Allan Kelsey // Strengthsfinder Day
Beginnings matter.
The seed put in the ground dictates what will come out of the ground later.
Speed reading test story. A university did a test on students reading abilities. The survey showed that some students could read 90 words/per minute while others could read 350 words pre minute.
They then put the students through a test to try and increase their reading levels. After 6 weeks of trying to increase people’s reading abilities. The students who were reading at 90 words per minute could afterwards read 140 words per minute (a 60% increase). The remarkable thing however is that the students who were reading 350 words per minute, ended up being able to read 2970 words per minute. The test realised the impact of natural talent and ability on a persons ability to improve an ability.
Dr Clifton then devoted his life to discovering people’s strengths.
After extensive tests they realised that there are 600 natural talents in humanity. They then boiled that down into 34 categories/ideas.
The human brain takes 40% of all the energy created by your body. The whole literally exists to serve the brain.
The brain has 100 billion nodes. If you made a £1 a second you would become a millionaire in 11 days. At the same rate it'd take you 11 years to become a billionaire, that's the difference between a million and a billion. The brain has 100 billion nodes.
‘There are enough zeros here for us to have a bubble bath!’
The human brain ‘specialises’ around the ages of 35-37. Up until that point you can experiment with all sorts of things but around 35-37 the parts of our brain that aren’t used as much will begin to shut down and resources reallocated to the areas of your brain that are being used. God wants us to be ‘about something’.
Brains are filled with connectors. The ones that are used the most get ‘fatter’ than the thins ones. The difference is like that between a coffee straw and a fire hydrant hose.
When we add: skill, experience and knowledge to an existing skill/talent that we have moves it from a talent to a strength, from something we’re good at to something we’re excellent at.
Strengthfinders is like a mirror we hold it up to see ourselves to see our gifts/talents. Just as we can’t see the whole of ourselves with only a mirror (we need others/video recorders) so it is with our strengths. We need others to help bring us out of ourselves.
When God’s in something it grows exponentially. He isn’t into addition but multiplication.
X-Factor works because it harnesses strength and looks to develop it.
Our brains release seratomin when we do the things we’re made to do.
Redemption isn’t something that God does, redemption is something about who God is.
Hosea 4:6 ‘my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge’
Boxes:
Talents - you did nothing for it, God gave it Body /5 reward = happiness
God - God tells you to Spirit /5 reward = contentment
Skill - you acquire because you chose to Mind /5 reward = satisfaction
Decisions:
‘I’m not feeling content or fulfilled in my role’
On a list: 1-5 how much are you operating in your talent, call, skill, role, reward,
______
The law of pinnacle attraction: The height of something is most attractive to the largest number of people. ie. the better you are at something/something is, the more people will be drawn to see you do it. Vice versa it’s true as well.
Talent, spirit, passion: these three are the biggest driver of who you are.
interlocking circles. The place that all three circles align is the ‘sweet spot’.
Talents: DISC, Strengths, Myers-Briggs etc.
Spirit: Spiritual gifts, promises of God, particular scriptures that ‘do something to you’.
Passion: Areas in your life that constantly always motivate you.
______
Who am I: you cannot answer this outside of relationships. We answer who we are by answering it relating to who we know/related to and what we do.
What am I here for?
Two ways to lead people:
Your vision, your idea, your instruction - now I need to find the right people.
God will provide all my needs. If God is supplying all my needs, what’s in supply now?
Praise vs Affirmation
Praise is about what you’ve done and do
Affirmation is about who you are.
Affirmation is missing in our society today. Your strengths are fundamentally about who you are more than what you do. Whatever we do we bring our strengths to bear on them. To affirm people, recognise who they are, not what they do.
Praise can be ‘lobbed over the fence’ and it works. Affirmation must be accurate or it hits the floor. If you go for affirmation and miss it makes people feel ‘played’ and ‘politicianed’.
In relationships:
If we talk about ‘opposite’ and ‘different’ it moves to conflict in relationships. Instead we must talk about ‘complimentary’. When we recognise their strengths it means that we work toward a ‘healing’ of one another.
Every strength that exists, also has a counterfeit:
We have an adversary. To understand this we need to understand the difference between truth and facts. There is a constant tension between truth and facts. The tension sets up the opportunity to choose. You can choose and whatever you choose is also the place you’re going to reap. It sets up this opportunity to in our lives.
People with belief have non-negotiable for each area of their lives. They are usually morally and ethically based and they are non-negotiably important. People with Belief are like Lighthouses. They are steady, strong and secure. People form relationships with these people very quickly and ‘go deep’ quick as well. People then ‘move on’ from those individuals. The person with ‘belief’ is not broken but knowing this helps them to put their relationships ‘in the right box’.
The whole of the strengths conversation revolves around two ideas:
the strongest contribution of your life
how you feel about doing your work.
Eph. 2:10
‘created in Christ Jesus for good works that he prepared beforehand that we might walk in them.’
Input: learn about one particular channel of information, or about one idea.
Learner: fascinated in a wide variety of things. Love the Discovery Channel.
We all tend to minimise our strengths and project our strengths onto others.
Authenticity:
The most authentic you is to be the person that God has made you to be.
Beat the counterfeits:
You can dismantle the counterfeit by explaining the real motivator is for your behaviour.
Zoe has: connectedness and belief. This means she has quote ‘superhuman faith’.
Quotes:
When we become Christians all of the promises of God are ‘sent’ from heaven and ‘dumped on our grass’.
To do with our gifts and talents: The best of who you are is the best of the one who made you, inside you.
Seek first to understand before seeking to be understood. Steven Covey
Psychologists Hunt & ?? say that when you find your mate you ultimately find the one who will ‘heal you’.
‘sameness’ pushes us away from each other (like in science). It’s opposites that attract.
melts my butter
fires my rocket
