By Evelyn Mitchell, October 30, 2020
I just read my about page again and I am astounded at the truth I am seeing there. I don’t even know how to write this.
I found a video the other day on 20booksto50k facebook page, and the guest was Becca Syme, of “Better – Faster” she’s a Gallup® Strengths Coach that coaches writers because she is a writer herself. That’s my take anyway. I didn’t read her about page yet but I’m assuming it’s so.
Anyway through her videos I thought hay… why don’t I just take this strengths test thing and see what mine are, because after listening to several of them I assumed I was a learner, or rather “Input” and an “Empath” and a few others that turned out to be wrong.
I was truly shocked and a little disappointed, well, that is until I found out what they were. Gallup has lots of videos on the different strengths. I am so happy I looked. I know I should be writing summaries here to give you all a taste of what this is all about but I am just so keyed up about all this and my bottom is sore from sitting, that…
Okay, My #1 strength is Connectedness, I am quoting one of the video’s show notes here:
“Connectedness is about anticipating and embracing the seen and unseen connection between all things. It is about being in-tuned to something beyond the immediate. There is an aspect of timelessness to this theme. People with Connectedness can be quite curious, but also quite aware. They have no problem accepting mysteries. They have a calm when things don’t make sense. They can move forward through that mystery.”
And this is so true. There is way more to it than that though, I just know things. That might be my #2 strength though; Ideation:
“Maika Leibbrandt 1:59 on Ideation
Here’s the short definition: “If you have Ideation as a dominant theme, you are fascinated by ideas. You’re able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.” I’ve never seen those three words together anywhere else other than this short definition, but it is like tattooed to my own brain: “seemingly disparate phenomena,” meaning when things seem pretty different, you can see the link between them. The first truth of a strong team is how they handle conflict. “Conflict does not destroy strong teams, because strong teams focus instead on results.”
Here’s a link to the whole playlist, 6 seasons of videos if you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxDaK7wIyw947k6hxvoPa4-DYMbgJZYNt
Anyway these are the two I’ve been learning about today, but not in the writer sense. I still want to learn how these impact my writing so I can write better – faster, so maybe this November I finally get a book out, at least a draft.
But how it relates to my about page is that close to the end I complain a little about people not getting my way of seeing things, and getting picked on about it because they don’t understand. Well now I know why and it’s okay, I feel better. I have a lot of healing to do but now I have a good explanation to start the healing process with.
