What Is Your Treasure Chest Within?

Knowledge of your attributes, abilities, interests, strengths, weaknesses, and traits is essential to becoming proactive in career choice and career change. Where to begin your personal assessment? First, you should know your innate talents. After many years of observation, we’re still surprised by how few people try to make a connection between what they’re good at and what they “do.” Virtually all individuals have at least three to five major talents.

Many have more. It is important to note that your talents are present at birth. You will gain knowledge, attitudes, skills, and habits throughout your life. Our careers are a blend of natural abilities, environmental modeling, acquired skills, and experience. Many times, our careers hinge heavily on the economic requirements at pivotal age and family considerations. If we are to develop our lives along the path of greatest wisdom, however, we should give serious thought to discovering our inherent abilities as early as possible.

One of the secrets to becoming a consistent winner in your personal and professional life is to play to your core competencies. To be your best, you need to do what you love, love what you do, and deliver more in value than you expect to receive in payment. You must believe in your potential, and that’s what this program is designed to help you discover and employ. How do you know what it is? In addition to your own introspection, you should consider investing in a legitimate talent or natural gifts test.

Two non-profit foundations are worth considering: The Johnson O’Connor Foundation in New York City, with multiple offices nationwide, and The Ball Foundation in the Chicago area, with an online program as well. 19 innate talents have been identified and can be tested. Google their names for more information. You have literally acres of diamonds inherently waiting for you to uncover and mine them. When you look for value, look inside!

The next step in assessing your interests is considering your current ones. What do you most enjoy after work? What do you most want to do on weekends and vacations? What are your hobbies? Your after-work activities? What are your favorite kinds of books? Examination of your personal interests might reveal a gem of potential you can apply to your current professional work. Also, our research has shown that what we love and do well as children continues to shape our lives as adults. So, an excellent awareness exercise is to spend time reviewing positive experiences and fantasies you had as a child.

Talents and personality traits come naturally at birth. Behavior patterns and habits are learned by observation, imitation, and repetition. The best research involving high-performance executives in nearly every field and job description—from technical to sales, from top management to hourly workers—combined with a database working with Olympic athletes, coaches, and professional teams has taught us that certain core behavioral traits generally define the high achiever and leader.

For example, you want high scores in ambition, self-confidence, and mental toughness. Candidates who score low on any of these three traits or whose tests show a lack of self-control of habits, lack of flexibility, and a pattern of becoming overly emotional under stress may require careful screening or special training to predict their probable impact on performance.

Even if you’re reasonably satisfied with your career and life's current status, exploring yourself as deeply as possible can increase your self-awareness and motivation. And if you do know what you really want to do—and it involves changes—ask whether you are acting to make your dreams a reality. Champions know who and where they are today and what and where they want to be tomorrow. And they get there.

Question: What do honestly think is holding you back most in achieving your highest aspirations? Externals beyond your control or internal insecurities?

Action: Get out of your comfort zone. Call, text, email, or reach out to someone in person who you are hesitant to contact because of time, distance, or misunderstanding.