of about 24,000 people, doing a lot of work with employee engagement and things along those lines. And that work actually led me to joining Gallup down the road. So I spent some time as a Workplace Consultant, traveling the world teaching classes and, you know, helping organizations with strategy. And now I actually get the really cool pleasure of leading Gallup's global strategy for all things revolving around strengths. So if you think of CliftonStrengths and all the research, technology, product development, courses, coaching, yada, all that sort of stuff, I sort of connect all those teams behind the scenes and drive our strategy to grow more adoption of the strengths-based mindset. So that's, that's a really cool job, I get this, I get to hang out with you a lot.

Jim Collison 1:29
We do hang out, we do. We do get to hang out a lot, which is pretty great for me. I don't know about for you; it's pretty great for me.

Austin Suellentrop 1:34
I put up with it.

I've Got My Top 5 CliftonStrengths. Now What?

Jim Collison 1:36
We're spending some time today talking about how to develop your strengths. I'll answer that question too. If you're in chat, throw your Top 5 in there, let us know that you're here and where or when you discovered your Top 5. It was the fall of '05 for me -- very, very early. And the bank I was working for had been an early customer of Gallup and bought the books First, Break All the Rules, and Now, Discover Your Strengths. And I hadn't gone through those engagements. But I found, I found the book. Yeah, right on the shelf there; I found the book. And, and I had, the, the bank I had been working for had gotten purchased by, by another organization. And I didn't have a lot to do. So I thought, Well, I might as well read. First, First Break All the Rules. And that's like, like, I need to parent this way. This isn't just a way to manage, but, like, I could manage my kids this way, which would be great. And then Now, Discover Your Strengths changed everything. And I brought that home -- I remember that night I brought it home, and I said to my wife, "You got to take this. We got to parent this way." And so it was just a, for us, that, it took me another 2 years to get to Gallup at that point. But it was a journey, it was a journey to get there. Austin, let me, let me ask you this. I get this question a lot in our social communities. So I've taken, you know, I've taken CliftonStrengths; I've got my Top 5. Now what?

Austin Suellentrop 2:58
Oh, yeah. So I was actually, I was just with a team yesterday, talking about this exact thing. And I think the, the first thing I would encourage anybody to do is to find the people that matter the most to you in life, whether that be a spouse, a friend, coworker, a manager -- whoever it is that you spend a lot of your time with and you trust, and share your results with them, and ask them a couple questions. Ask them, "What in here, as you read this, like what in here surprises you? And what in here do you read and go, 'Oh, yeah, that's, that's 100% you.'" And ask them when they've seen it. Because I think the cool thing about strengths is one of Don Clifton's sort of fundamental sort of thinkings was that strengths only develop in relationship to other people; that we have to, at some point, take our talents and strengths and put them out in the world for others to interact with, for us to give us feedback on what's working, what's not.

Austin Suellentrop 3:57
And so when we get our strengths, our, for, our initial results, what I see is I see a lot of people, oftentimes they sit down and they think, I've got to go do a bunch of stuff with this now. How do I implement it? Well, the first thing you should do is start sharing it with those people that you love, those people that matter the most to you, and start that dialogue and hear stories and examples and of how they help you. And, and in my situation, I remember -- much like you, Jim -- when I first discovered my strengths and, you know, I've got Communication 1, Activator 2, like, I could think back immediately to always sort of examples in childhood that came to my mind about these.

Austin Suellentrop 4:38
But it was actually my mom who told me, when I shared my results with her, it's my mom who told me a story of when I was in kindergarten -- no joke, kindergarten -- and I convinced my kindergarten teacher that my dad was a lion tamer in the circus because he travelled for work a good bit and, and so he never picked me up from school; my mom always picked me up. And it was more fun to create this tall tale that my dad was a lion tamer with the circus. And I was so convincing that she actually asked my mom, she's like, "Mrs. Suellentrop, I don't think it's true. But Austin, Austin's convinced me that his father is a lion tamer in the circus. Is that, is that true?" And so I think that's what you do -- you get those kinds of examples that I didn't know, I didn't have that story in my back pocket. But now I have it from sharing my strengths with the people in my life.

Ways to Apply Your Top 5 Reports

Jim Collison 5:27
When you're working with individuals and, you know, if they, maybe they just have access to the Top 5 -- we'll talk about 34 maybe here in a minute. But they just, from the reports, from the two reports that we have -- one with kind of the theme descriptions, the other one with the theme insight -- what do you like to do with those reports? I mean, what's your favorite things to, to get out of those or to help people get out of those?

