Why Paying Attention to Your Strengths is a Profoundly Spiritual Process

I do a lot of coaching with individuals, groups, businesses, teams, churches around the issue of strengths (utilizing the results they get from taking the online StrengthsFinder).  What are your top strengths?  How are you using them?  What are the shadow sides of each of your strengths and how can you manage those shadow sides?  How can you use your strengths more intentionally, consciously, and competently? How Strengths Work Increases Well-being

I love doing this strengths work with people because I've seen that when people tap into their strengths more deeply and consciously, their ability to live a more productive and fulfilling life at work, in relationships, and even in spirituality radically increases.  In fact, research shows that people who more often than not lead with their strengths are six times more meaningfully engaged in their life circumstances and they experience a three times higher sense of overall well being in life.

Who wouldn't want those kind of odds?

I'm noticing more and more that when people begin this exploration, increasing their understanding of how they're wired and what their innate talents are, they are in fact coming face to face with who they really are and who they are truly designed to be.  And that is a profoundly spiritual experience.

Why Strengths Work Is Spiritual

One of the descriptions of spirituality I appreciate is this:  "The intentional journey of becoming more whole, more fully alive, and more deeply human which results in authentic and meaningful connections with self, others, and the transcendent.”

The more in-tune we are with who we are, the more in alignment we are with how we are each designed and wired, the deeper and more authentic and meaningful our connections are to others and even to God.

One of the early Church fathers, Irenaeus, wrote,

"The glory of God is man fully alive."

Think about that for a minute.  God's glory is heightened and made more evident when people are living fully alive.  God's glory is shown, not when we constrict our lives or other people's live, not when we narrow our lives down, but rather when we expand our lives, when we increase our aliveness, when we alignment our lives to who we were made to be and to learn to live that way with more abandon and confidence and courage.

And that's exactly what happens when people tap into their strengths more consciously and competently.  They become more uniquely fully alive---they become more of their true selves, as God designed them.  Living out our strengths is one of the most significant ways we uniquely manifest the image of God in each one of us.

God is definitely not into the "cookie-cutter" approach to life.  All you have to do to see that is to open your eyes and behold---to pay attention and to notice---the profound and immense and rich diversity that exists in this world.

Some Strategic Strengths Questions I Use With Clients

I have the sacred privilege as a strengths coach to be a front-row witness to this wonderful diversity with every person and group I do this work with.  I always am in awe of how beautiful and unique every person is.  And that individual beauty I see only grows and deepens as people come to embrace their unique strengths profile and learn to live it more consciously and effectively day after day.

So here are some of the questions I assist people in exploring and processing about their strengths:

• How have you seen yourself using each of your top strengths?  Give specific examples.  Describe how you felt when you were engaged in that activity/behavior.
• What have you noticed is the shadow side of each strength?  What is your specific negative tendency with each strength at times?  For example, if your strength is Empathy, do you ever find yourself getting too emotionally involved in people?  Do you take on their feelings so deeply that you can't seem to let them go, to separate yourself from their feelings, so you can begin to feel exhausted, burned out.  Their negative or painful feelings you start to take on yourself?  Give specific examples of how you have manifested the shadow side of your strengths.
• How have you noticed your strengths playing out in your relationships?  Give some specific examples.  For instance, if you have Adaptability, do you tend to wait until the last minute to plan an activity with your significant other?  Do you prefer not to structure or plan something but to let it come to you or simply go with the flow?  How does your strength(s) impact your significant relationship?
• What is the strengths profile of your significant relationship?  How do your top five individual strengths react together as a couple?  Where are you both strong?  How does that reveal itself in how your relationship shows up in the world?  What do people experience in the presence of your relational strengths profile?
• Develop some specific, tangible goals for how you can increase the use of each one of your top strengths in the major life areas:  work, relationships, spirituality.
• What are deficiencies in your strengths profile that you need to consider bringing other people with complementary strengths into your life?  How can you partner or collaborate with people who bring strengths you don't have so you can be more productive and effective?

I typically go on a 12 session, 3 month journey with the people who want to really dig deep into putting their strengths to work in their lives.  And I can tell you, it's a hugely rewarding, satisfying, transforming experience.  They all tell me how life changing it is.  And the more I do it, the more life changing it is for me, as well.

