good evening if I give you a list of
your strengths and a list of your
weaknesses right now which would you
focus on first okay just think about
that question and I want you to clap if
you focus on your weaknesses first go
ahead and clap alright if you focus on
your strengths first go ahead and clap I
don’t believe you what we found at
Gallup we did a survey of folks and we
asked them that exact question and we
found that 70 percent of Americans would
focus on their weaknesses first thirty
percent would focus on their strengths
seventy percent on the weakness is
thirty percent on the strengths now what
that says to me is that in society we’re
focusing on the wrong things we’re
focusing on the wrong things we’re
focusing on weaknesses when we should be
focusing on what we do best
we’re focusing on what’s wrong with us
when we’re focused when instead when we
should be focusing on what’s strong in
us I want to talk to you about what’s
right with you I want to talk to you
about what you do best and how that
promotes your flourishing I believe that
families businesses schools they’re all
at they’re weak they’re strongest when
they’re focused on what’s right with us
and investing in what’s best with us now
there are three reasons why we focus on
weaknesses rather than strengths one
you’ve already heard about bad is
stronger than good bad is stronger than
good as a positive psychologist it pains
me to say that bad is stronger than good
but it’s true in fact what we found out
through psychological studies and
behavioral economics is that negative
information negative behavior negative
emotions have a deeper effect than
positive information positive behaviors
and positive emotions so if you lose
$100 you’re more devastated than if you
find $100 if you have sadness that
Trump’s joy and if you
experience someone who smirks at you
that’s more powerful than a smile you
also if you have a bad flight
that’s better fodder for a conversation
than if you have a great one and
weaknesses are more salient than
strengths the second reason that we are
so fixated on weaknesses is that we have
been educated out of focusing on our
strengths by our parents and our
teachers by us we’ve been educated out
of focusing on what’s right with us now
let me give you another question to
prove this point
all right so imagine that you’re a kid
again okay and you bring these grades
home ready to A’s a b a c and a low
grade such as a D or enough getting a
little nervous now all right what would
your parents focus on first I heard one
definitely the A’s and the rest of the
FS all right 77% of Caring American
parents said they would focus on the FS
the D or the F first and only 7% of
American parents said they would focus
on the A’s first now let me give you
some more data we just polled about a
million students last year asking them
them to what extent do you get to do
what you do best every day at school 34%
of fifth graders gave a strongly agree
to that item that they got to do what
they do best every day at school only
17% of 10th graders gave a strongly
agree to that item with each passing
year at school you’re less likely to get
to do what you do best every day now
what I think is that as teachers and
parents we’re too focused on remediation
and prevention and not focused enough on
excellence and promotion now there’s a
third reason that we are hyper focused
fixated is obsessed with weakness and
that’s because we are concerned that
we’re going to get too big of an ego by
focusing on our strengths
fortunately we have middle school high
school cheerleaders and bosses to keep
us focused on our weaknesses so that
will never truly happen now I talk about
strengths I want to tell you a little
bit about my strengths journey when I
was a little kid I thought I had two
superpowers
one was the the power to climb walls
like spider-man now I was seven years
old spider-man was on TV and a
live-action series and every every week
I’d watch spider-man and every morning
I’ve tried watch spider-man I stand in
the bathroom I’d lock the door stand in
the bathroom run and jump against the
tiled wall and flap and flail and try to
climb the time wall tile wall like
spider-man
it never happened it never happened I
never got to the ceiling now I tried
year after year and I got a little
higher little did I realized I was
getting a little taller but I tried year
after year and I never could climb the
wall like spider-man
so eventually I gave up on that
superpower but I had another superpower
and that superpower was mental time
travel I could time travel so when I was
a little kid me and my friends I would
think about us being bigger kids and I
would think about us riding bigger bikes
and I think about us playing baseball
and tea ball instead of tea ball and I
think about us talking to girls and then
as I got older time travel stayed with
