Competition

Competition is rooted in comparison. When you look at the world, you are instinctively aware of otherpeople’s performance. Their performance is the ultimate yardstick. No matter how hard you tried, nomatter how worthy your intentions, if you reached your goal but did not outperform your peers, theachievement feels hollow. Like all competitors, you need other people. You need to compare. If youcan compare, you can compete, and if you can compete, you can win. And when you win, there is nofeeling quite like it. You like measurement because it facilitates comparisons. You like othercompetitors because they invigorate you. You like contests because they must produce a winner. Youparticularly like contests where you know you have the inside track to be the winner. Although you aregracious to your fellow competitors and even stoic in defeat, you don’t compete for the fun ofcompeting. You compete to win. Over time you will come to avoid contests where winning seemsunlikely.

Communication

You like to explain, to describe, to host, to speak in public, and to write. This is your Communicationtheme at work. Ideas are a dry beginning. Events are static. You feel a need to bring them to life, toenergize them, to make them exciting and vivid. And so you turn events into stories and practicetelling them. You take the dry idea and enliven it with images and examples and metaphors. Youbelieve that most people have a very short attention span. They are bombarded by information, but very little of it survives. You want your information—whether an idea, an event, a product’s featuresand benefits, a discovery, or a lesson—to survive. You want to divert their attention toward you andthen capture it, lock it in. This is what drives your hunt for the perfect phrase. This is what draws youtoward dramatic words and powerful word combinations. This is why people like to listen to you. Yourword pictures pique their interest, sharpen their world, and inspire them to act.

Input

You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information—words, facts, books, andquotations—or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls,or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is thekind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinitevariety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather,to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feelcomfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.

Context

You look back. You look back because that is where the answers lie. You look back to understand thepresent. From your vantage point the present is unstable, a confusing clamor of competing voices. Itis only by casting your mind back to an earlier time, a time when the plans were being drawn up, thatthe present regains its stability. The earlier time was a simpler time. It was a time of blueprints. As youlook back, you begin to see these blueprints emerge. You realize what the initial intentions were.These blueprints or intentions have since become so embellished that they are almostunrecognizable, but now this Context theme reveals them again. This understanding brings youconfidence. No longer disoriented, you make better decisions because you sense the underlyingstructure. You become a better partner because you understand how your colleagues came to be whothey are. And counterintuitively you become wiser about the future because you saw its seeds beingsown in the past. Faced with new people and new situations, it will take you a little time to orientyourself, but you must give yourself this time. You must discipline yourself to ask the questions andallow the blueprints to emerge because no matter what the situation, if you haven’t seen theblueprints, you will have less confidence in your decisions.

Positivity

You are generous with praise, quick to smile, and always on the lookout for the positive in thesituation. Some call you lighthearted. Others just wish that their glass were as full as yours seems tobe. But either way, people want to be around you. Their world looks better around you because yourenthusiasm is contagious. Lacking your energy and optimism, some find their world drab withrepetition or, worse, heavy with pressure. You seem to find a way to lighten their spirit. You injectdrama into every project. You celebrate every achievement. You find ways to make everything more exciting and more vital. Some cynics may reject your energy, but you are rarely dragged down. YourPositivity won’t allow it. Somehow you can’t quite escape your conviction that it is good to be alive,that work can be fun, and that no matter what the setbacks, one must never lose one’s sense ofhumor.

PERSONAL

My top five traits from StregnthsQuest are Competition, Communication, Input, Context, and Positivity. I agree with all of these. I am very competitive when it comes to certain things and most of the time will do whatever it takes to win. As a PR major I have to communicate to build relationships everyday whether it be to clients, colleagues, etc. I’m very into giving my opinion and providing people with directions, especially when I’m a leader so I think input fits into that quite well. Context fits me well because I am always thinking about past experiences I can build and grow from and Positivity works well because I feel that I am always positive as a leader because it fosters a good work environment and a good work ethic. No one wants to work for someone who is miserable.

CONSULTING

I feel as though these stregnths make me a good Consultant in SOLC for a myriad of reasons. I am competitive on behalf of other people, which I use because I love to see other people, aside from myself succeed. Communication is key when consulting because if the group is not communicating their needs to you, the activity can backfire completely, and if there is excellent communication between the consultants and the group then the group will get the most they possibly can out of the retreat experience. I also use input while consulting to give insight during times of turmoil during the retreat. Sometimes, people need to see another point of view to see why they are having issues. Context helps me with consulting because I am able to look at previous retreats to see what has and has not worked so that way the same mistakes aren't made over and over again. Lastly I use positivity to keep the participants positive throughout the entire experience because any little negativity can bring the entire mood down and then no one will want to participate.