How Strengths Work Impacts Organizations and Congregations

I also do strengths work with congregations and other organizations.  Once people begin to understand the role their strengths can play in their personal lives, this new awareness carries over into their actions within the organizational mission.  When we take a look at which of everyone's top strengths are most represented---based upon everyone's test results---that corporate strengths profile delivers some astounding and powerful implications for how the whole group is designed to be at their strongest in the way they serve their constituents and communities.  Effective mission and productive service grow exponentially.  And people who serve in those groups experience a much higher level of engagement and fulfillment than ever before.

The Final Question is About Sacred Stewardship

So in the end of life---whatever your view about how that happens in terms of divine accountability for your life---what's true is this:

God will not ask you why you weren't more like someone else.  God's only question to you will be, What did you do with what you were given?  Did you steward your Self as deeply, passionately, and faithfully as you could?  Were you your own true Self?

This is one of the reasons I think strengths work is so spiritually significant---and why I believe in knowing my strengths and using them as courageously and actively as I can.  It's about being the only Me that really counts in the end; and the only Me that truly brings me fulfillment, purpose, and joy.

Want to Know More?

Would you like to know more about this process?   Feel free to email me:  greg@flyagaincoaching.com.  I'd be happy to give you more perspective.  Would you like to engage in strengths coaching with me?  Feel free to contact me:  greg@flyagaincoaching.com.

The Advent Story and The Two Sides of Divine Spirituality

The Popular Side of Divine Spirituality This is the time of year I tend to love studying the Best Buy ads, the Apple Store manifestos, the Amazon, GroupOn, Living Social deals piling up in my Inbox.  There's simply so much I'd love to have that I know would make my life more effective and efficient and enjoyable.  Right?

After all, this is the season especially synonymous with abundance, even extravagance. It's what we like about Christmas--the picture of God giving the most extravagant Gift possible in the form of the divine son of God. Heaven poured out the very best and highest priced offering to the human race. God held nothing back--the sign of immeasurable love and compassion.

So at Christmastime, we take our cues from that Sacred modeling and give valuable gifts to those we love. We break open our piggy banks and spend to show our love.

And of course Madison Avenue, with it's own extravagant advertising budgets, continually reminds us that abundance is the order of the day--and naturally they have just what we need to buy from them to give evidence of our extravagant love to our friends and families. This time of year pays homage to this multiple-billion dollar industry and its success.

But ironically, there is an equally significant dimension to the Advent story that often gets ignored or downplayed. For sure Madison Avenue doesn't want this concept trumpeted this time of year. Yet this dimension is also at the epicenter of true spirituality and an accurate picture of what God values.

It first appears in the Advent story in the personage and the place God chooses for the Royal Divine Son to be born. Of all the "qualified" people on planet earth to be chosen as the surrogate parents for God's Son, God chooses a very young, humble, uneducated, poor teenage girl and an equally humble, peasant class working man who lives off the sweat of his brow to provide for his family.

And of all the birthing sites available on earth for this divine Son to make his grand entrance, God chooses a dank, dark cave where the farm animals are kept. Even Motel 6 is bypassed.

What's up with these divine choices? Is there a message and modeling of godly spirituality here? What's this other side of the "extravagance" coin for God?

The Less Popular Side of Divine Spirituality

This part of the Incarnation story hints at a word that we don't always associate with spirituality much less this time of year: frugality. Now this is an intriguing word in this context. But don't be fooled--this is not describing an attitude and approach similar to the miserly Scrooge in the other Christmas story who goes around grunting, "Bah, humbug!" as he pinches his pennies, refusing to give any more than he absolutely has to.

No. According to one author, "Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits." (Burke). Frugality is simply stewarding the resources we have in a way that acknowledges their limits. "You can't buy happiness is" one of the adages stemming from this paradigm.

I'm challenged by the way Elise Boulding puts it: "Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things."

Jesus' Countercultural Model

Jesus gets conceived by a poor, simple couple and birthed in a starkly frugal environment. For his early years he lives as an immigrant and refugee with his parents in Egypt. He's home schooled by his mother. He ends up taking over his dad's simple business as a carpenter and stone mason. And then when he finally begins his ministry-calling as an itinerant rabbi/preacher he doesn't even have a home to call his own, choosing to live with others along the paths of his travels.