Austin Suellentrop 5:47
Yeah, I think the, what I look for, I'm a, I'm a very high-level, fast-paced kind of guy. And I don't like digging in in super rich detail. So the way I approach it, is I'll read the paragraphs, the descriptions of the themes, and I'm highlighting or circling, like, key words and phrases that resonate with me. And what I'm looking for are the things that I can immediately say, "Oh, yes. I've done that recently." Or, "Yes, I, I've been told that before." So the kind of affirming pieces of them. And what you'll do -- you do that for 5 themes, you'll walk away with, I don't know, 10, 15 little, little phrases or descriptions that, that you can say with confidence, "This feels like me."

Austin Suellentrop 6:32
And that gives you sort of a, I like to think of it that's like your first version of like a, of a blueprint for how you can start to use your strengths more. Because here's 10 to 15 things you just circled that you're proud of, that you can identify with, that I can start figuring out how do I, how do I work this into my day more? How do I do more things like this? How do I get this feeling or leverage this way of thinking more often in my day? That's sort of my, my go-to approach.

Ways to Apply Your All 34 Report

Jim Collison 7:01
We have an upgraded report, a 34 report that has all 34 themes in order. That reports a little bit longer -- 20, 20+ pages. What is it, when you think about that report, what do you like to pull out of that one? What's your go-to on that report?

Austin Suellentrop 7:16
What I love about that, that report in particular is we've, we've taken the paragraph form, we've hit them into more bullet points, right. So it's easily, it's more easily sort of digestible in sections. But there's a section, there's a piece of that report that I love that shows a, talks about our domains, and it gives a visual understanding of my full 34. And the visual sort of representation in the form of a bar chart, actually, that says, sort of, are you more of an Execution kind of person, a Thinking, Influencing or Relationships? And what it does is it levels me up to get out of the potential sort of detail and weeds of theme by theme or what this looks like in, in granularity and gets up to, Hey, where am I at my best? Well, if you look at my bar chart, you're gonna see a big bar of, of orange, right? I'm an Influencer through and through. And the second domain is about, is for me is Strategic Thinking.

Austin Suellentrop 8:15
So when I'm at my best, I'm helping other people to think about and talk about and engage in discussion around really important, deep stuff. So the combination of those two themes, like, that makes a lot of sense. So when I get asked to work on a project or I get asked to help a client, that's what I'm striving for: I'm striving for helping people have those kinds of discussions and think deep, hard, big things, rather than passing sort of chitter chatter. Like that's less engaging for me; it's less fun for me. I want to really dig in.

How Do You Keep Your Strengths in Front of You Every Day?

Jim Collison 8:50
Austin, as we think about developing our strengths, how do we keep them in front of us every day? This is, it's hard sometimes. You get this report, you put it in, you know, you read through it one time, maybe it gets set on the side, stapled, whatever, right, put away. How do you keep that in front of you on a daily basis?

Austin Suellentrop 9:05
Well, you know, I think that's, it's a question we, we're asked all the time. And it's, I think it starts with setting realistic expectations for yourself. So if your goal is to keep these in front of you every day, well, that's a, that's a routine you're changing; that's a habit you're changing. That is sort of shifting how you operate your day. So stop, pause and think: When have I changed my habits before? When have I been able to implement something new in my life with success? Study your own successes -- it's one of the tenets of the strengths-based mindset. Figure out how it worked for you in the past, right? And then you sort of fit strengths into that new habit you're trying to build.

Austin Suellentrop 9:49
So for some people I've seen work really well, people who are, who are journalers. I have some friends who, who write in their journal every day. Every night before they go to bed, they jot a few notes down. And when they wake up in the morning, they read it and jot a few down. Well, if you're a journaler, how do you go ahead and get strengths, your themes or some prompts in your journal that will make you think about your strengths every day? If you're a sticky note kind of person, right, and you got sticky notes all over your desk and all over your computer, how do you have themes on your sticky notes? How do you have, you know, reflective questions about your strengths on your, on those sticky notes? I think figuring out what your system or process is, is the way to do it, and what works for you.

