DANIEL: [00:00:00] Hey there, space makers. I'm Daniel Sih, joined by my good friend and co-host Matt Bain. This is the third season of The Space Makers, a podcast to help you live an intentional, meaningful life more than a podcast. This podcast course will help you get unstuck in one area of life. One step at a time by helping you shift the way you live and work.

DANIEL: A warm thanks to our sponsor, banjos Bakery Cafes who are expanding across Australia and looking for new franchisees. If you've always wanted to work for yourself and want to fast track success, visit franchise.banjos.com au and save 10% on franchise fees by mentioning space makers.

VOICEOVER: The space makers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.

DANIEL: Hey, welcome back everyone to the Space Makers Podcast, a podcast to help you get unstuck by making space for a great second act. And I'm here with my favorite co-host, well, the one and only Matt Bain. Your only co-host. My only co-host. Your favorite outta [00:01:00] one. That's right. It's like when I sat on my kids, you are my favorite daughter.

DANIEL: And she goes, oh, duh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks. Sanders, but you are my favorite co-host. Whether or not I had more options or not,

MATT: let's, uh, caveat that by a saying for now

DANIEL: that we are talking about strengths. Mm. Uh, and how focusing on what works can help you get unstuck. If you feel stuck in a domain of your life, uh, in an area like relationships or debt or health or the inner life or career, how do you actually reflect on where you're at and actually move forward?

DANIEL: One small step at a time to get. Unstuck.

MATT: Yeah, that's it. Well, I guess you could say we're actually continuing to talk about strengths, aren't we?

DANIEL: We are continuing because last week we unveiled the second part of our shift framework, uh, and the, the second part is harness your strengths. Mm-hmm. So, um, we wanna talk more about strengths because it's such an important large topic.

DANIEL: There's so much science in this area, and we wanna talk about strengths versus weaknesses and provide three really practical [00:02:00] strategies. To help you use your strengths to overcome your shadow sides or your weaknesses, which is a bit counterintuitive, but it works.

MATT: Looking forward to it. Mm-hmm.

DANIEL: Uh, so we'll do that at the end of the episode.

DANIEL: Mm-hmm. But look, someone had a conversation with me the other day and they asked me, well, why do you like working with teams and helping them? Focus on strengths. You know, I'm a strengths coach. I'm accredited with the strengths network, south Pacific for kind Clifton strengths stuff. Uh, and I just do heaps of work with individuals and teams, helping them build a strength-based culture.

DANIEL: So that's like strength-based feedback, strengths-based roles, uh, knowing your strengths and kind of amplifying how you work together as a team, all that kind of stuff. And my honest answer when they said, why do you like doing it, uh, was that it's good for me. Honestly, I, I really like working with teams and helping him with strengths because it's good for me because I'm naturally a half glass, empty type of guy by default.

DANIEL: Mm-hmm. Um, you know, by, by my kind of my personal innate [00:03:00] nature, I tend to look at problems. I tend to see what's negative about a situation. I try to look at what's wrong in myself and fix it. That's been my kind of. Modus opera.

MATT: Yeah. I think from memory you confessed to being an eo.

DANIEL: Well, I would've said I was that.

DANIEL: Mm-hmm. In fact, I used to say I was a pessimist. I don't think I am anymore. I think because what, what strengths does is it helps you change your mindset and reframe it, which I find so helpful. Um, I. A few years ago, I, I, I started to doubt the value of doubt. You know, I used to think that if I doubted things, I was super clever.

DANIEL: You know, like if you critiqued the world, if you had like a, a kind of a maybe glass half empty view, then you could see the world a little bit more clearly. I. I started to doubt the reality that that's true. And actually, the more I look at the strength research, the more I realize actually there's a whole lot of wisdom in looking for what's right in you and others to look into the future and think the world's gonna be better, not worse.

DANIEL: Uh, to actually try to actually find the positive in your culture, in your workplace, in your [00:04:00] team, and amplify that, uh, because your perception shapes reality. And it's miserable walking through life thinking everything's bad.

