Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - How can you be competitive and a lightworker at the same time?

Bruce Achterberg · 07-31-2008, 04:09 PM

As an aside, I want to highly recommend StrengthsFinder 2.0 as the #1 tool for finding your strengths ("strengths" in the Gallup and Marcus Buckingham sense).

I took the test and read the book today and the test results blew my mind.

Now, Discover Your Strengths is still king when it comes to research and introducing you to the paradigm of strengths-theory (so long as people don't mind the length of the book), but 2.0 is a much better test, and a much more concise book (which might appeal to certain people).

Seeker, I wouldn't be too surprised if "competitive" isn't actually derived from another theme. I would have sworn that some of the top 5 talent themes StrengthsFinder 1.0 listed for me were about as accurate as you could get, but heh, apparently my talents get much more deeper than that.

What I found so great about the 2.0 test was that it gives you a holistic snapshot of your talents and how they interact together, and consequently, updates your talents (if necessary) to more accurately display what StrengthsFinder (1.0--the version you get with Now, Discover Your Strengths) gives you.

The book you get with it is actually really well-written (considering how most things are written these days), and it has some really nice info and examples in there and it represents concepts that were pretty abstract in Now, Discover Your Strengths in a much simpler, more elegant way.

I'd tell you what my 2.0 talent themes are, but I think that'd just mislead you. What you're interested in, and what's really great about StrengthFinder 2.0 are the "personalised strength insights" it gives you. Somehow the 2.0 test factors in your talents and how they blend together, and gives you a customised description for each talent that is much more specific than the very general theme descriptions 1.0 uses. They probably do it by drawing on the data they got from the 1.0 tests people did (over 2 million people did the 1.0 test), maybe even working that in with their other research data.

So the thing to take away from this post is that StrengthsFinder 2.0 gives you a top 5 talent listing that has descriptions that take into account how your talents blend together, consequently giving you much deeper, probably more accurate talent descriptions.

For example, I can derive many of my previous talent themes from 1.0 from the new talent themes I have in 2.0. FYI, 2 of my themes where the same in both 1.0 and 2.0 (just in different order), but 2.0 put 3 new themes in my top 5.

Perhaps one day I'll write about the specifics of how I can derive the 2.0 themes from the 1.0 themes, but for now I'll just say that the new themes are probably because:

(A) I knew more about the StrengthsFinder test so I made better use of the "neutral" option when I feel my talent wasn't being captured effectively--and it really is something you have to feel out

(B) I've been deliberately working on becoming better at reading my intuition from playing Kongai and Street Fighter (while also supporting that practice with other, less consistent things). I honestly don't think I would have gotten results that resonated with me as much as I did if I hadn't been practicing this. (And now I finally have some solid evidence that games can be super-useful for real-life, and especially personal development.)

(C) I had a very good idea of what my talents were and they looked like, so when I saw that I was starting to answer 2.0 questions based on knowledge instead of feeling, I went back to using my intuitive feeling to guide my answers, since that is a better sign that my talents are at play (if you feel nothing, or at least, no strong emotion, it's best to skip the question).

So yeah, consider buying the book (you have to buy it so you can get a code). I thought the book looked a bit gimmicky, as if they just packaged a book with a 2.0 code to make more money, but no, the book is actually decent--and this is coming from someone who's been studying strengths-theory material for months. It's not revolutionary, but it's very elegant and simplistic--and concise!--which really helps to promote understanding. NDYS was very... long. That was great, but I've been craving a great summary like the 2.0 book for a long time and honestly, which I had it earlier so I didn't have to learn most of what I know now by being confused for weeks on end, heh.

Note that I did include an Amazon affiliate link in this post and my above one, but that's because I was going to link to the book already, and because I'm starting to figure that if I'm linking to books all the time while doing pretty decent write-ups, I should at least make my links affiliate links. Doing so enables me to be writing now instead of sleeping to get up at for a job, or something.

Also, if I seem overly enthusiastic, partly that's my being a little too "close" to the experience so the satisfaction with the 2.0 results hasn't really deminished, and partly because I'm really satisfied with the results and the overal quality of the book (I consider the purchase worth the money; I wouldn't pay too much more for the book--the price is about right--but the 2.0 test results are probably worth more if you really consider the insight they provide). In terms of satisfaction, my experience with 2.0 (the test and book) is about as high as my satisfaction with first discovering strengths-theory when reading NDYS.

I'm trying hard not to make this sound all "sales copy"-like, but darnit, it's not working, heh. I think it's a result of my being very subjective in this post, and also the fact that I'm pretty pleased with the 2.0 results. If anybody wants to pull the self promotion card, please see my 400+ posts where I have no affiliate links yet still write posts like this (although, perhaps none as enthusiastic as this one since I was too busy reading NDYS to write posts after I read it; if I had, they'd be equally enthusiastic).