Austin Suellentrop 10:31
I would, I would attest that part of why we're asked that question all the time is because people are looking for us to give them a prescriptive answer of, "Here's how you do it. Here's how you're going to make it work." And that is completely against the strengths-based mindset for me to give a blanket answer for how something's going to work for everybody out there. Right? I'll tell you what's worked for me, being Influencer, high Communication kind of guy, is I ask people about their strengths all the time. I talk about it all the time. I, I'm sort of an ambassador for it. And so it gets woven into a lot of discussions I have.

Austin Suellentrop 11:09
I say that, you know, one of the tactical things that I've done in organizations, right, I put my email signature, like my email signature is my Top 10. I probably did that in 2013, 2012, right, when I first got exposed. And so if you get an email from my personal email account, right, it's a hyperlink on the bottom of my email to gallup.com/cliftonstrengths, and it's my Top 5 right there. So every time I write an email, I'm seeing my Top 5. And every time somebody gets one from me, they're seeing my Top 5. So I think that's where it's important to know, like, there are tactical things you can do like that. Man, like, if, I wish you could see, see, like, my whole office. Like I've got, I've got artwork up in my office of, of my Top 5 and of sort of my, of the themes in a bar form and the DNA strand. Visuals work for me, like their visual cues help me; that's why I use them. But what's gonna work for you? Like what's gonna help you trigger it? That's the question.

Jim Collison 12:11
We will go to chat for this as well. Mary had said --

Austin Suellentrop 12:13
Yeah, sure.

Applying Your Talents at Home

Jim Collison 12:14
She, she asks new clients to put the Top 5 wherever they can see them. Love to hear, both from a corporate setting and from a, an individual setting. And, and Austin, let me ask you this question. I think sometimes folks feel like CliftonStrengths stays at work. What about at home? Like, how could we use this and develop this? You know, I mentioned I brought it home, I'm like, "We got to parent this way." But practically speaking -- and by the way, we have; it's been great. But practically speaking, how do we bring it home?

Austin Suellentrop 12:46
Yeah, I think it starts with that sharing with the, with the people that you love the most and that matter the most to you. I think that it's, it's being able to have a conversation of, What are you trying to accomplish at home? Like, just like, just like at work, if strengths are, if you're talking about strengths just for the sake of talking about them -- for fun, which people like me like to do -- that's one thing. But if we're going to really leverage it to its fullest potential, it's about aiming them at something. So a conversation at home, may be, Hey, you know, I feel like I'm, like, a real-world scenario: I've got three daughters, 11, 8, and 5. And I feel like I'm not as patient with my kids as I should be; that I, somehow I'm more patient with other people's kids than I am with my own.

Austin Suellentrop 13:32
So a conversation at home with my wife around, Hey, what do you see when I have a great reaction? Like what kind of great reactions do you see with my kids, with, with our daughters? When do I do that well? When do I not? What might be causing that? And having that kind of discussion and figuring out, well, maybe it's because I've got high Futuristic, high Positivity, high Activator -- those are all in my Top 5. So I'm always on to the next thing. And I'm always thinking about the next thing. So when my kids aren't moving fast enough, it frustrates me. But the difference is, being high Positivity, I wear it all right here. Like you know how I feel. And so I don't hide it well. And so I show my emotion a little bit more often than maybe the average person.

Austin Suellentrop 14:20
So those are the kinds of things that when you have a dialogue of strengths and sort of a foundation of strengths, you can, you can aim your strengths collectively at the things that matter to you in life. One of my favorite exercises I've ever done, when we, when we train coaches -- which we do a lot of, right, we train and certify coaches around the world; we've got over, what, 11,000 Certified Strengths Coaches globally -- one of the things we talk about is the difference between like talents and strengths and values. And the values conversation at home is so powerful -- of talking about what matters most in life, what people are, sort of hold dear, and then being able to map strengths and how do you use your strengths to live out your values? My wife and I, once a year, we sit down on our back deck, we get, we have a deck of cards, the Values Cards, we sit down once a year. I sort of a deck of cards into my Top 5 values; she sorts of deck into her Top 5 values. We see where we have alignment, and we see where we have a difference. And we talk about how our strengths contribute to them. It's brilliant. It's so much fun. It's a different way of having a deep sort of meaningful conversation.

Engaging Kids in CliftonStrengths

Jim Collison 15:29
How do you, how do you know the kids are engaging in that when it happens? And what kind of things do you hear from them? Or how do you know you're hitting the spot?