MATT: Wow. Okay. This is gonna be a big conversation because I, 'cause I probably still think I get my mail delivered to Doubt Avenue, you know what I mean?

MATT: In the, in the broader suburb of Melancholia. So this is gonna be, yeah. But it sounds like this p this episode could really change my life. Okay. So we can

DANIEL: both learn from the value of strengths. Uh,

MATT: I, I, I dunno, I think that's a slight, I think, I think more accurate take is that you've already learned and I could learn.

MATT: Is what you mean? Well, we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. We'll,

DANIEL: uh, I mean, one of the big shifts for me is I've done, like, I've actually done a lot of work with Elite mm-hmm. Athletes, uh, elite workers, you know, CEOs. I'm grateful for having kind of connected with lots of people who are really at the top of their field and like, I've actually found it really confronting because most of the people I coach, not everyone, but most of the people seem to have a temperament where they have.

DANIEL: The [00:05:00] glass half full. Like they actually look into life and they think things will be better. They, they look for strengths. They look for what works in people. They look for what works in themselves. They have this great sense of belief that things will just turn out positively rather than looking for the negative.

DANIEL: And I've just found that really confronting. I've been like, well actually want a bit more of that. Because I think that allows you to take more risks. It allows you to innovate. And I think, I do think perception shapes reality. If you, if you believe that you have strengths and if you see the strengths in others, well then I actually think you're more likely to see positive things happen in your life than if you're constantly looking at the negative.

MATT: I'm very much looking forward to talking about it. This is gonna be interesting.

DANIEL: So, Matt, let's talk about strengths, briefly about how it relates to our podcast theme, our podcast theme of getting unstuck for a great second act. Uh, how does focusing on your strengths help you when you're stuck?

MATT: So we talked about this, um, a little bit last episode from memory. And one of the things that I really like about the [00:06:00] idea of utilizing strengths when you feel you are stuck in a particular domain of life is that it gives you, I think we use the term a foothold, right?

MATT: So it gives you like a. Excuse, I guess like a rock climbing analogy. You've got something to actually like get a grip on and then move from, yeah. Nice. Yeah, so if you move from a, from a place of your identified strengths, then immediately to some degree you're gonna feel more comfortable there. 'cause it's a strength as opposed to kind of just trying to start.

MATT: Getting some leverage from a point deficiency and hopefully with that position of kind of going with a strength, you'll get some momentum early on. You know what I mean? So again, and momentum will lead to more momentum will lead to action, which will lead to a sense of progress.

DANIEL: Yeah, no, that sounds great.

DANIEL: And it's just like a positive way of viewing the world as well. When you're stuck, you are often. Naturally default to the negative. We talked about bad being stronger than good. Yeah. So, you know, bad events, bad parenting. Yeah. Bad experiences, bad feedback. Yeah. Having a higher kind of caliber of impact in your brain.

MATT: Yeah.

DANIEL: So therefore, you know, I like that analogy of the rock climb. You know, grab, grab on really hard to where [00:07:00] you identify strengths or positive moments in your stuckness, and then use that as a leverage point. Yep. Alright, cool. So, uh, do you wanna give us a recap? Of our shift frame on

MATT: it. Yeah, I'd love to.

MATT: I'd love to. So it's a, it's a handy little, uh, um, oh, sorry. I'm gonna mangle this word, I wanna say acronym, but it's, it's

DANIEL: an acrostic test. Technically it's an acrostic. And I know this because I checked with chat gp.

MATT: Yeah. Okay. Of course. So it's an necrotic shift. So, uh, the S dance for select. A domain or area to work on?

MATT: So we've used, um, to be fair, like we, we've used a couple of terms to this. So we've used a domain, we've used area, and we've talked a lot about capitals, but the big idea here is just select one. So don't try to kind of, I suppose, get unstuck in multiple areas of your life at once. We're gonna be advocating.

