One of the themes I’ve been writing about on my blog is the importance of focusing on our strengths, of nurturing those innate abilities/talents people bring to our teams or companies to benefit both our businesses as well as our employees. This got me to thinking about the relationship between what our strengths are and what we define as our passions; of how those strengths not only allow us to succeed but end up defining that internal drive we all have to pursue a specific goal or objective.

To help demonstrate this connection between our strengths and passion, here are three stories of individual pursuits in the field of sports, business and the arts.

Jon Montgomery – Gold Medallist, 2010 Vancouver Olympics

As with most people, Jon Montgomery had big dreams growing up, of what he’d like to do with his life. And one of those dreams was being able to represent Canada at the Olympic Games, and especially winning a medal for his country. So, he figured his best bet to making that dream a reality would be to take up playing hockey and working at landing a spot on the national team. However, he would soon learn that Click here to continue reading »”Finding Our Passion Through Our Strengths”

Last week, I was invited to guest host the weekly #kaizenblog chat on Twitter in which we discussed how to nurture and sustain creativity when we write. From the first question I asked to start the conversation going, there was a general consensus that one major key for instilling creativity in our writing is the ability to tell stories. While the art of storytelling is something that’s vital to the process of writing in a creative fashion, it’s also an important pillar in how we communicate and how we transfer information and ideas to those around us.

Through the act of telling stories, we can elicit emotional connections that not only help to make these moments more tangible and accessible, but also easy to recall long after the event has passed. Although the Click here to continue reading »”Getting Back To The Art of Storytelling”

Growing up, I liked playing a lot of sports, especially hockey, soccer and football.  But one sport I really hated to play was baseball.  It wasn’t because I thought it was a boring sport (well, actually I do, but that’s besides the point).  Instead, it was simply because I was terrible at it.  No matter how many times I tried or how much I’d practice, I just wasn’t good at hitting that baseball.  Naturally, I’d tell my gym teacher when we had to play baseball that it wasn’t my best sport, to which I’d invariably be told that this would be an opportunity to improve my game, to build on this weakness of mine.

Of course, this wasn’t the last time I was asked to address my weaknesses.  At job interviews, I was asked not only about my strengths, but also my weaknesses and more importantly, what measures I was taking to overcome them.  In my employee performance reviews, it felt at times like it was almost a requirement that some weak point be found and pointed out as something I would need to work on before the next review.  On the surface, all of these experiences made sense because we are taught to believe that the way to succeed is by overcoming those tasks or abilities that we struggle to perform.

And yet, if we look at people who do succeed, a completely different viewpoint becomes apparent.  Click here to continue reading »”Learning To Focus On Our Strengths, Not Weaknesses”