me and I thought about driving to school
and I thought about playing on bigger
fields and I talked thought about
kissing girls this time-travel thing was
awesome and as I would time-travel I
would grow these develop these memories
of the future these memories of the
future that would help me to become a
better big kid and those memories served
me well time and time again now of
course you know we can all time travel
we all have an imagination that sets us
apart from other creatures and that
imagination has served me well
throughout my life and it has served you
well throughout
life but for me that was a strength and
it’s one I’ll talk about more but first
I want to talk about how we develop that
strength we make believe as kids we play
make-believe and we developed this this
power of imagination and my son when he
was about 5 years old I asked him a
little bit about his future life I asked
him what do you want your life to be
like in the future
and he said well I want to have four
kids and a wife and he’s an only child
so I can understand he wanted more
friends around and so he’ll have them
when he has a wife he said I would have
four kids and wife I said what did they
look like
he said they all have dark hair I said
the kids and the wife they all have dark
hair and this caught me off guard
because my son’s mom parish’s mom has
blonde hair so I said to him son your
wife has dark hair but your mommy has
blonde hair and he said to me what’s a
smile does she really and his
imagination served him well in lots of
different ways as a youngster but then
when back to thinking about the future I
actually took a test called the Clifton
strengths finder I don’t know if you’ve
ever taken it but my number-one strength
on the Clifton strengths finder was
futuristic so I have the strength of
futuristic and I can think about the
future a little bit better than most and
it serves me well in my life from from
day in and day out and it makes me feel
stronger and my mentor told me he said
you could work your whole life on
developing that one strength so I’ve
done that and in one way I’ve done that
is trying trying to be a strength
spotter for other people so I found this
this guy at work who was a lot like me
and he’s developed this strength of
futuristic a lot like mine was and I
asked him I said do you have futuristic
he said yes I do I said tell me about
how you got this job and his name is AJ
and AJ said I was sitting in the hotel
lobby when our boss walked in and he sat
across from me
and I introduced myself I said hi my
name is AJ and then our boss named Jim
said hi my name is Jim and AJ said Jim
what do you do and Jim said I’m a head
of a consulting company and AJ said well
do you have a job for a guy like me and
Jim kind of laughed and said well AJ
these days you have to go online and
apply for a job you have to take an
assessment and then you have to
interview for the job and AJ boldly said
but a Jim you know me we’ve been hanging
out how about we skip over all the
informal stuff and go straight to the
interview sure enough
AJ convinced Jim to do a formal
interview of him at the office so
time-pass
AJ showed up at the appointed time and
date and just rocked the interview he
knew everything about the company where
the company was going where the company
had been and he really impressed Jim and
Jim said I’m gonna get in trouble with
HR for doing this but you’re hired
now just go finish middle school high
school in college and come back and the
job is yours
AJ was 12 years old when he approached
Jim in that hotel lobby and he had the
futuristic frame of mind to pursue what
was next in his life and he was able to
conjure up this image of the future and
put together a plan to make it happen
today and that’s his strength now you
know AJ strength you know my strengths
what are your strengths what do you do
best what are the things that make you
feel strong that’s what I I wish I could
sit with each of you and talk to you
about what your strengths are but we
just don’t have the time but think about
what are the things that make you feel
strong but what I can do is I can teach
you how to be a strength spotter so you
can be a strength spotter just like me
so starting today you can do these three
things to help you be a strength spotter
number one you can develop a strengths
mindset no that’s not about wearing
rose-colored glasses or seeing the
glasses half half-full it’s all about
believing that each and ever
person you encounter has strengths that
you can name a nurturer
number two it’s all about catching
people in moments of excellence catching
people in moments of excellence so when
you catch people doing extraordinary
things in ordinary times it’s having a
second and saying what you just did is
extraordinary last night I had dinner
with a friend and he’s so kind and so
generous in so many ways but at one
