Episode 16 How to amplify your strengths at work

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Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable,

the podcast for ambitious female

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leaders who want to create more impact,

income, and influence in their careers.

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feel connected to their passion

and purpose, but without

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selling out or burning out.

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I'm Sarah Archer, a leadership coach

and career strategist, helping women

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like you thrive in leadership roles

while staying true to your values.

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I'm the founder of CareerTree

Coaching and have over 15 years of

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coaching experience and significant HR

leadership experience to share with you.

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I know as a female leader it can

be hard to find time to focus

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on your career aspirations.

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The day job can be all consuming.

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Plus, no matter how senior you are,

there are always going to be times

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when you feel stuck, when you have

self doubt, or feel like an imposter.

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And that's where unstuck

and unstoppable comes in.

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Each week I'll be sharing practical

strategies, insightful interviews and

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inspiring stories to help you boost

your confidence, lead with purpose

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and achieve sustainable success.

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If you're ready to stop playing

small and unlock the incredible

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potential you have within you and feel

unstoppable, you're in the right place.

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Let's get started.

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Welcome to episode 16.

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I'm so glad you're here and what

we're talking about today is

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strengths and how you can amplify

them in your career and at work.

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I'm going to cover what strengths

are, give you a link to access your

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own strengths and also give you

some pointers around how you can

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amplify your strengths later on.

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Why are strengths important?

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Now I'm a big fan of the positive

psychology community and they've done

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a lot of research around strengths.

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What they discovered is that If

you can use at least four of your

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top five strengths every day, it's

going to have Loads of benefits and

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some of those benefits are boosting

your confidence, increasing your

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happiness, reducing stress, building

more meaning and fulfillment,

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and improving work performance.

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They're great reasons to think about

how we can amplify our strengths.

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Because what we often tend to do is to

focus on the things that we're not good

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at, to focus on improving the areas

that we're weaker in or that we need

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to develop more in, but actually our

energy is much better spent if we're

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focusing on developing and amplifying

the talents that we already have.

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I would encourage you to think about

taking a strengths based approach, which

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means focusing on the things that you're

good at, focusing on what you do well,

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rather than focusing on weaknesses.

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Because we all have natural talents,

which are our strengths, and if we

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invest in them, then they are going

to become a real strength, a benefit

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to you, and it's much more enjoyable

than slogging away trying to improve

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something that just isn't your thing.

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That's what we want to

be focusing on today.

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Let's think about what strengths are.

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We've got character strengths and

we've got technical strengths.

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The character strengths, which is

what I'm going to talk about today,

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are the things that are more innate.

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They tend to come naturally.

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We tend not to always value them

because they come easily to us.

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We think everybody must feel like

that, but often they don't because

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it's something that we're strong in.

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You might find you get feedback from

people, Oh, you're so great at X or Y

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because people are noticing that they

are, they're your natural strengths.

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Whereas your technical strength is

something, it's a skill that you've

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mastered that has become strong.

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And you can think about

amplifying that further as well.

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But today we're talking about

amplifying your character strengths.

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Now if you don't know what your character

strengths are Then I'm going to put a

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link , to a strengths survey that you

can do with the VIA Institute, which

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is the Positive Psychology Institute

founded by Martin Seligman, who's one of

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the founders of the positive psychology

movement, and they identified through

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research 24 character strengths that we

all have, and the strength survey allows

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you to identify, I think gives you your

top 10, but we're most interested in

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your top five because they're the ones

you want to think about amplifying more.

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There are things like curiosity,

hope, kindness, leadership, zest,

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teamwork, spirituality, judgment,

humility, I'm 24, but there's lots.

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Lots there.

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And the survey obviously helps you elicit

them because some of them you might

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know, but sometimes just having a survey

really helps us unearth our strengths.

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Then you do need to read the

definitions that go alongside those

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strengths which are on the site.

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It's a free survey, you don't have to pay

for it which will help you understand it

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because if we think about something like

kindness or love, we might have particular

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interpretations of what that might be.

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be, but the strength definition

is the thing we really need to pay

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attention to because that will help us

unearth how we're using it currently.

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I'll give you a little example.

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I had a client worked as a VA and

her top strength was appreciation

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of beauty and excellence.

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And in her role as a VA, a virtual

assistant, she couldn't really see

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how she was using that as a strength.

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She'd previously worked in fashion.

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So she could tell See how it came into

play in terms of her fashion work as a VA.

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She couldn't see it, but when we

dived into it, what she discovered

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was that she loved getting all

the chaos from her clients.

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So all their expenses, their receipts,

their invoices, all the mess of kind

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of the finance world, if you like, and

turning it into a really functional,

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but also beautiful spreadsheet for them

that made their lives much easier.

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So what we discovered was that it

was the beauty of a process and the

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beauty of being able to turn chaos into

structure that was her strength and that

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she really played to in her VA role.

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And it then helped her think

about how she could amplify

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that, but also how she could.

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Promote that as something that she

could offer to her potential clients,

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which is why it's important to

really think about the definition.