MATT: Just select one. Yep. Yeah, so that's select s. Next we've got H which, um, brings us to today and, um, the last episode. So harness your strengths. So more on that to come. Obviously that's the h. Um, I, we have imagine multiple pathways. [00:08:00] Out of being stuck. That's next week. We're gonna talk about

DANIEL: way power and some of that research,

MATT: which leads us to f which is forge ahead with action.

MATT: Mm-hmm. So again, we are gonna, um, and I, I, I suppose you could say particularly with the selection, the harnessing strength, you know, there's a place for introspection and there's a place for reflection and all that kind of stuff, but eventually we're arguing you need to actually. Act.

DANIEL: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. In episode one, I re-listened recently.

DANIEL: Mm-hmm. And you said the F is really important. I didn't realize you were joking in the shift framework. Um, and now I'm, I'm laughing in retrospectively. So, uh, well done for, um, getting that one up on me

MATT: and tell me what the T is, uh, the T. Stands for travel alongside with others. Okay? So again, we think it's really important to both initiate, but probably even more crucially, sustain meaningful change, which you're gonna need to in order to get unstuck.

MATT: You've best been surrounded by, um, peers, people who have got your back, you know, who know you and are supporting the changes that you're trying to instill yet.

DANIEL: Great. Yeah. So look, listen to all 10 episodes. Go back if you haven't heard the beginning of mm-hmm. Uh, our season on how to get [00:09:00] unstuck, but essentially wanna help you shift an area of your life.

DANIEL: Okay? So let's talk about. What we did last fortnight, because we always say it's what you do that counts. And at the end of every episode, we talk about something we did or something we want our listeners to do mm-hmm. To actually make one small step forward to get unstuck in a domain of life.

MATT: So, uh, we gave people two options.

MATT: The first one is that we had a, um, a downloadable, uh, I guess like template of 50 strengths in alphabetical order. And our encouragement was, um, ideally. Find someone who again knows you, you know, who's got your back, and ask them like to mark out your top five strengths based on that list. Yeah. So maybe some people had to, had to do it alone.

MATT: That's perfectly okay. But we really tried to push do it in company and then, you know, reciprocate offer to do the same for them. Yeah. And that's a handout with instruction. Yeah. So that, that, that was option number one. Yeah. So the other option, if you wanted to take it, um, I guess like a bit more rigorously and seriously then just.

MATT: Fork out the 40 to $50, jump online and actually do the official strength finder [00:10:00] assessment.

DANIEL: Yep. So Clifton strengths with the Gallup organization? Yes. Yep. So just look that up online. Mm-hmm. Nice. Amazing. Uh, so what did you do? Yeah, I mean, we've done this before, so it's not exactly a novel exercise for us in the sense of, you and I are both Sure.

DANIEL: Examine this before, but did you go back to your

MATT: strengths? Yeah, I did. 'cause like in the whirlwind of life. Um, you're right. Like it wasn't novel, but I haven't looked at that stuff for years, right? So I looked at it, which is really useful. And secondly, I actually talked to, uh, my wife about it as well. You know, I went through some of these 'cause we were having a discussion probably involving me being, you know, um, never really satisfied and looking at the world in a kind of glass half empty kind of manner.

MATT: Hey,

DANIEL: there's a podcast episode, isn't that you should listen to Matt?

MATT: And I said, you know, it's funny because my second strength. Is called, uh, I think restorative. Right? And restorative sounds like that sounds great. That's like, you know, bringing things together and improving the world and putting the piece of the, uh, of the puzzle together, blah, blah, blah.

MATT: Essentially positive. But when you read the description, at least the one that I got, one of the elements of being, um, restorative, even having that is. Part of your top five is that involves a fair bit of like, I guess, like self [00:11:00] critique. Mm. And looking, and you know this better than me 'cause you're a visually licensed Clifton strength coach.

MATT: Uh, but my understanding is that yeah, I'm gonna be naturally prone to looking at what I see as deficits in my life. And trying to address those pretty much constantly.