07-31-2008, 04:09 PM	#33 (permalink)
Bruce Achterberg Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: New South Wales, Australia (GMT+10) Posts: 970	As an aside, I want to highly recommend StrengthsFinder 2.0 as the #1 tool for finding your strengths ("strengths" in the Gallup and Marcus Buckingham sense). I took the test and read the book today and the test results blew my mind. Now, Discover Your Strengths is still king when it comes to research and introducing you to the paradigm of strengths-theory (so long as people don't mind the length of the book), but 2.0 is a much better test, and a much more concise book (which might appeal to certain people). Seeker, I wouldn't be too surprised if "competitive" isn't actually derived from another theme. I would have sworn that some of the top 5 talent themes StrengthsFinder 1.0 listed for me were about as accurate as you could get, but heh, apparently my talents get much more deeper than that. What I found so great about the 2.0 test was that it gives you a holistic snapshot of your talents and how they interact together, and consequently, updates your talents (if necessary) to more accurately display what StrengthsFinder (1.0--the version you get with Now, Discover Your Strengths) gives you. The book you get with it is actually really well-written (considering how most things are written these days), and it has some really nice info and examples in there and it represents concepts that were pretty abstract in Now, Discover Your Strengths in a much simpler, more elegant way. I'd tell you what my 2.0 talent themes are, but I think that'd just mislead you. What you're interested in, and what's really great about StrengthFinder 2.0 are the "personalised strength insights" it gives you. Somehow the 2.0 test factors in your talents and how they blend together, and gives you a customised description for each talent that is much more specific than the very general theme descriptions 1.0 uses. They probably do it by drawing on the data they got from the 1.0 tests people did (over 2 million people did the 1.0 test), maybe even working that in with their other research data. So the thing to take away from this post is that StrengthsFinder 2.0 gives you a top 5 talent listing that has descriptions that take into account how your talents blend together, consequently giving you much deeper, probably more accurate talent descriptions. For example, I can derive many of my previous talent themes from 1.0 from the new talent themes I have in 2.0. FYI, 2 of my themes where the same in both 1.0 and 2.0 (just in different order), but 2.0 put 3 new themes in my top 5. Perhaps one day I'll write about the specifics of how I can derive the 2.0 themes from the 1.0 themes, but for now I'll just say that the new themes are probably because: (A) I knew more about the StrengthsFinder test so I made better use of the "neutral" option when I feel my talent wasn't being captured effectively--and it really is something you have to feel out (B) I've been deliberately working on becoming better at reading my intuition from playing Kongai and Street Fighter (while also supporting that practice with other, less consistent things). I honestly don't think I would have gotten results that resonated with me as much as I did if I hadn't been practicing this. (And now I finally have some solid evidence that games can be super-useful for real-life, and especially personal development.) (C) I had a very good idea of what my talents were and they looked like, so when I saw that I was starting to answer 2.0 questions based on knowledge instead of feeling, I went back to using my intuitive feeling to guide my answers, since that is a better sign that my talents are at play (if you feel nothing, or at least, no strong emotion, it's best to skip the question). So yeah, consider buying the book (you have to buy it so you can get a code). I thought the book looked a bit gimmicky, as if they just packaged a book with a 2.0 code to make more money, but no, the book is actually decent--and this is coming from someone who's been studying strengths-theory material for months. It's not revolutionary, but it's very elegant and simplistic--and concise!--which really helps to promote understanding. NDYS was very... long. That was great, but I've been craving a great summary like the 2.0 book for a long time and honestly, which I had it earlier so I didn't have to learn most of what I know now by being confused for weeks on end, heh. Note that I did include an Amazon affiliate link in this post and my above one, but that's because I was going to link to the book already, and because I'm starting to figure that if I'm linking to books all the time while doing pretty decent write-ups, I should at least make my links affiliate links. Doing so enables me to be writing now instead of sleeping to get up at for a job, or something. Also, if I seem overly enthusiastic, partly that's my being a little too "close" to the experience so the satisfaction with the 2.0 results hasn't really deminished, and partly because I'm really satisfied with the results and the overal quality of the book (I consider the purchase worth the money; I wouldn't pay too much more for the book--the price is about right--but the 2.0 test results are probably worth more if you really consider the insight they provide). In terms of satisfaction, my experience with 2.0 (the test and book) is about as high as my satisfaction with first discovering strengths-theory when reading NDYS. I'm trying hard not to make this sound all "sales copy"-like, but darnit, it's not working, heh. I think it's a result of my being very subjective in this post, and also the fact that I'm pretty pleased with the 2.0 results. If anybody wants to pull the self promotion card, please see my 400+ posts where I have no affiliate links yet still write posts like this (although, perhaps none as enthusiastic as this one since I was too busy reading NDYS to write posts after I read it; if I had, they'd be equally enthusiastic).