Austin Suellentrop 15:38
Well, it's, my kids are now starting to hit that age where, like, my 11-year-old uses the strengths terminology with me. Like, and so I know she's picking up on it, because my 11-year-old will tell me, "Hey, Dad, it's time to activate." Like when she's ready to go somewhere --

Jim Collison 15:56
Oh, strengths language.

Austin Suellentrop 15:56
She's, yeah, she'll, she uses strengths language with me. It's pretty fascinating. I've never taught her my, like, the full 34 themes; I've never done that. But she's, she's heard it enough now where she's starting to use it. You know, we, I think that the most telling way that you know it's starting to register is you're starting to see a difference in behavior, starting to see different outcomes. So when my 5-year-old says things like, you know, "Thanks, Daddy, I" -- like she said the other day, "Thanks for letting me do that," after I, I, she asked me to do something really trivial, right? And I said, "Yeah, sure, go, go for it," in a situation where I maybe in the past would have said, "No, we gotta go." Like, like, "Don't, put that down. We gotta hustle up and go." When she says things like, you know, "Thanks for letting me do that," she noticed that I most of the time would say, "No, we gotta go." But I let her stick around and do it that time, because I was able to more sort of consciously manage my own sense of urgency. So you start see those kinds of things. That's when it starts working. It's about sort of creating the different outcomes.

Jim Collison 17:08
Marina asks this question, and How would you use it with younger kids -- kindergarten for me? We've got a great section in our book Strengths Based Parenting that talks a little bit about strengths spotting,

Austin Suellentrop 17:19
Yep, strengths spotting.

Jim Collison 17:19
Not scientific, but it's a great opportunity to kind of start to understand what's going on. Austin, what, as we think about, you know, so we've talked about developing it in us in developing it in, in our family relationships with our, with our kids. What about young, you know, what do we say about young, young individuals?

Austin Suellentrop 17:39
Well, it's interesting, right? Because everybody believes the concept that we're all different. And everybody believes the concept that you can see kids' personalities very early in life. So when you start thinking about, like, How do you support and nurture talents and strengths in young children? It does begin with what we call strengths spotting, which is looking for moments when children display talent and they do something that shows you a glimmer of, Wow, that's, that's different than, than the average would handle that. That's a unique way of dealing with that type of scenario.

Austin Suellentrop 18:15
So when my oldest daughter, who, she's, she's 11 now, when she was younger, it became very clear early on that she had a really sort of keen sense for how people feel; that she was very sensitive. If somebody was crying, she was the one who'd walk over and give them a hug. And she was always mindful not to be rude or make people feel bad. She cared about that a lot. And so from the time she's been probably 5 years old, one thing I've tried very hard to do as her father is I've never told her, "Don't cry." Because like her instinct is to be emotional. So when she gets emotional, it's "Hey, Noel. Hey, it's OK. It's OK to cry. It's great to feel like that. Let's talk about how you, how you're going to sort of use that so it doesn't ruin your day." Like, and I'll be able to encourage her to do what she instinctively wants to do, which is care and feel, but not let it sort of sidetrack her and sort of get her way. So that's, that's a little example.

Jim Collison 19:19
Some high Empathy there?

Austin Suellentrop 19:21
Yeah, she gets it from her father.

Applying the All 34 Report to Develop Your Strengths

Jim Collison 19:23
You know, we've, we've come from adults down to kids. But I think a lot of the lesson we learn from the young, we can bring up to adults, I mean, as we think about developing our strengths. As we get it, sometimes I think as adults, we make this a little too complicated. I think that could be the case, as we think of this All 34 report that we have that's available to individuals -- All 34 in order. Austin, as we think about that report, and you think about some ways of using that report to develop our strengths, what kind of advice would you give there?

Austin Suellentrop 19:54
Yeah, so the beautiful thing about that report and about that as a, as a tool, is it's just got so many sort of little nuggets of potential action items. I think there's so much wealth in being able to experiment with different ways of applying our strengths. And that report gives us a really great sort of starting point for action items around how to put our strengths into, into play every day. So that's one thing, one way I love to use it.

Austin Suellentrop 20:22
And the other is it gives us some perspective on blind spots, where, you know, if I think about when I've been my most successful in my life, it's almost always when my strengths are really clicking and, and I'm firing on all cylinders. And how quickly I can grow overconfident in that and I start overplaying them. And I, like, that comfort zone becomes a little, for me, it can walk into arrogance a little bit, and I start overplaying my Activator, I start overplaying my Communication, and that creates my biggest struggles. And so knowing those blind spots of how sometimes your, your talents and how you're using them may show up in, for other people and what I may be missing, it's good to have those in mind so that I keep myself on the right, on the, inside the guardrails, and I don't start going off track too much.