DANIEL: Yeah. Look, it can be, so restorative is essentially about you like solving problems. Mm-hmm. Like you actually enjoy seeing a problem and trying to solve it, and you naturally look for problems to solve.

DANIEL: Mm-hmm. Uh, it does depend on what's around your top five. Mm-hmm. So if you had positivity as your number one and then restorative second, how good? It probably wouldn't actually look at the world negatively. You'd look at problems in a really positive way. So it does kind of have a bit of nuance,

MATT: I dunno where positivity ranked in life, but it wasn't top five.

DANIEL: But I do know that you've got, I think, input intell intellectual in your other top, top three. Yeah, that's right. That's so, you're a big thinker. You like ideas and if you put ideas with mm-hmm. Like problem solving, well then potentially you could be oriented towards mm-hmm. You know, seeing the glass half empty

MATT: and again, like, you know, uh, my wife said, yeah, that's, that's you.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

DANIEL: But the strength, you know, [00:12:00] 'cause this is, you know, Clifton strengths is about strengths, not weaknesses. Yes. So the strength of restorative. Hmm. Like how, how is it a strength to solve problems in your life?

MATT: Well, for me it provides some drive, like it provides some motivation, I think coupled with both.

MATT: Um, the first one, which like you said was, uh, was input. So that's all about, again, kind of you collating gather information and then often passing it on, like disseminating in a way that's understandable and stuff. I. Uh, between that and I think the third one, which is intellect, which sounds really like hoity-toity.

MATT: Um, you like thinking Yeah, yeah. I like thinking, right? Yeah. So yeah, so, so put that together with, uh, uh, with the restorative component. And I feel like I've got both the motivation to try to address what I see as gaps, and I've got some. Immediate tools that I can grab in terms of thinking, researching, and then implementing.

DANIEL: Yeah. Well, I see that in you. I see that you have this amazing way of thinking about the world of collecting information. I think that's what you input.

MATT: Mm.

DANIEL: And then coming up with ideas to solve problems. You know, when you've come up with problems, when we've talked about problems either personally or professionally, your default is [00:13:00] to say, I'm gonna read 10 books.

DANIEL: You know, which is how you solve problems. You read, you get information. So I, I see that as a strength. Yeah. That's one of the reasons I love you on this podcast.

DANIEL: All right, so Matt, let's talk about the science of strengths. Some of the research about the, what I call the multiplication effect of. Kind of getting your fun zone or aligning your strengths with your talents. And look, I read a book recently, Dan Heath read a book called Reset. You know, reset is sold. So last season, isn't it?

DANIEL: You know, where where are we went from? Reset Unstuck, but yeah, that's

MATT: like 20, 24. But anyway, you know, but anyway,

DANIEL: here's a good book. Yeah. Uh, his New York book Reset and, uh, he, he wrote this line, which I thought was interesting. I'll just, I'll read it verbatim. So imagine a situation at work where you have to do something you don't like.

DANIEL: And don't agree with. Now, imagine a situation where you are doing something you love and believe in. What is the difference in your efforts [00:14:00] between those two situations? What is the difference in your effectiveness? Now, he asked a lot of people that question,

MATT: you

DANIEL: know, what do you think? People say,

MATT: okay, I'm gonna draw on all my education here.

MATT: Let's see if I can all my, if I can come up with,

DANIEL: you're enjoying this. Problem to solve. Look, I reckon,

MATT: I reckon that he found people were a lot more effective and, um. And productive when it came to doing what they like believed in. Yeah. And, and were good at, yeah. And what they're good at. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

MATT: Look, I mean, again, this

DANIEL: isn't, he, he calls it a case study of one because it's more about talking to individuals mm-hmm. As opposed to it being a great study. Mm-hmm. But what he says is when he asks. People, let say, give me a percentage. Mm-hmm. Of improvement. He says, most people don't give a modest improvement.

DANIEL: You, his example is, I'm 7.3% better. What he says is that most people say that'd be a dramatic change in effectiveness if you're in a zone where it aligned with your innate strengths and passions and beliefs. Yes. Compared to the opposite.