point he went to our waiter and said
James you’ve provided the best service
for us tonight thank you so much
catching people doing extraordinary
things in ordinary times and then
finally is naming and nurturing the
strength that that person had to achieve
the extraordinary those are the three
steps to being a strength spotter and I
think all of you can can do those steps
and become better at making sure that
your name ring naming and nurturing the
strengths of others I want to end with a
parable and it’s a parable it’s an old
parable about a little rabbit it’s
called let the rabbits run have you
heard the parable before all right let
the rabbits run it’s about a little
rabbit in his friends the squirrel the
duck in the fish and the eagle and they
decide they want to be smart like
American school kids so they’re going to
build a school and what do you need to
have a school well you need faculty and
you need a curriculum so they got
grown-up animals to come together and be
on their faculty and then they they
established a curriculum and the
curriculum was to have running swimming
tree climbing and assorted activities
and that one of those was flying and
running swimming tree climbing and
flying and the rabbit you could tell if
this is not gonna go well for the rabbit
right all right so the rabbit wakes up
the first day of school and it’s just so
excited and he combs his ears and he
hops to school and he’s just so excited
because the first class he’s attending
is running and running he just goes
lights out he’s just a fantastic runner
he got
up the hill and back and just does great
and he says school is a wonderful place
this is a place where I can do my very
best
and then the next class is swimming and
he sees the water and he just gets
really nervous and he tells the
instructor rabbits don’t swim wait wait
rabbits don’t swim and the instructor
said well today we’re covering the
history of swimming so don’t worry about
it but tomorrow you have to do you have
to go into the pool
Robert was pretty concerned about this
but he went on with his day next was
tree climbing which was pretty easy
because they climbed up a tree that had
fallen since it was the first day of
class and then finally they had flying
and the rabbit was put in remedial
flying and which was jumping off the top
of a rock and flapping his arms as hard
as he could but he was encouraged
because his teacher said if he tried
hard enough that one day he would fly so
he goes home he’s not sure what to make
of things he’s really fixated on this
swimming class so he’s concerned he’s
bothered the next morning he wakes up
he’s not as peppy as he was the day
before he drags himself to school he’s
at school he runs up the mountain up the
hill and back he laps everybody but it’s
just not happy about it at all because
he knows what’s next it’s swimming he
goes to swimming class and the
instructor says today we jump into the
pool and the rabbit said no no my
parents never learned how to swim and
the instructor with all the wisdom said
this will bother you and hurt you now
but in five years you’ll be glad you did
this and the rat the instructor said you
jump in or you flunk so the rabbit
jumped in jumped into the pool and sunk
and came up and sunk again and came up
and then the instructor grabbed him by
the ears and pulled him out and then
there he was if you’ve ever seen a wet
rabbit all scrawny and nasty looking and
all the other all the other animals
teased him and laughed at him so the
rabbit slinks away and hides but he
makes it back for the next class which
is tree climbing there climbing up that
broken tree and he makes it to the top
but then he gets to flying and he just
can’t go anymore
so the instructor sends him to the
counselor’s office the wise old owl is
the counselor the rabbit explains his
problem to the counselor and says I just
can’t handle this anymore I want to quit
school the counselor says I know what
your problem is you’re doing really well
and running but you just don’t like
swimming so here’s what we’ll do we’ll
get you out of running and we’ll give
you two sections of swimming and the
rabbit just threw up he was done with
school and he walked away from the
counselor’s office and walked home and
he wondered wouldn’t it be great if
there was a place where rabbits could
run and fish could swim and birds could
fly wouldn’t that be a wonderful place
indeed wouldn’t it be great if you find
a place in school or work where you can
use your strengths wouldn’t it be great
if schools tested as rigorously our
talents as they test our content
knowledge wouldn’t it be great if
businesses built teams that were
strengths based to exploit the best in
each of us wouldn’t it be great if
someone found you exceptional and said
why and wouldn’t it be great if you did
the same thank you so much [Applause]
