Success

I made peace with the fact that I have to do some work to earn a living. So it might as well be something that I love doing and that I am good at. In the book The Artists Way at Work they cite a survey of successful people. What successful people all seem to have in common were three things:

1. A daily reflective practice - that could be yoga, meditation, going for a run or bike ride, prayer, drinking tea and looking outside the window, you name it.
2. The ability of re-framing failure - not getting hung up on a past failure, losing a job or a partner, public embarrassment, screwing up a project, etc. Failure happens to all of us in one way or another. The question is are we taking the lesson learned from the incident and integrate this into our future decision making? Or do we beat ourselves up for having made a mistake? One option of re-framing a failure is to think "Next time I will do..." instead of "Why the @#$% did I not do...? The latter is useless dealing with the past that we can't change, the first option can potentially influence our future action positively.
3. The ability of leveraging one's own skills.

Finding my skills
We all come with a set of unique skills. We all have a certain set of strengths. But how do I know what they are?

I turned to the book Strengthsfinder 2.0 to help me answer this question. I saw this book floating around our office and people were talking highly about it, so I gave it a try. It's another personality test, so of course I am into it!

Turns out my strenghts are:

• Connectedness - my soul knows that we are all connected.
• Intellection - meaning I like stuff the stimulates my thinking and spending time with smart people.
• Input - I like aquiring new information. Thank God for the Internet - my google search bar puts only two mouse clicks between my questions and some answers.
• Learning - that might explain the many courses I have been taking since I am done school: language courses, the LEED exam, and now the yoga teacher training.
• Futuristic - I do have a vision of future, where we live in harmony with our planet. Despite of our current contradicting, destructive way of living (e.g. the majority of our electricity is produced by coal fired plants, that pollute the air we breathe and contribute to climate change), I believe that if humanity puts their energy and effort towards innovation of technologies and new ways of life styles, we can continue living our dreams while doing less harm. Hopefully this happens in my life time.

Unfortunately Strenghtsfinder is not available for free or online. You have to get a hardcopy book to get an access code to the online test, which seems a little wasteful in the era of digital information. If you end up taking the test, let me know. I am always curious to gain deeper knowledge (see above)! Apparently I work well with people with strong communication and activator skills.

Now that I know my strengths, I am on to the next step: on how to fully leverage them.

Blooming Desert, California, March 2008

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
Albert Schweitzer