MATT: Yes.

DANIEL: So he said, you know, some people say two [00:15:00] times, three times, even 10 times.

DANIEL: Better. And what I'd like to say is the research backs that actually it probably doesn't back two times better. It probably packs five or 10 times better. And that's really why strengths work because if you can align your talents with your strengths, it can make an exponential benefit in the way you live and act.

DANIEL: Uh, so look, it all started in the 19. Fifties, uh, 1950s, there was a study, they call it the Nebraska Study. This has been started by Gallup many years ago. And, uh, essentially there was, um, a bunch of scientists that were trying to improve speed reading in young people, helping them basically read faster.

DANIEL: Nowadays, we just want to read, in the fifties, they needed to read fast, and so there were three different techniques for helping kids read. Fast. But what was fascinating is they tested three types of speed reading in terms of techniques, and the study was a bit of a faux park 'cause nothing improved.

DANIEL: Speed reading better than anything else. They, they all improved speed reading. Okay. But then the scientists, the researchers looked a bit deeper at the research and there was this [00:16:00] kind of weird data set that the, that surprised them. So when they looked at slow readers, like the bottom end of, of kids who could read, I.

DANIEL: Who could read at 90 words a minute? Well, when they did the kind of the training, either one of the three techniques, they ended up increasing it to 150 words a minute, which is, you know, nothing to balk at. Like they almost, not quite, but they almost doubled their reading speed with this intervention. But when they looked at the top end of readers, so kids who were innately good at reading, they, when they started at 350 words a minute, well, in some situations they increased over 1200 words a minute and even more, which is insane.

DANIEL: And, and so the question was, well, how did the same amount of. Put creates such radically different results in kids where the bottom readers only improved a bit, but the top readers improved a lot. And so Don Clifton and his team looked at this research and others like it and asked the question, could it be that the greatest gains in human development are based on investment in what people do naturally.

DANIEL: In the areas of talent. [00:17:00] I find that question fascinating. What might it look like if we aligned our personality and our talents with a role? For example, I. How much better would we be and how much more would we enjoy it? And the research seems to back it. There's another study I like in the uk and this was actually a, a intervention I think by the Gallup organization, but, but there was a conglomerate of pubs.

DANIEL: I think they had, you know, hundreds of pubs across the uk. And look, the strategy was that when a pub started to underperform and lose its return on investment, they would go in, they would refurbish the carpet. I think, you know, change taps, do paint. Like some basic kind of, uh, refurbishments and they would get a 15% increase return on investment, which was worth the money.

DANIEL: But then I think Don Clifton and his team said, well, why don't you do the same with your highest performing pubs? Because just like in any organization, we tend to focus on the low performers, not the high ones. And they were like, we hadn't thought of that. Why would we do that? They're already doing well.[00:18:00] 

DANIEL: And so again, they were challenged by I think Clifton's team to say, well just, just give it a go. So I think they, they refurbished their top five pubs and instead of a 15% increase in return on investment, they got a 700% increased return on investment. Hmm. Which actually makes sense, you know, but, but we get our thinking so mixed up.

DANIEL: You know, as a manager, we spend most of our time with our worst performers, trying to get them up to scratch and we ignore our best performers. Whereas if we put the same amount of effort and energy into our best performers, we would go from a 15% increase to a 700% increase in performance. Mm-hmm. Uh, we do it with, you know, our systems.

DANIEL: We do it with our processes. Um, so, so really what, what I'm trying to say is that. There is a remarkable exponential difference in focusing on strengths, not just a tiny improvement. And if we really understand that it shapes how we live ourselves and how we shape our teams,

MATT: it brings to mind what you were saying last episode about.

MATT: [00:19:00] The Pato principle.

DANIEL: Yeah. The 2080 rule. The 80 20 rule that you do. 20% of what you do, at least 80% of the outcomes.

