The only thing more interesting than a story about another person is a story about our own self.
Why is this so?
Because, naturally, most of us are more interested in reading about ourselves than reading a condensed history of the ten most famous people who ever lived.
This is the natural way of human behaviour and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that this is suddenly about to change.
DFQ #07:
In 100 words or less, post a story about yourself.Focus on your Top Strength from DFQ#6 and think of an amusing story that illustrates, or derives from, your top strength.
As you think about this story, recall some details about the setting, the people involved, the provocation and the ‘punch line’ or the outcome.
Don’t feel the need to interpret the story or comment too much on it–just tell it!
We are your devoted audience. Make it a good one 🙂
(NOTE: I realise this is a bit like karaoke and asks you to step-up. But if this DFQ is not for you, no problem, just skip it. All SOT training (even leadership training) is opt-in/opt-out).
It seems people can’t count to 100….. :0)
Love of learning:
I started studying Information Technology back in 1999. During the 2 year Diploma my perspective on life changed considerably, with a much more positive focus (which allowed me to change career).
Looking back on that period of time (and the 4 years of management study done since then) I realised that what I learnt didn’t change my perspective, rather it was the positive environment and change of perspective that study gave me. I was able to remove myself from the negative environment I was in, get a better perspective (BVS) and haven’t looked back since.
Humor
One Monday morning, I am in the office and saw a group of people which comprises of my boss, sales manager and a channel sales manager. I have no intension to join the conversion but the sales manager asked
Sales manager:- How was your weekend, Sirawat?
I:- I have a backache as I lift something heavy, cannot be too active during the weekend. (and I give him a gaze with a naughty smile.)
And then we all start to laugh as all of us seem to get the idea of what I lifted during the week is my wife.
Creativity+Perseverance
One night as a teenager I woke up in my parents car. I was in the the passanger seat layed back and it was around midnight. It was a star filled sky and I felt the moist chilled air hit my face as I climbed out to investigate matters. The car was outside and it was still running with the vaccume hose wedged in a towel through the driver window. It had melted with the heat of the exhaust. I recall thinking that they didnt make em like they used to and concluded in disgust that I couldnt even get that right.
That night I retured my parents car back to the garage, went to bed and committed to life. Years later I was to find I was depressed. It was my second chance.
After many years of searching to finally find it to be something as simple as Omega 3s. Thinking as a skill has been a necessary part of my life and sadly a skill I seriously lacked as a teenager. I havent looked back.
As an adult with a wonderful family, successful career and comittment to creativity and determination to life. I wish for all children to have thinking as a skill as a matter that could in some cases mean their survival.
2. Bravery
The taste of revolution on my lips, used to bump
like white clouds on my imagination. I have come
to realize that, that little spot of imaging was only
an aftertaste, or perhaps a vague promise of a
starter. I was in fact saying the word too fast and
did not savior the actual letters as they were stirred from my soul, rolling, strolling up my throat and
drip dropping from my tongue. Courtesy of the Universe I have received a second chance …
The faces of fear are endless, you think it is a six headed monster that you have conquered, and then it pulls out another head and hard hat from its bag.
I used to think that I could run to the corners of the earth and hide there from fear; pretend that it does not exist, look over it …….
I now know that I have swallowed fear and we are in fact stuck together in a small box — Elizabeth or Fluffy? Elizabeth or Fluffy? (ChoicesChoicesChoices)
Elizabeth’s stomach is growling as the protector of her past and restrictor of her future is prowling. Love and understanding is the best thing in the world … la la la …..Lucky that if you don’t know what to send, send love — simple really.
Side_track_stop — Fluffy needs some good old fashioned loving, a hot bath and a cold drink. Elizabeth needs 3 drops of courage, 4 drops of bravery, a bottle of patience and a breath of butterfly kisses (this is for when Fluffy growls all thoughts of magic potion, right out of the water).
stepstepstepbreathe stepstepstepbreathe stepstepstepbreathe…
Persistence
I am resolute, some say willful, and seem to have a habit of either sifting out or working up ideas that I think are very worthy and then ‘give them my all’. I persist with these things where others may not. Over the last two years, I have been a member of a community consultative committee for state government. Through this committee, as a volunteer, I am able to develop proposals for the attention of government. Throughout my participation in this committee, I have endeavoured to have social enterprise and social innovation noted for government attention. I particularly sought to direct the attention of government to the need for a social innovation and social enterprise hub and had identified an outer suburban university earmarked for closure as a possible and challenging site for such a facility.
Over a two year period, I endured tedious government meetings to spruik for this possibility. I also consulted with various stakeholder groups and wrote reports and proposals. In fact, I was very heartened that so many people were so positive. Public sector committees and members of staff were supportive even though I had to raise the matter many times before it was accepted onto the committee’s agenda. I had raised a great deal of awareness about the idea and its potential. In fact, there was approval for this proposal from just about everyone I spoke to about it: everyone except the government and the university in question. Even after receiving an indifferent response from the government – because indifference is not the same as ‘no’ – I persisted, continuing to work on this proposal and raise awareness about it with a view to pitching it again to the government.
Even though I have probably missed out on the university campus, a social innovation and social enterprise hub is worth pursuing, imagining and talking about. While I can’t say this is a successful outcome from my persistence, I have learned that persistence probably isn’t enough to get an idea over the line. It probably needs to be driven with more strategy. I am now wondering what can happen if I apply some cvs2bvs thinking to this project …
Strength – Curiosity.
