Excellence, not average, is your measure. Taking something from below average to slightly above average takes a great deal of effort and in your opinion is not very rewarding. Transforming something strong into something superb takes just as much effort but is much more thrilling. Strengths, whether yours or someone else’s, fascinate you. Like a diver after pearls, you search them out, watching for the telltale signs of a strength. A glimpse of untutored excellence, rapid learning, a skill mastered without recourse to steps — all these are clues that a strength may be in play. And having found a strength, you feel compelled to nurture it, refine it, and stretch it toward excellence. You polish the pearl until it shines. This natural sorting of strengths means that others see you as discriminating. You choose to spend time with people who appreciate your particular strengths. Likewise, you are attracted to others who seem to have found and cultivated their own strengths. You tend to avoid those who want to fix you and make you well-rounded. You don’t want to spend your life bemoaning what you lack. Rather, you want to capitalize on the gifts with which you are blessed. It’s more fun. It’s more productive. And, counterintuitively, it is more demanding.
The genius of Maximizer talents is in your natural discrimination toward better and your preference for working with and toward the best.
The genius of your Maximizer CliftonStrengthstheme starts with what you can see in people. You can see the strengths and talents, the potentials and the capabilities, and you can see the emerging abilities within people even before they can see them. But this is only the beginning of the genius of your Maximizer talent. You can literally see what people could be like if they were to fully develop and maximize the talents, potential and emerging abilities within them. This results in you having an incredible impact in the lives of others. As you hold up pictures and mirrors of what you see in others, you help them form new concepts of themselves that build hope and motivation to achieve and be what they have the capacity to be. Moreover, you are a great “coach” in moving people to their greatest potential and in moving people into roles where their potential can be lived out.
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