So I was in a meeting with a group of clients the other day, and we were asked to point out one strength and one weakness. And wouldn’t you know, it’s very difficult for people to come up with those strengths and much easier to talk about their weaknesses.

Hi, my name is Bernie Heine, and today I want to talk about strength- based leadership. Generally for people, it’s easier to talk about what’s wrong about themselves or what their weaknesses are rather than focusing on their strengths, but the truth is the more we focus on our strengths, the more we get out of our lives. It’s my easier to get growth, grow ourselves, grow our businesses when we focus on strengths then when we are totally consumed with improving our weaknesses.

The Zone of Leadership

So what I’ll often do with my clients is do a little exercise around identifying what we’re really good at. And this is talking about knowing yourself, knowing what really important to you, what you’re good at, and what you’re really passionate about. If we go through this exercise of listing out all the things that we’re passionate about, and then also a list of all the things that were really good at. What are our core strengths? There’s a lot of assessment you can take to get there, but just having these two lists, and if you put those in a venn diagram in two circles, where the circles overlap, that area in the middle is what we call the zone of leadership.

Overlap of Passion and Talent

So whatever activities you engage in that are in that overlap of the two circles: things that you’re really good at, your strengths, and things you’re really passionate about. If you focus your activities on things in that zone of leadership, you really never have to work in your life. These are the things that you’re just so happy to do that it never feels like work. So I challenge you all to take a look at what are the things that I know I’m really good at? What are the things that I’m passionate about? And what’s in that overlap?

Let’s get in the zone. Think of yourself like that rock star that’s performing an encore at the end of a big concert. They don’t consider that to be work. In fact, they would probably continue to play all night if the venue would allow it. That’s witnessing somebody who’s in the zone. They’re thinking “wow! We just like to play because this is so much fun.” People in the work sense can be in the same place as long as you’re doing things you’re good at and things you’re passionate about.