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Because in your career, if you

can amplify your strengths, you're

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going to be more successful.

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because you're going to really enjoy it.

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It's going to be easier to do

because it comes naturally to you.

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You're going to have more impact.

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You're going to be more visible

because you're going to be using

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the strengths really effectively.

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So there's a real, drive to make sure

we are using them, but because they are

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innate, we tend to, not focus on them just

saying, Oh yeah, that's, yeah, I'm just.

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I'm good at that, but not really

thinking about how we could make

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ourselves even better at it.

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There's three things you need to

think about in terms of amplification.

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One is consistency.

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Like anything, it's applying that

amplification process every day.

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So thinking about 10 to 15 minutes,

which is not a huge amount of

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time to focus on that strength and

how you're going to develop it.

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Having commitments and really wanting

to develop that strength, which might.

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Go back to the benefits I shared earlier

about why, you should amplify your

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strengths and the benefits of using them.

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Remembering, it's increasing enjoyment,

it's increasing confidence, it's

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reducing stress, it's increasing

wellbeing, et cetera, et cetera.

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And then the third one is curiosity.

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Being prepared to self coach

and ask yourself questions.

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That keep that focus around.

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How am I amplifying my

strengths on a regular basis?

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There's lots of questions

you can ask yourself.

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I'm going to share four with you

because I don't want to overload you

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and I think these four are really key.

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The first one is doing reflection

on how am I currently using my top

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four or five strengths at the moment?

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Thinking about what your strengths might

be when you've done the survey and then

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thinking, okay, how am I using them?

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in my current career.

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Am I using them?

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If you find you are using all four

or five, brilliant, that's fantastic.

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And I've got a question for you

that will help you stretch that.

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If you're not using many, say maybe

you're only using one or two, it's

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then thinking, okay, how can I

bring those other strengths into

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my daily work and use them more?

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You might need some help with that

or you might be able to spot quite

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easily how you could do that.

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Then the next question is how

could I use them differently?

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So if you are using your strengths

already Or you get to the point

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where you can see you're using four,

then you want to be stretching that

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by how can I use them differently?

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Because we are creatures of habits.

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We tend to use our strengths

in the same way over and over.

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And by thinking about how we can use

them differently, it can really start

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to amplify that strength and develop it.

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I've got a example for you.

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I had a client who her

top strength was kindness.

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And that is doing favours and good

deeds for others and helping people.

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And so she could see how she was

using that in terms of her way of

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being at work, but she couldn't see

how she could do it differently.

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She was really struggling with that.

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And what we discovered was that , as we

explored it with her, she could see there

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were certain groups of people where she

was disinclined to use that strength.

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And the group of people that she

could think of that she wasn't

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using it with was her in laws.

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She had a very difficult relationship

with her in laws and she decided to

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experiment and to actually be different

with them and extend that kindness

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strength into that relationship with them.

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And obviously it created a different

dynamic for them, both parties, and

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they responded differently to her.

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She could see how it made it a better

encounter whenever they were together.

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It made her feel better.

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It just changed the relationship.

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And because she could see

how doing it differently with

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a different group of people.

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was a way of extending

that particular strength.

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She could then see how she could

bring it into her work and started

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to notice where the groups of people

at work, where she was disinclined

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to use that strength in the same

way that she would normally use it.

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And therefore she made an effort to be

using it in that way with everybody.

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And it gave her that stretch

to, to challenge herself.

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Some of these things you have to

think quite laterally about in terms

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of how can I do it differently, but

it's good to push yourself to think,

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okay, I can see how I'm using it.

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currently, or I can see how I'm

using it with certain people.

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What could I do that would

make it a different experience?

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And then the other question you

can think about asking is who can

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I ask for feedback on my strengths?

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Because that's going to give you

a different perspective on how

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your strengths are being received.

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Again, how you, it might help

you , use them differently.

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And to give you that

perspective on your strengths.

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I'd love to know how you get on.

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I'd love to know what your top

four or five strengths are.

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I'll share mine with you.

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So mine are hope, perspective, social

intelligence, kindness, and love.

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And I use all of those.

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I can see how I use all of

those in my coaching practice.

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And also I challenge

myself on a regular basis.

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How can I use them differently?

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In my business as well as

in my coaching practice.

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So yeah, let me know how you get on.

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And, do get in touch if you need any help

with some of those questions, or if you.

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ticked off those questions and you want

some different questions to help you

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amplify your strength, let me know.

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I've got lots that I could share with you

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This episode is also available

to watch on LinkedIn.

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And while you're over there, please

do send me a connection request

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if we're not already connected.

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Thank you so much for listening

to this episode of the Unstuck

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and Unstoppable podcast.

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I have lots of free resources you

can access on my website, ww.career

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tree coaching.co

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uk, and I'll also put

links in the show notes.

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If you found this episode

helpful, then please subscribe

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so you don't miss the next one.

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And please do share it with a

friend and leave me a review

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and I will personally thank you.

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Remember, you're capable of

more than shine brightly.

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Lead boldly and unlock the

extraordinary potential within you.

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Be unstoppable.