Jesus' lifestyle wouldn't exactly be described today as extravagant by any means. He grew up in the midst of a profound frugality so he never developed an attitude of entitlement. He learned the happiness of not having things.

He was never encumbered by possessions--so much so that the only thing he ever really owned was a garment that was the most valuable thing the soldiers could find of his to roll the dice and bet each other for as he hung dying on the cross at the end of his life.  No physical assets other than the clothes on his back to include in a will after he died.

And yet he was happy as a human being. He laughed with his friends. He went to parties. Children loved being around him--which they don't tend to do with Scrooges. He sang songs, told stories, worked miracles. He found his greatest joy in surprising people with love and grace.

Frugality. He manifested it in a profound way by showing that riches have their limits and by teaching the happiness of not having things but choosing to live extravagantly in giving love to others.

Pay Attention To Both Sides of the Divine Coin

It's so easy to get seduced by the popular paradigms of our culture--that happiness comes most from what we possess, from an increase in our physical assets, from the gadgets and toys we have, the nice clothes we can wear.  This time of year we long for what so many advertisers hold in front of our eyes as those tools to possessing a better life.

But perhaps this Advent Season I would do well to remember both sides of the spirituality coin--not just extravagance but also frugality--the willingness to live life with an open hand, not grasping at things to hoard but giving and letting go, moving from a physical assets mentality to a relational assets mindset.  This is, like Jesus modeled, a very countercultural way to live. I'm learning that spiritual transformation and effectiveness involve both divine values, extravagance and frugality.

Fear Comes From a Place of Inadequacy

I just recorded this video clip today to talk a bit about where our sense of fear and worry tend to come from.  The reality is, you and I can't control what happens externally in all the circumstances of our lives.  But what we can affect is our internal responses to what life dishes to us.  And therein lies one of the secrets to developing inner peace in an age of anxiety.  Here's a piece of this perspective: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSFDALeWeN8]

Here's the way this reality is stated in one of the lessons from A Course in Miracles:  "It is obvious that any situation that causes you concern is associated with feelings of inadequacy, for otherwise you would believe that you could deal with the situation successfully.  But it is not by trusting yourself that you will gain confidence.  It is the strength of God in you that is successful in all things."  (p. 75)

The Point of Spiritual Practices

As all spiritual wisdom traditions emphasize, spiritual practices are designed to focus our attention on our true identity as children of God.  The chaos, busyness, and ear-spitting volume of the world around us tend to divert out attention from who we are.  We are tempted to buy in to the subtle and not so subtle message that our value comes from an identity as producers, consumers, and all the various roles we play in our lives.  And if we play those roles well, we can feel good about ourselves.  But if we fail or are inadequate in any way, we cannot give ourselves permission to feel good.  And this battle is endless, isn't it.

So our intentional choice to regularly engage in practices, activities, and experiences where we are reminded of who we really are irrespective of our roles and what the world says about us is absolutely crucial to being able to maintain a place of calm, centeredness, and internal peace in the midst of life's anxious chaos.  I must come to the place where I put more stock in what God says about me than in what others or even I say about me.  I must choose to believe God's word, "I am enough."

Upcoming 3 Night Series

That's one of the reasons why I'm doing a 3 night speaking series on this topic beginning a week from tonight (Oct. 19, 26, Nov. 2).  The event will take place at Fort Mason Center, the Bayfront Theatre (BATS Improv) in San Francisco.  It will be 90 minutes of teaching, inspiration, centering experiences, even a little music--all designed to reinforce our sense of who we are, that we are enough, and that we have divine resources to ground us in confidence to face our everyday lives.  Check out this INVITE for more information.  If you register, feel free to use the special discount code GregVIP for 50% off.

If you can't be here for these 3 nights, there will be recordings made available.  So leave me a note in the comment section below if you're interested in the recordings so you can get in on these hugely significant spiritual reminders.

We are enough!

One of the important spiritual teachers of our generation made this statement:  “Our whole spiritual transformation brings us to the point where we realize that in our own being, we are enough.”

You and I need this reminder often!  And I can say from personal experience, when I'm living out of that deeply sacred and divine center, my life takes on a profound sense of both calm and confidence as I show up in the world.  There's no better place from which to live.

Click here for more information about this upcoming series and to RSVP.  Only 1 week left.