Monday, May 3, 2010

Maximize Career Discovery - Strength Chasing Questions

Jennifer Fox in her wonderful book, Discover Your Child’s Strengths talks a lot about the art of Strength Chasing. She has clearly developed her talent for this over the years. When working with children and adolescents, which is her specialty, she is very direct about the importance of staying in the role of “hunter” for something that already exists and just needs to uncovered or pulled out. She states, “You are not playing the role of an inventor, rather, you are searching for something that is already there.” She is also clear about the need for people, especially children to come to an understanding on their own. Well crafted questions almost always begin the chase, and more questions drill down and thin slice for deeper more precise insight. The process ideally happens intentionally but subtly over time. It’s also important that you don’t rapid fire questions like an interrogator.  There is a soaking and reflection process that must occur.


On the following pages and posts are a number of question sets and exercises to help you in your own search or give you some tools to help others. They are like keys that open doors. Behind those doors are usually more doors. An exercise that works very well for one person may not work very well at all for another. In a few days I will be reviewing a few assessments or indicators some of which are fee based. Most are very reasonably priced starting in the $20.00 to $30.00 dollar range. If I recommend an indicator or resource it means I’m fairly confident in the tool and have probably used it on myself with good results. I’ve been studying this over twenty years and I’m still learning new things about myself all the time. I see this as a lifelong discovery process.

Here is a question set to get you started.  These questions were gathered or developed by an executive coach by the name of Bobb Biehl  http://www.bobbbiehl.com/ .  Bobb is the 'Kiing of Great Questions" and has spent a lifetime gathering, developing, refining, and asking them.  Here are 3 that are great for uncovering passion...

1.  In my  ideal world... I would have the opportunity to ______________?

2. What makes you weep and pound the table?

3. How can I make the most significant difference... For God... Sometime before I die?

Grab your notebook and spend a few minutes with these questions.  There are no wrong answers for now... just put down what comes to mind.
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Build The Career You Love!

Welcome to "Maximize Your Career", a site designed to '"Revolutionize Your Approach To Life and Work. Our goals are to offer daily posts and resources that will help you enjoy increasingly higher levels of success, satisfaction, and significance. We will help you focus on productive attitudes, increased use of your aptitudes, talents, and abilities, and navigate the job searching, sorting, and selection process. This site is for career professionals, business owners, managers, parents, educators, and students who want to increase their effectiveness in the world of work. Whether you are super-employed, unemployed, underemployed, miserably-employed, nervously-employed – in school preparing for work or in retirement returning to work – you are an incredible, we believe one-of-a-kind person made by God who is as motivator Zig Ziglar says, “Designed for Accomplishment, Engineered for Success, Endowed with the Seeds of Greatness.”

This blog comes with free access to: The web’s largest job search engines, a network of more than 100 career group locations, a free 80 page Maximize Your Career Booklet, links and resources from national experts like Marcus Buckingham, Harvey Mackay, Tom Peters, and Seth Godin, over a dozen short biographies from Entrepreneur Magazine on people like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, film maker George Lucas, Ben and Jerry The Ice-Cream Guys, and more...

What are you Insanely Great at? What could you be great at if you developed it? What are the moments when you think "I was made for this"? Read on. Explore the Career Assessment Strength Links on the side bar to your right. Nose around in our Career Bookstore. Begin a process designed to put your unique strengths out into the world where you and everyone else can enjoy the benefits.

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Lansing, Michigan


I would like to take the opportunity to offer my recommendation for Dale Cobb. He has the remarkable ability to clearly listen to a problem, understand the issues and suggest a course of action that satisfies the needs of me and my clients. I cannot tell you how many times his advice was precisely what I needed to close a deal or carefully resolve a difficult situation. He is resourceful and creative in his teaching style. Over all he helped me to be more efficient and successful in my career.


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Sacramento, California


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