Personal brand diagnosis 10: Analyzing strengths

In the 9 previous chapters of the series Iceberg I've developed the diagnosis of our personal brand: perceived identity, own identity, digital identity identity by name in search engines, on social media and by keywords.

I also dealt with Elena Arnaiz the "D" of "Weaknesses" of DAFO, and today it's the turn of the "F" of Strengths, for what I've invited the friend and colleague Xavi Roca, author of "Get out of here", great personal brand book. I'd say Xavi is one of the people I've read the most about strengths, a true champion.

If you're short on time, I invite you to see this summary:

Why it's important to know them

We often compare ourselves to each other, and we feel superior or inferior based on their strengths and weaknesses.

But the truth is that each person is different and we all function based on our personality. It's important to know yourself and our abilities, that's why I advise you to see the first 8 chapters of Iceberg, to really get to know you.

Your strengths represent levers that you can take advantage of to push yourself more and, especially, Best

Knowing your own strengths gives you a better understanding of yourself, keeps you going on a lot of things. For example, if you're looking career options, you could reduce specific areas of work based on what you know you're good at.

It also helps you grow more. Knowing what you can excel at allows you to aim higher and achieve more.

Xavi Roca: just one 20% professionals manages to align their strengths with their professional activity

Most people think that to succeed they must correct their weaknesses. But it's much more productive to focus on your strengths.

Different studies say that if you spend the same amount of time boosting your strengths or correcting your weaknesses, on average return on investment is a 600% higher when you focus on your strengths.

To get a great personal brand you must identify your natural talents, develop them into real strengths and make them the true centerpiece of your strategy and communication.

It is estimated that approximately 80% professionals develop professional activities that are not aligned with their strengths while only the 20% professionals manages to align their strengths with their professional activity

How much would a company's productivity improve, of a country if we could get more professionals to know, develop and apply their strengths in their professional activity? How much would personal happiness also improve?

When a person focuses on their strengths, multiplies by 3 the odds of claiming that they have an excellent quality of life and multiplies by 6 the odds of being engaged in your work. In addition, longing to go to work, have more positive than negative interactions with their peers, treat customers better, tell their friends they work in an excellent company, achieve more every day and have more positive moments, creative and inspiring.

Types of strengths

Your greatest personal strength would be natural in you, very easy to get going. For example, the result of external feedback and work with Strengths of the Crystal test, they attribute me (and I attribute) the creativity of thinking about unique ways to solve problems.

I distinguish the strengths in 8 Categories:

1. What sets you apart and you do better. Those are the queen fortresses.
2. Your skills and competencies
3. The ones that have helped you achieve goals
4. Your core values. This is increasingly appreciated.
5. Other strengths
6. Personality strengths
7. Digital reputation strengths
8. Online situation strengths

Here you can download in Excel the box with the Types of Strengths.

Author: Guillem Recolons	May 2020
Strengths	Full identification	Only the others / Just me
What sets you apart, what you do best	Elements in which you clearly stand out from the rest
Skills and competencies	What you know how to do well, what you've learned and master
Strengths that have helped you take on goals	Main levers of achievement in your professional career
Your core values	Your three pillar values
Other strengths	Address book,
Personality (Feedback, DISC, Mbti, Crystal…)	Action-oriented, Adventurer, Analytical, Artistic, Athletic, Authentic, Careful, Smart, Compassionate, Charming, Communicative, Committed, Brave, Creative, Curious, Determined, Disciplined, Educated, Empathetic, emotionally intelligent, Energy, Entertainment, Fast, Flexible, Focused, detail-oriented, Predisposed, Inspiring, Leader, you learn well, Motivated, Optimistic, open-minded, Organized, Outgoing, Patient, Precise, Responsible, self-controlled, Conversationalist, Spontaneous, with social skills, strategic thinker, team-oriented, Thoughtful, Reliable, Visionary, Kind, Willful, Reflective
Digital reputation	Very good reputation, Valuations, reviews… networked positives
Online situation	Presence and essence, it's easy by name, is found through keywords, good digital selling index, good social selling index, interesting and sufficient communities, authentic communities, good digital habits, authenticity and consistency OFF/ON,..

Time to validate our strengths

Just like we did with weaknesses, starting a validation phase will help us confirm those that are self-perceived and perceived by others, and also to identify new strengths.

One text could be this: As part of an exercise I'm doing on my personal brand, I've identified what I think are my strengths in several categories Could you validate those that you identify to me?

I remember the advice of creating a painting like the one above, but putting a scale of 1 To 5 so that it is others who place the degree of relevance of our strengths based on their relationship of stakeholders with us. You can even do it with a Google form, adapting the configuration as an evaluation questionnaire.

The action plan

We move on to action, it's time to manage our strengths.

The action plan consists of three phases:

1. List them
2. Communicate them
3. Capitalize on them

1. List them it's simple. I may include here those highlights that we can draw from recommendations that have been made to us throughout our professional career (academic).
2. Communicate them it's key. Where? on our CV, in our elevator pitch, on our Twitter bio, Facebook, Linkedin extract... and - how can not- in our personal account. And if we have our own website, Bingo!
3. Capitalize on them it's something more complex. If we work in a large company, let's put the radar on job offerings that require those strengths. In small businesses or if we're out of work, action is slower, because many of the offers don't reach the job market, so it's a good idea to think about creating a blog and being consistent in posts.

I hope you found the article helpful.. If so,, Thank you for commenting and sharing it!

Stock Photos from Lightspring / Shutterstock