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(This article was written by Gladys, our intern at Kingmaker! Her StrengthsFinder® talent themes makes her a Hands-on, People-Centric Bicultural Practitioner who values challenges and provocative thinking. She is passionate about learning the diversity of cultures.)

This is an open letter to my past self, and a letter of advice for anyone who’s going through a similar phase that I went through. This is a reminder to my future self, that I’m perfectly good the way I am, and that I don’t have to envy other people.

“Sometimes, I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.” — Thomas Schell Sr., Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Most people are like me. As a teenager, male or female alike, I always feel like I’m not good enough. It always feels as though people’s expectations of me are so high, so unattainable and so unrealistic. They think that I’m great, capable and talented. But I know that I’m not. And I mean it. 

Meanwhile there’s always the other girls in class. They’re smart, pretty and popular. They can effortlessly come up with creative ideas that I could never think of. They can effortlessly make people like them and charm strangers they’ve never met before in the matter of seconds.

But me? I was never like that, and I felt that I never will be. It feels horrible to know that even when you try your hardest, you’ll still lose out to people that are just naturally……talented.

And because of that, I envied people.

After I got to know StrengthsFinder, however, I’ve started to understand a bit more about why they could do things I couldn’t. The “popular” girls probably had the talent theme Woo, that’s why they were able to charm people so naturally and effortlessly. The “creative” girls probably had the talent theme Ideation, that’s why they were able to constantly come up with such amazing and innovative ideas.

Even though I understood all of that, I still struggled to see that I was talented.

I mean look at me! I was plain. My Woo stands at 22, my Ideation at 23, and all the other talent themes that I thought was “ideal” were 20 and below (my supporting or lesser talent themes).

I was at the phase of my teenage life where I was constantly doubting myself, envying others and thinking that I was unable to achieve what they could because I wasn’t like them. I didn’t have those talent themes.

It was an arduous journey filled with self-doubt and anxiety.

But guess what?

I overcame it all.

Even though I didn’t have the talent themes I’ve envied, but my talent themes were able to compensate for my lesser themes and weakness (most of the time). I thought I couldn’t achieve the things I wanted but, I could! And I did so in a kick-ass Gladys style that was copyrighted and original!

Ideation, for example. Even though I was unable to pull out ideas from thin air and perform magic, I was able to play on my own strengths, Input (my number 5 talent theme), and re-invent old ideas to become brand new ideas that value-added to discussion the way I wanted it to!

If I could go back in time, I would want to tell myself, and everyone going through the same phase as me, to have more confidence in yourself. You can do it; and all you need to do, is to pluck up that one second of courage and JUST DO IT. It’s fine even if you don’t have the supposed talent themes to help. Your own uniqueness will step in to help.

I mean, it’s been *inserts your age* years, and you’re still doing fine in life!

Pluck that little courage, and see that you can do it too! Don’t underestimate your own abilities, you’re good.

As tumblr aptly puts it:

“Just be yourself; everyone is already taken.”

Here’s to StrengthsFinder, that helped me see my own uniqueness.

(This article was written by Cai Ling, our intern at Kingmaker! Her StrengthsFinder® talent themes (Communication | Woo | Includer | Positivity | Connectedness) makes her a people person who enjoys mobilizing a fun-filled community with purpose and ownership. She enjoys meeting new people and is passionate about broadening their potential and building upon that.)

 

 

I think about my life a lot.

Kierkegaard once said that “life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward”.

I think there is truth in retracting your memories, connecting the dots to understand why things seem the way they are now. Looking back, discovering my strengths has brought light to why I am able to find my passion in life.

If I had to describe how I lived my life before University, I will admit that I was risk averse. I navigated close to the planned pathways by the society. School libraries were my hideout from the humid afternoons, warm summer evenings were dedicated to my co-curricular activities and late nights were spent studying hard to ensure an eventual entrance to tertiary education. My teenage years, unlike some of my peers, have been wonderfully unblemished. For that, I am thankful.

It was only a matter of time before I found myself lost after trudging through the monotony of the education system for so many years. After A levels ended, I was lost and shrouded with a lot of “what’s next?” that I do not have answers for. It didn’t take me long to realize that I became a bystander to my own life, spectator to my own show.