Jim Collison 21:12
So I think some people think they actually have to have the 34 report pulled up in Gallup Access to be able to use it. What other ways, as we think of all having all that information, what other ways can we interact with that? And maybe with some of our technology, but maybe not. Austin, what are your thoughts there?

Austin Suellentrop 21:30
Yeah, you know, again, I've said it a couple of times -- for me, I'm a, I'm a Cliff's Notes sort of bullet-point kind of person. That's what I enjoy. So for me, I'll oftentimes, very, I mean, I'm gonna get in trouble with our security team, but like, my computer password is oftentimes a theme that I'm trying to really work on. So like, I'll build my themes into things I type every day. So when I have to unlock my computer, I'll rotate different themes as part of my password so that when I'm logging in 16 times a day, I'm having to type that theme. How am I going to use this well? How am I going to, how's this going to help me? And that's a little thing that sort of builds, builds on it.

Austin Suellentrop 22:14
I also like, I'm a, I like to sort of take quotes and, and nuggets like sort of little phrases, and I will sort of put them either into the headers of documents I'm creating. So if I'm working on, like, a spreadsheet, and I got one I'm working on right now. It's a big, huge, massive spreadsheet, like, you know, 75 tabs. And I've got, I've got it like as the header on the main page is I've got one of the, one of the quotes from my 34 report. And so I think it's -- thanks Holly. So that sort of keep it top-of-mind, so I'm mindful of it; I see it you know, 6, 6 times a day when I'm working on that project. Little, little things like that that you can take content and use in many ways.

Jim Collison 22:58
I love that, I love that idea. And, you know, kind of blending that in with other things that you're typing all the time. I think, you know, I've got it on a mug at work. I have my Top 5 on the mug, so, to kind of help me keep track of. One of the things -- and I've spent a lot of time, especially out of the 34 report, is kind of thinking about these general ideas of, of the domains and kind of thinking through, What am I leading, what do I really lead with? And because I have access to both Top 5 and Top 10 -- because all 34 are there -- I can really see I lead with this Influencing but, man, Relationship Building is not far behind. And for me, keeping that top-of-mind during the last 2 years where, like, the Woo -- listen, Woo and Communicator didn't necessarily pay off all the time, sitting at a desk by yourself, right.

Jim Collison 23:47
But, but leaning into some of those Individualization and Relator themes that I have in my 10, I think it was super helpful to know those, right, to know where they are and where they're at and spend some time kind of thinking about it. We do have a gift offer going on; it's going on till tomorrow. So for most of you, you have to be listening live to take advantage of this, but it ends December 9 -- just for the folks listening to the recorded version, midnight central time December 9. But if you put "guest"; I'm sorry, if you put "GIFT" -- G-I-F-T, all caps -- "GIFT34" in at, at store.gallup.com for a all 34 code or up to 5 of them, you can get 34% off. So great way to give a gift during the holidays.

Bringing Your Best Self When Life Gets Crazy

Jim Collison 24:20
Maybe someone in chat -- I don't have the ability; this is one of the hard things about LinkedIn Live -- I can't put things in chat. I desperately want to. Maybe that makes me a better, a better interviewer that way; my Activator-Arranger desperately wants to put that in there, but GIFT -- all cap -- G-I-F-T34. Austin, as we think about, we're in the holiday season now, at least here in the United States; a lot of things kind of going on. In these, in these times, and it can be any time, but as we think about these busy times, How can we continue to, I mean, how do you continue to focus on what you're best at when times are the craziest?

Austin Suellentrop 25:07
What a great question! When the, so what I've experienced around this is if we're not mindful and intentional when life gets hectic and frantic and stressful, and we get exhausted, oftentimes our strengths, when they manifest their, we're manifesting the tougher version of them. We might, we might be more likely to push people beyond their comfort zone with how we do things, because we're going to overplay what we're comfortable with, because, gosh, I'm exhausted.

