I have been helping professionals develop their personal brand for 18 years. In this time, I have discovered that one of the most important aspects and at the same time most difficult to identify is talent. When I work with recognized professionals, students, people in professional transition… I always ask what are their talents, what are their strengths. Most go blank; they have no idea of your talents. And how can we build a powerful personal brand if not relying on talents?
According to the North American consulting firm Gallup, there are 5 clues to help discover the talents of a person. These tracks are:
- Longing: refers to the attractiveness of certain activities. All people tend to be attracted to some activities and not others. Fortunately, each person is different and is attracted to different activities. In this first point, it is about thinking well what actions we love to do, what activities we enjoy.
- Rapid learning: it can also be a clue to find our talent to identify those disciplines in which we learn quickly. You will have seen how in many disciplines the learning process is slow and heavy, while in other activities you notice that you learn faster and more easily than other people or than yourself in other activities. Identify well what are these activities in which you learn quickly.
- Fluency: this is the concept presented by the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi “Flow”. It refers to the state that a person experiences when he is fully concentrated on the development of an activity. It is a very pleasant sensation in which we enjoy a lot and we tend to lose track of time. In what activities do you feel totally absorbed and lose track of time?
- Flashes of excellence: another interesting clue to help you discover your talents is analyzing when, in the development of some activity, you have been pleasantly surprised by your results. You have achieved much better performance than you expected. Even your colleagues have been surprised by your extraordinary performance.
- Satisfaction: the last clue has to do with finding those activities that you love to do. That when you finish you are usually totally satisfied. Usually so satisfied that you are already thinking about when you can repeat the practice of this activity.
These are 5 very simple, but at the same time powerful, clues that will help you identify your talents. Spend time thinking about these 5 clues and you will surely discover key ideas to help you identify your talents
But I didn’t want to end this post without introducing you to the tool that, in my opinion, best helps people discover their talents. It is the Clifton Strengths Finder and has been developed by Dr. Clifton, father of strengths psychology and president of Gallup for many years. It is an instrument, based on the web, in which, through 177 questions with response times limited to 20 seconds per question, it allows the scientific identification of a person’s main talents. This method is based on more than four decades of study of success in a wide variety of functions at both business and educational levels. I have been using this tool for years with my clients and students and in almost all cases the result has been surprising.
You can take the test in; www.gallupstrengthsfinder.com
Discovering your talent is the first step, not only to develop a powerful personal brand but above all to have a successful and happy professional and personal life.