I understood that the first step has to be finding a full time job, to be someone other than a conformist to the education system. There is no better time to do that before University starts.

What I did not know was that my strengths were manifesting themselves in ways that I could not appreciate back then.

While I was searching for a part time job to supplement my allowance, I found myself in the sales industry. I soon plunged into a world of salesmanship and meeting new people everyday. Meeting new people has never been an issue for me. In fact, I find joy in exerting social initiative during sales. I exhibited social energy and social ease which helped in my sales. Thus, I soon earned the title of being the top salesperson for the month. What I did not notice was that my top 2 talent themes, communication and woo, have come to life.

My life after A levels was finally strung together seamlessly.  I was able to take a breather from the studying, surrounded by a team of motivated colleagues, and was supposedly living my life to my fullest! But I did not feel whole. Sales was too individualistic for my liking and I sought after a bigger purpose in life. I tendered my resignation soon after and embarked on another journey of self discovery.

As someone with positivity, the glass will always be half full to me. After I quit my sales job, I took on some part time jobs. This routine of mine continued even after University started. Given the flexibility in my timetable, my afternoons are always lined up with part time work for some extra income to ease my parents’ burden. While it is inevitable for me to feel worn out at times, the optimist in me will always serve as the impetus to keep myself going. Tired from working? It’s okay, I am honing my soft skills for my future career. Rejected my exchange offer due to high cost? It’s okay, I will have the opportunity to travel the world when I start working full time. For every negative thought that appeared in my mind, I opened up a pathway of hope in me. Cynics may reject my energy and label it as naivety but as someone with strong positivity talent, I want to channel my positivity to others. I aspire to open up pathways of possibilities for others, and lift the spirits of those in need.

My strengths unfolded overtime which eventually pointed me to a clear direction. By the start of my university education, I possessed a strong desire to work with youths. Being one myself, I recognize the potential latent in everyone. I want to be in the position to uncover and broaden that potential in youths. Coupled with the optimist in me, I became even more certain about making a difference to our education industry.

One incident that remained close to my heart at the start of my internship in Kingmaker has to be an encounter with *John, a Secondary 2 student. John was easily one of the more eager and enthusiastic student in his class. It was no surprise that he volunteered to help us pack our logistics once the workshop ended. While we were chatting away, John shared that he felt misunderstood in class because his friends viewed him as a teacher’s pet.

“No one likes me at all”, he told us.

I felt his dejection right in my gut and I struggled to find the right words to comfort him with the last few minutes I have with the class. I wished I had more time with him to help him out. At that point in time, a seed of determination was planted in my heart. I was reaffirmed that embarking on the education industry is the right thing to do as it can empower me to be that invisible hand that gives comfort to youths like John. Thinking back, I now understand why I didn’t feel right in the sales industry. One of my top 5 talent themes, connectedness, steered me to find a strong purpose beyond my humdrum life. I’m glad I found one now.

I was and still am a work in progress. There wasn’t any tumultuous moment that changed my life drastically,

but getting in touch with my strengths through strengthsfinder has guided me towards the passion in my life.

Kingmaker is the perfect place for me to kickstart my entire journey in the education industry and I anticipate for more to come.

Till then, I will continue living life forward.

 

(This article was written by Jasmine, our Education Consultant at Kingmaker Leadership. She believes that the greatest gift in leadership is to be able to mentor the next generations of like-minded people, to develop them to their greatest potential. She do so by seeing the strengths of them, and coach them on ways they could best leverage on their strengths to achieve personal excellence.)

This week I had a chance to have a short conversation over lunch with our Senior Education Consultant Shawn, and as we were discussing how to further reach out to youths in Singapore, the fundamental question of “Why StrengthsFinder?” popped into my head, and I’m very grateful to hear insights from Shawn, a veteran in the education and enrichment industry. As strengths consultants in StrengthsTransform, we constantly have to ask ourselves how to better enrich lives from young, an opportunity that we ourselves might have missed back in our schooling days.