After suffering depression over a year ago the strength in curiosity enabled me to search for answers and reasons. What is this serotonin? What does it do and how can I get the same effect without medication? Why is my body reacting the way it is? I had to unravel the mystery of my brain.
I was fascinated by what I was learning and wanted to know more and more. Never satisfied with any one answer and had to prove or disprove what I found. Within 12 months, because of the research that came from my curiosity, I was able to recover quickly.
My curiosity then began to rub off on other people; they wanted to know different things that were helping me. This in turn helped them. Curiosity and understanding the power of it has opened up far more windows of opportunity and a greater appreciation for life then I ever thought possible before. What I once thought was the end is now the beginning of the curiosity journey……
Open-mindedness and fairness:
On the first day as a trainee teacher the name on everyones lips was that of a boy on the other side of our split classroom. Even in the teachers lunchroom his name came up regularly, some suggesting that he was possessed and possibly the Devil’s Child (DC). During lunch on the 3rd day one teacher asked had I met DC and what were my thoughts. I replied with something like “Well you have to admire the persistance in his attitude; love me or hate me but don’t ignore me.” The mood immediately changed like we had all just walked into an elevator.
The truth was that DC was not in my teaching class and all I knew about DC was what I had heard on the grapevine. The focus was always on the negative and never on the BVS. DC actually had a very high IQ. My suspicions were that his teacher’s focus was on removing DC as a means to eliminate all major problems in the class.
One day while walking and chatting with DC I asked him why he was constantly misbehaving. His honest reply was “So I can get attention and be noticed.”
On the few times I got to teach DC’s class I would have a pre-lesson chat with him on positive behaviour expectations and during the lesson I would forget the rumours and pretend he was a top student. At times I had him addressing the whole class and when he had finished his work early I would ask him to help me or the other students. Although I didn’t perform an exorcism I managed to avoid any manifestations and head spinning.
Even at my graduation DC’s name came up. I heard he had been expelled and sent to a school for behaviour problems. I felt sad for DC and sad that I wasn’t in a position to help. I promised myself I would never give up on any student. I will keep trying to get through so they can realise their strengths and experience some success.
2. Love of Learning.
My first conscious lesson in life, is accidentally also my first memory of my life. I couldn’t have been older than 1 or 2 years, walking, but still wearing diapers. I was sitting on my mother’s lap while she was tying my shoes, eager to go out onto this huge terrace we had, in contrast to the very small one-room apartment. Anyway, as soon as she finished, off I was, all happy to get into the open. Only to realize 20 seconds into this great outdoor experience that I just shit myself… That pretty much ruined everything and I started walking back. I reached the terrace door, and as I stood there for what seemed a few seconds, my parents and my older cousin who was also there, while sitting at the table, started to laugh. My father then asked me while still laughing, “boy, did you shit yourself?” And as my cousin was saying “I’m not gonna be the one washing him”, I realized something that did me a lot of good ever since; people can tell things about you, without you having told them!
Optimism and strength in adversity:
Twelve years ago I owned and lived on a remote farm designed to be very self reliant and had invested a great deal of effort into restoring and improving the entire facility. I have had many challenges in my lifetime and always believed a good positive attitude and effort, coupled with humor, made all things a positive in my life if I could just squeeze the lemon until it was sweet. I was put to the test when on the coldest day of the year we left the house while a propane heater was still on to provide heat for our Rhodesian Ridgebacks while we visited our family. When we returned the next morning the house had burned into a black hole, taking the Ridgebacks, our pictures, my library with many one of a kind autographed volumes and all of my physical possiessions into the ash pit. Do to the remote location there had been none to see the fire, which was started by a flexible hose rupture according to the fire department. The normal shock and unbelief in what is clearly a reality set in and I called nearby friends to come to the farm. During tragedy we all try to help each other and my friend put his arm around my shoulder and asked “Tim, what happened”? Squeezing the lemon I said, “I told the exterminator yesterday that if there was one insect left alive in the house when I got home he and I were going to have a row and now I have to give the SOB a tip, he killed them all”! My friend was shocked and asked how even I could joke with this loss. I told him I had to laugh to stay sane and everything would be fine and I was correct. Samuel Clemens said that if truly there are no tears in heaven then there would indeed be no humor as humor (with or without the e per Michael) is borne from pain and tragedy. From this I learned which possessions have the most value and they are not the big and shiny things one would expect. Store a copy of ALL of your pictures in a remote location as they are priceless. Oserik and Jenna are still missed as riding my horses with them was a great joy and they were the most loyal of companions. Be grateful for what you have today whether meager of largess, it could have been my three children and myself in the fire but because we spent the night with the parents we were gone during the blaze. I have made and lost lfortunes in business and in my personal life and it is more important where we are going than where we have been so do not mourn the losses but build on the ashes like a Phoenix. Good luck in all of your travels in this world and in making all things work together for your good, it can be done if you will do it!! My Friends tire of me saying “We are lucky, because it could have been so much worse” whenever we experience problems but that is my true Heart and the way I weather the storms of Life. May you always look on the bright side of Life! (Do I hear whistling from a Monty Python movie?)
tyarb52@yahoo.com
According to the previous lesson my first strength was curiosity and love of learning, but my actual strength is communication, i m really great in telling stories to people, the way i explain the stories to others, they feel like they are in that place and the whole story is evolving around them. i start by explaining right from the ambience of the scene and then the people who are there and then the actual scene…and the characters in the scene, people who hear me get really excited to know what the ending is…….it could be a love story or a scary story or a thriller…… people love listening to me… but I rarely do it… I should really feel like telling the story then only ill tell them….. otherwise I might not tell them anything.