your strengths and a list of your
weaknesses right now which would you
focus on first okay just think about
that question and I want you to clap if
you focus on your weaknesses first go
ahead and clap alright if you focus on
your strengths first go ahead and clap I
don’t believe you what we found at
Gallup we did a survey of folks and we
asked them that exact question and we
found that 70 percent of Americans would
focus on their weaknesses first thirty
percent would focus on their strengths
seventy percent on the weakness is
thirty percent on the strengths now what
that says to me is that in society we’re
focusing on the wrong things we’re
focusing on the wrong things we’re
focusing on weaknesses when we should be
focusing on what we do best
we’re focusing on what’s wrong with us
when we’re focused when instead when we
should be focusing on what’s strong in
us I want to talk to you about what’s
right with you I want to talk to you
about what you do best and how that
promotes your flourishing I believe that
families businesses schools they’re all
at they’re weak they’re strongest when
they’re focused on what’s right with us
and investing in what’s best with us now
there are three reasons why we focus on
weaknesses rather than strengths one
you’ve already heard about bad is
stronger than good bad is stronger than
good as a positive psychologist it pains
me to say that bad is stronger than good
but it’s true in fact what we found out
through psychological studies and
behavioral economics is that negative
information negative behavior negative
emotions have a deeper effect than
positive information positive behaviors
and positive emotions so if you lose
$100 you’re more devastated than if you
find $100 if you have sadness that
Trump’s joy and if you
experience someone who smirks at you
that’s more powerful than a smile you
also if you have a bad flight
that’s better fodder for a conversation
than if you have a great one and
weaknesses are more salient than
strengths the second reason that we are
so fixated on weaknesses is that we have
been educated out of focusing on our
strengths by our parents and our
teachers by us we’ve been educated out
of focusing on what’s right with us now
let me give you another question to
prove this point
all right so imagine that you’re a kid
again okay and you bring these grades
home ready to A’s a b a c and a low
grade such as a D or enough getting a
little nervous now all right what would
your parents focus on first I heard one
definitely the A’s and the rest of the
FS all right 77% of Caring American
parents said they would focus on the FS
the D or the F first and only 7% of
American parents said they would focus
on the A’s first now let me give you
some more data we just polled about a
million students last year asking them
them to what extent do you get to do
what you do best every day at school 34%
of fifth graders gave a strongly agree
to that item that they got to do what
they do best every day at school only
17% of 10th graders gave a strongly
agree to that item with each passing
year at school you’re less likely to get
to do what you do best every day now
what I think is that as teachers and
parents we’re too focused on remediation
and prevention and not focused enough on
excellence and promotion now there’s a
third reason that we are hyper focused
fixated is obsessed with weakness and
that’s because we are concerned that
we’re going to get too big of an ego by
focusing on our strengths
fortunately we have middle school high
school cheerleaders and bosses to keep
us focused on our weaknesses so that
will never truly happen now I talk about
strengths I want to tell you a little
bit about my strengths journey when I
was a little kid I thought I had two
superpowers
one was the the power to climb walls
like spider-man now I was seven years
old spider-man was on TV and a
live-action series and every every week
I’d watch spider-man and every morning
I’ve tried watch spider-man I stand in
the bathroom I’d lock the door stand in
the bathroom run and jump against the
tiled wall and flap and flail and try to
climb the time wall tile wall like
spider-man
it never happened it never happened I
never got to the ceiling now I tried
year after year and I got a little
higher little did I realized I was
getting a little taller but I tried year
after year and I never could climb the
wall like spider-man
so eventually I gave up on that
superpower but I had another superpower
and that superpower was mental time
travel I could time travel so when I was
a little kid me and my friends I would
think about us being bigger kids and I
would think about us riding bigger bikes
and I think about us playing baseball
and tea ball instead of tea ball and I
think about us talking to girls and then
as I got older time travel stayed with
me and I thought about driving to school