A Little Bit About Our Strengths Consultant

Shawn is a Strengths Consultant for schools with Kingmaker Leadership Institute. He has close to 10 years of experience consulting with Schools on the full range of student-development programmes. In the past 5 years, he works specially with schools to design strengths-based programmes for Leadership Development, Personal Mastery, Esteem and Social Emotion Development, Education and Career Guidance and Time Out Programme.

Shawn Top 5 Talent Themes are Developer | Harmony | Empathy | Individualisation | Adaptability

Q: Why StrengthsFinder?

A: One of the most common learning outcomes that many school teachers have when planning for enrichment programmes has always been getting students to be more self-aware and to help them find out their strengths and weaknesses.

Students generally learn more about themselves after going through a programme, but I realised that a lot of students are not good at accurately evaluating themselves, they don’t know what they don’t know, and they assume that everyone is just as good.

StrengthsFinder is the best profiling tool I know of that accurately assesses a person’s talent.

I personally experienced the usefulness of the StrengthsFinder Profile when I went down to various schools to conduct the profiling for the students.

After the 177 questions profiling (yes, very long and arduous process, but I guarantee you that gaining awareness of what you can contribute uniquely and discovering your strengths in a worthy journey), students are excited over their Top 5 Strengths.

When we share with them what their Top 5 StrengthsFinder Talent Themes mean and how they show up in their lives, some students were amazed by just how well the talent themes describe them (just like “fortune telling”). I especially love the moments when students’ eyes lit up and the connection we form when students think that

“Hey this person understands me.”

Many times, when teachers saw that happening, they will tell me,

“Wow, you have only just seen the students and its seems like you know them in person already.”

That is no magic nor fortune telling. It is exactly the accuracy of this profiling tool and its insight report documenting great and deep understanding of the different talent themes.

And all it takes is 30-45mins of profiling, tapping on over 50 years of validated research and design of StrengthsFinder. (click HERE to read through Gallup’s Technical Report)

Q: So, what got you started on bringing StrengthsFinder to Schools?

A: When I first started out in the training industry, I was passionate in programmes that helps student build confidence, improve self-esteem, develop their leadership capabilities and achieve personal effectiveness.

I can relate to the challenges youth faced as I went through them before. As a youth, I would observe people around me and model after my friends who were “cool” and have the charming “X-factor” (aka the popular kid in school). There were upsides and downsides to this approach as it shapes my character and personality, but the underlying feeling is always that you are at most “second best” or not as good as others.

When I was introduced to StrengthsFinder and coached by Mr Tan Hee Guan, Gallup Certified Coach, my immediate thought was how great it can be to bring these to students today, so they can learn to be the “best version” of who they can be.

With the advancement of media and technology, video games that are constantly fighting for their attention, a strengths-based approach gives me a glimpse of how to engage and prepare them for the real world.

It takes a village to raise a child.

Apart from bringing StrengthsFinder to students, we also conduct Strengths Programme to Parents and Educators. I believe the it is on all of us to lead our youths to realize their fullest potential. I believe that gaining insights to what motivate youths rather than focusing on their weaknesses could help educators and even parents connect to the youths better and be one step closer to engaging them positively.

Q: What’s Next for StrengthsFinder?

A: We have trained in 6 different Countries, 40 Schools and over 10,000 students and educators and I look forward to having more schools onboard with us to StrengthsTransform our youths. I am very privileged to be working with a team of passionate and dedicated coaches (yes, the people in orange). We will continue to innovate and design high quality and engaging experiential strengths-based programmes for the future leaders of our generation.

End Note

After this short and casual conversation with Shawn, I reflected back into my schooling days. I too was lost and unconfident in what I could do. Just like Shawn, I constantly thought that just by mimicking the kids that people usually hang out with, I could well fit in. I was quiet, I enjoyed intellectual discussions (intellection) and I like to read widely and deeply (learner and input) (these aren’t really the traits you would associated with a popular kid right?). Yet, these are what made me unique, these are my natural way of thinking, feeling and behaving. If only I was aware of who I am, I could have embrace my uniqueness and even further developed my talents, rather than hiding behind who I was.

Being unique is beautiful. Knowing it early increases the chance and opportunity that you will achieve campus excellence and beyond.

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