Austin Suellentrop 25:38
What I've found with this is, I've got to, I've got to dedicate time to, and, and thought more for me around What is it that I need to be, make sure I'm at my best? You know, I'm gonna be spending a lot of time in the next 3 weeks, personally, with family members and with my wife's coworkers and different holiday parties and kids' programs. I'm going to be in a lot of situations where I'm seeing people that I don't get to see very often. I just don't, I don't get to see them all, you know, I don't get to socialize with them all the time. How am I going to make sure I bring the best version of myself to that interaction? Like this may be the one time a year I see some of my wife's coworkers' spouses? How do I make sure I make a great impression, and that they walk away with the best version of who Austin was, not just the tired, frustrated, annoyed version of Austin? So like, that requires me knowing my strengths and bringing them to that evening.

Austin Suellentrop 26:37
It's like, that's what I think about is, How do I ensure that I'm, I'm bringing the best part of myself to every holiday interaction? That's, that's sort of how it lands, resonates for me, because otherwise, I know I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get bogged down. And I'm gonna get tired. And it's a crapshoot sometimes on which version of me you might, you might get come 7:00 at night, right. And so that's, I'm not proud of it. But I can acknowledge that. And I think that that's where, where I would say to focus is, think about what, what you're going to be doing this holiday season. What is your goal and your priorities during that? And how do you make sure you bring the best part of yourself to whatever that is? I look forward myself to sitting around, you know, around the next couple of weeks and having some great conversations with people that I love and care about that I don't get the time to exhale and sit and talk with enough. And I promise you that strengths will come up and strengths will be a part of it. But it won't be the themes. We won't talk about themes specifically; we'll talk about what they love. We'll talk about what they're proudest of. We'll talk about the thing that they've accomplished this year that they didn't think they'd be able to. We'll have some really great strengths-based conversations, and I'm looking forward to it.

Jim Collison 27:49
A couple of great comments coming in from chat. Brea says, I assign strengths to every task appointment on my calendar each day, which I think is great. We oftentimes hear on this Linked, on these LinkedIn Lives say, What are you leading with ___? Fill in the blank. Like, what are you doing in relationships or friendships or some of those kinds of things? What do you, how are you leaning into that? And I think this is a great opportunity to review that. Jan says I love that, that I need the Top 5 mug to keep track of my themes. I actually, Jan, I need a Top 10 mug, to be honest, because I struggle 6 through 10 still. Like, a, Curt used to make fun of me -- Curt Liesveld, who passed away a couple of years ago -- used to make fun of me, because since I couldn't remember 6 through 10, I put everything in 6 through 10. He'd, he'd ask me, like, "Jim, where's in, you know, where's Context for you?" I think, "Ah, it's somewhere in the Top 10," I'd tell him. He said, eventually he caught on to it, and he said, "Jim, I think everything's in your Top 10." I said, "It's good to have Woo, too." So of course yeah, everything, everything is in my, is in my Top 10.

Your Strengths Develop Only in Relationship to Others

Jim Collison 28:48
We're getting some folks who are saying, We hope you found this helpful. And, and appreciate you guys coming out today to be a part of this. Hope you've learned some stuff. Listen, if we could do one thing is to ask you, Help others. That's why we did this GIFT34. We wanted you to, to be able to purchase this and then pass this along and then have some conversations with them. The, during the season or really any season, just to be honest with you, it's a great opportunity to start and end conversations this way. And just say, "What do you really, what were you best at? What, what today went right? Like, What are you doing that you're doing really well?" Austin, anything else you want to say before we wrap it up?

Austin Suellentrop 29:26
I want to thank everybody for, for taking the time to be with us. But, you know, the question around, How do you develop your strengths? What do you do? I go back to Don Clifton and his mind and his thinking that they only develop in relationship to other people. So no matter how much effort and energy you put into it, at some point, you're going to have to interact with somebody. And so the interaction is where our strengths develop, because we get feedback and we learn how they're landing and how they're, how they're resonating with others. So I encourage you to take time to interact with people. Share them. Talk about them. Practice them. Play with them. Experiment. And we've got tools to help you in all those aspects. So thanks.

Jim Collison 30:07
If you want to stay up to date with everything we're doing here on LinkedIn, make sure you follow CliftonStrengths. They have a page there. Follow that, and we are posting all the time on all the upcoming events. Thanks for joining us today. With that, we'll say Goodbye, everybody.

Jim Collison 30:18
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the CliftonStrengths Podcast. Make sure you like and subscribe wherever you listen, so you never miss an episode. And if you're really enjoying this podcast, please leave a review. This helps us promote strengths globally.

Austin Suellentrop's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Communication, Activator, Futuristic, Belief and Positivity.