and I thought about playing on bigger
fields and I talked thought about
kissing girls this time-travel thing was
awesome and as I would time-travel I
would grow these develop these memories
of the future these memories of the
future that would help me to become a
better big kid and those memories served
me well time and time again now of
course you know we can all time travel
we all have an imagination that sets us
apart from other creatures and that
imagination has served me well
throughout my life and it has served you
well throughout
life but for me that was a strength and
it’s one I’ll talk about more but first
I want to talk about how we develop that
strength we make believe as kids we play
make-believe and we developed this this
power of imagination and my son when he
was about 5 years old I asked him a
little bit about his future life I asked
him what do you want your life to be
like in the future
and he said well I want to have four
kids and a wife and he’s an only child
so I can understand he wanted more
friends around and so he’ll have them
when he has a wife he said I would have
four kids and wife I said what did they
look like
he said they all have dark hair I said
the kids and the wife they all have dark
hair and this caught me off guard
because my son’s mom parish’s mom has
blonde hair so I said to him son your
wife has dark hair but your mommy has
blonde hair and he said to me what’s a
smile does she really and his
imagination served him well in lots of
different ways as a youngster but then
when back to thinking about the future I
actually took a test called the Clifton
strengths finder I don’t know if you’ve
ever taken it but my number-one strength
on the Clifton strengths finder was
futuristic so I have the strength of
futuristic and I can think about the
future a little bit better than most and
it serves me well in my life from from
day in and day out and it makes me feel
stronger and my mentor told me he said
you could work your whole life on
developing that one strength so I’ve
done that and in one way I’ve done that
is trying trying to be a strength
spotter for other people so I found this
this guy at work who was a lot like me
and he’s developed this strength of
futuristic a lot like mine was and I
asked him I said do you have futuristic
he said yes I do I said tell me about
how you got this job and his name is AJ
and AJ said I was sitting in the hotel
lobby when our boss walked in and he sat
across from me
and I introduced myself I said hi my
name is AJ and then our boss named Jim
said hi my name is Jim and AJ said Jim
what do you do and Jim said I’m a head
of a consulting company and AJ said well
do you have a job for a guy like me and
Jim kind of laughed and said well AJ
these days you have to go online and
apply for a job you have to take an
assessment and then you have to
interview for the job and AJ boldly said
but a Jim you know me we’ve been hanging
out how about we skip over all the
informal stuff and go straight to the
interview sure enough
AJ convinced Jim to do a formal
interview of him at the office so
time-pass
AJ showed up at the appointed time and
date and just rocked the interview he
knew everything about the company where
the company was going where the company
had been and he really impressed Jim and
Jim said I’m gonna get in trouble with
HR for doing this but you’re hired
now just go finish middle school high
school in college and come back and the
job is yours
AJ was 12 years old when he approached
Jim in that hotel lobby and he had the
futuristic frame of mind to pursue what
was next in his life and he was able to
conjure up this image of the future and
put together a plan to make it happen
today and that’s his strength now you
know AJ strength you know my strengths
what are your strengths what do you do
best what are the things that make you
feel strong that’s what I I wish I could
sit with each of you and talk to you
about what your strengths are but we
just don’t have the time but think about
what are the things that make you feel
strong but what I can do is I can teach
you how to be a strength spotter so you
can be a strength spotter just like me
so starting today you can do these three
things to help you be a strength spotter
number one you can develop a strengths
mindset no that’s not about wearing
rose-colored glasses or seeing the
glasses half half-full it’s all about
believing that each and ever
person you encounter has strengths that
you can name a nurturer
number two it’s all about catching
people in moments of excellence catching
people in moments of excellence so when
you catch people doing extraordinary
things in ordinary times it’s having a
second and saying what you just did is
extraordinary last night I had dinner
with a friend and he’s so kind and so
generous in so many ways but at one
point he went to our waiter and said
