Tag Archives: maximizer

Job interview. Insights. Shared dreams.

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Today I am feeling grateful for the job interview I had yesterday. I interviewed for a three-month contract job at a big technology company yesterday.

The feedback I got from the placement agency connection afterward was that (1) I was the last person they talked to (always a good thing when interviewing because you’re fresh in their memory when they are making the hiring decision) and (2) they really liked me and my writing sample, concluding that I was capable of doing the work and would be a pleasure to work with. Apparently others they interviewed had the skills but not the attitude.

I hope to be offered this job.

My strategy during the interview was to understand their point of view and how I can do what they need to have done. I grasped it well: a custom software provider didn’t provide them with a user manual, and they needed this manual three months ago. This happens more often than it should, but that creates nice lucrative short-term job opportunities for technical writers like me.

So I step in, document what they’ve been able to figure out so far, and working with this big company’s IT department and the software developers in California, figure out and write procedures for how to do everything else.

This is how a Maximizer thinks:

  • I suggested that the user manual I write could be desirable to the software provider, and that they use that in future negotiations with the software provider.
  • This software provider might consider hiring me to work remotely and produce user manuals for their custom software solutions.
  • I might get a gig at this big technology company teaching lunchtime or after-work yoga. It’s a lot more fun than technical writing!

Will let you know what I hear!

~~~

I am grateful for insights, those little snippets of emerging knowledge that help me evolve. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my future work, refining my ideas about what I’ll do and the training I need.

Last night two alliterative words came to mind about the work I want to do with people. Blockages and beliefs.

You know the beautiful energy that infants, toddlers, and young children have, so open-hearted, present, playful, engaged, and full of life? We lose that — in essence, life teaches us that it’s not okay to be like that. We make painful trade-offs and then suppress the memories. These unconscious beliefs and blockages keep us in bondage, keep us from REALizing that our true nature is full of light, just like those beaming babies

I would like to help people recover that beautiful life-affirming energy in two ways: by learning the bodywork skills to help people release their blockages (because blockages are in the bodymind and often more accessible via the body) and working with people at the belief level to let go of beliefs that keep them in darkness and help them open up to life itself.

These two words, blockages and beliefs, are helping me identify the training I need to do the bodymindheartspirit work I want to do.

I’m thanking my bodymindheartspirit for letting those two words bubble up into my conscious mind.

~~~

I’m grateful for shared dreams. Yesterday I was introduced by a mutual friend to someone on Facebook who shares my interest in vintage trailers. I have ogled them online for months now. My new friend goes to the same websites I do and ogles the same trailers, plus ones I hadn’t considered!

A couple of days ago, I did an NLP session with a new friend, again someone I met on Facebook and looked forward to meeting in person. We had a nice long session over tea, with my cat curling up with each of us in turn.

From my perspective, we hit it off well. The rapport was good. I like this person and am learning a lot from working with him. I believe that I am helping him refine his thinking and hone his positive energy for moving in a whole new direction career-wise.

Here’s to two new friendships! Salud!

Finding your strengths = following your bliss

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Since January is usually a time when people think about the coming year and what they’d like to change in their lives (or what they’d like to be experiencing by the end of this year), it seems like the perfect month to write about finding your strengths.

First, an aside about strategies to enjoy life and be successful. Some of us have learned that we need to develop our weaknesses in order to be successful.

You should be more whatever.

How do you feel when someone says that to you? What is presupposed here?

Now try this on:

Wow, you are really great at whatever!

How do you feel? What’s the difference?  Which statement is more motivating? Inspiring?

On the whole, it is more joyful and productive to build on your strengths. People who do what they’re good at and like doing are more engaged in their work and have a higher quality of life.

Last year I learned about a book called Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath. This book is a Wall Street Journal bestseller, but it has wide applications, not just business.

By the way, only buy the book new, not used, for reasons given below. It’s currently $10.61 on Amazon.com. Click the link above to view and order. The full retail price is $24.95.

Background in brief: For 40 years, the Gallup Poll people have studied human strengths. A couple of guys narrowed them down to 34 different strengths and developed an assessment to help people find their strengths. That’s the basis of Strengths Finder 2.0.

A new copy of the book has an access code at the back to take the assessment online. I took it and received a summary that lists my top five strengths in order, applications for each strength, and quotes from real people who share my top five strengths.

These are my top five strengths in order:

  1. Maximizer (by the way, this book appeals to Maximizers )
  2. Adaptability
  3. Relator
  4. Activator
  5. Futuristic

One note: On some of the questions, I felt that I might answer one way today, a different way tomorrow. I pretty much sped through it, which is encouraged. It would be interesting to take the assessment once a year for several years to see how much my top five strengths change or remain the same.

Now a little about my strengths:

  • Maximizer means I measure myself by excellence. I polish the pearl until it shines. Others see me as discriminating. I’m attracted to people who have found and cultivated their strengths [and who want to find and cultivate them].
  • Adaptability means I live in the present. The future isn’t fixed but a place I create out of choices I make now. I don’t resent sudden requests or unforeseen detours for long — I expect them and at some level look forward to them.
  • Relator means I’m attracted to people I already know and want to get to know them better. I don’t shy away from new people, but I do get a lot of pleasure from being around my friends. If you don’t know me, don’t let this scare you. Every friend was once a stranger who came into my life.
  • Activator is about doing. Only action makes things happen. Once a decision is made, I cannot not act. I believe that action is the best device for learning. I put myself out there and take the next step.
  • Futuristic is about seeing possibilities, which pulls me forward. I am fascinated by the direction of energy from the past through the present into the future. Futuristic initially seemed to conflict with Adaptability, but I think having these two in my top five strengths as well as Activator means I like manifesting, actualizing, realizing.

Based on these five strengths, my mission statement is:

I am passionate about manifesting excellence with my friends.

I like it!