James you’ve provided the best service
for us tonight thank you so much
catching people doing extraordinary
things in ordinary times and then
finally is naming and nurturing the
strength that that person had to achieve
the extraordinary those are the three
steps to being a strength spotter and I
think all of you can can do those steps
and become better at making sure that
your name ring naming and nurturing the
strengths of others I want to end with a
parable and it’s a parable it’s an old
parable about a little rabbit it’s
called let the rabbits run have you
heard the parable before all right let
the rabbits run it’s about a little
rabbit in his friends the squirrel the
duck in the fish and the eagle and they
decide they want to be smart like
American school kids so they’re going to
build a school and what do you need to
have a school well you need faculty and
you need a curriculum so they got
grown-up animals to come together and be
on their faculty and then they they
established a curriculum and the
curriculum was to have running swimming
tree climbing and assorted activities
and that one of those was flying and
running swimming tree climbing and
flying and the rabbit you could tell if
this is not gonna go well for the rabbit
right all right so the rabbit wakes up
the first day of school and it’s just so
excited and he combs his ears and he
hops to school and he’s just so excited
because the first class he’s attending
is running and running he just goes
lights out he’s just a fantastic runner
he got
up the hill and back and just does great
and he says school is a wonderful place
this is a place where I can do my very
best
and then the next class is swimming and
he sees the water and he just gets
really nervous and he tells the
instructor rabbits don’t swim wait wait
rabbits don’t swim and the instructor
said well today we’re covering the
history of swimming so don’t worry about
it but tomorrow you have to do you have
to go into the pool
Robert was pretty concerned about this
but he went on with his day next was
tree climbing which was pretty easy
because they climbed up a tree that had
fallen since it was the first day of
class and then finally they had flying
and the rabbit was put in remedial
flying and which was jumping off the top
of a rock and flapping his arms as hard
as he could but he was encouraged
because his teacher said if he tried
hard enough that one day he would fly so
he goes home he’s not sure what to make
of things he’s really fixated on this
swimming class so he’s concerned he’s
bothered the next morning he wakes up
he’s not as peppy as he was the day
before he drags himself to school he’s
at school he runs up the mountain up the
hill and back he laps everybody but it’s
just not happy about it at all because
he knows what’s next it’s swimming he
goes to swimming class and the
instructor says today we jump into the
pool and the rabbit said no no my
parents never learned how to swim and
the instructor with all the wisdom said
this will bother you and hurt you now
but in five years you’ll be glad you did
this and the rat the instructor said you
jump in or you flunk so the rabbit
jumped in jumped into the pool and sunk
and came up and sunk again and came up
and then the instructor grabbed him by
the ears and pulled him out and then
there he was if you’ve ever seen a wet
rabbit all scrawny and nasty looking and
all the other all the other animals
teased him and laughed at him so the
rabbit slinks away and hides but he
makes it back for the next class which
is tree climbing there climbing up that
broken tree and he makes it to the top
but then he gets to flying and he just
can’t go anymore
so the instructor sends him to the
counselor’s office the wise old owl is
the counselor the rabbit explains his
problem to the counselor and says I just
can’t handle this anymore I want to quit
school the counselor says I know what
your problem is you’re doing really well
and running but you just don’t like
swimming so here’s what we’ll do we’ll
get you out of running and we’ll give
you two sections of swimming and the
rabbit just threw up he was done with
school and he walked away from the
counselor’s office and walked home and
he wondered wouldn’t it be great if
there was a place where rabbits could
run and fish could swim and birds could
fly wouldn’t that be a wonderful place
indeed wouldn’t it be great if you find
a place in school or work where you can
use your strengths wouldn’t it be great
if schools tested as rigorously our
talents as they test our content
knowledge wouldn’t it be great if
businesses built teams that were
strengths based to exploit the best in
each of us wouldn’t it be great if
someone found you exceptional and said
why and wouldn’t it be great if you did
the same thank you so much [Applause]
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