MATT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like and, and something else that I think you mentioned about, um, I can't remember where it comes from exactly, but that idea that if you've already been, uh, if you've already got a lot of something, so if you're performing really, really well, then again, a whole lot more will kind of, can, will like usually kind of come your way in terms of success and effectiveness.

MATT: Yeah. But if you're not performing. For want of a better term, then again, chances are throwing a bunch of resources that way is not gonna help in that particular area.

DANIEL: Yeah, no, that makes sense. Look, I mean, I, I used to think when I was, I don't know, in my twenties and I thought I could change the world, uh, that I would basically be able to do any job and be good at anything if I tried hard enough.

DANIEL: All right. And I don't believe that anymore. And I don't think the research backs it. I think what I believe now is I'm lucky enough to be in a role that happens to align really, really well with my strengths. Yeah. And therefore I'm good at it. Mm. But seriously, uh, there are roles that if you put me in [00:20:00] those roles, I would be as terrible as I would've been when I was 15 or 16 years old.

DANIEL: I reckon, uh, a classic would be Uber driving or taxi driving, because I am directionally deficient. I can drive to the same place 20 times and not remember how to get there.

MATT: Yeah.

DANIEL: Um, I'm thinking about big podcast ideas and, and how I can train the next person and I'm actually not paying attention at all to what street I'm on, and I can't remember where I'm at.

DANIEL: Like, I just, I, I could of course, like if I had to. You know, if there was a gun to my head and I had to be a taxi driver for the next 10 years, well I would do my 10,000 hours and I would be okay.

MATT: Yeah, true.

DANIEL: But fine is 15%, 20% improvement, right? Mm-hmm. I'll never get to 700% because it is just fundamentally different from my wiring.

DANIEL: I don't like sitting still. Yeah, yeah. And I don't like talking to strangers constantly. Mm-hmm. And I don't like directions.

MATT: Mm-hmm. But I guess like, just to kind of say that example, and that's like a really, really good example. Right? But I guess to some degree it comes [00:21:00] down to. What, what is it precisely that's being measured in terms of, um, improvement?

MATT: So you could say, okay, so is the measure putting Dan after his 10,000 hours next to someone who's naturally built to be a really good Uber driver? Mm. Okay. And so by that measure, by that comparison, you've like failed miserably. But I reckon some people would argue, and this comes down like to a broader discussion, that perhaps a more important measure is how much has Dan.

MATT: As an individual, so comparing Old Dan pre 10,000 hours to Dan, current, Dan post 10,000 hours, and although that may only be like 15, 16, 17%, nevertheless the effort that was involved in that. Is that worth something?

DANIEL: Yeah. In terms of my growth, character development, maybe kind of personality like Yeah. And, and, and I

MATT: can, I can get that.

MATT: And also like, 'cause you could say, well, like Dan is now the guy who in this regard is slightly more well-rounded.

DANIEL: Yeah. And I do agree in, [00:22:00] well-roundedness to a point, you know. Um, and I think the reason I can probably push so hard into strengths is because I have had a lot of those experiences. Like I have been a pizza driver.

DANIEL: Yeah. Ice stream delivery guy. Ice cream delivery is fine actually. Okay. 'cause see ice cream delivery, you don't have to know where you're going. You just randomly drive places and kids come to you. Right. They come to you. It's good. Whereas pizza driving, you have to go to a particular location. In those days.

DANIEL: I'm old enough to not have had a GPS. Yeah. So I was like, I made a loft every single night. You know? So again, that's strength based. Right. Anyway, that's a completely side point, but, um. I, I get the point. I see what you're saying. I mean, probably a better example is when I was a physiotherapist. Mm-hmm. I struggled a lot with a lot of that job, and I pounded through for 10 years, and I did.

DANIEL: Okay. You were good at it. Well see. People would say I was good at it. Yep. But I knew I wasn't, like I, I never felt secure in it. I always felt like an imposter. I turn up every day and you know, I'd hide in the toilet sometimes just to get my breath, you know? Okay. Yeah. I don't feel like that at all [00:23:00] because I'm in my fun zone.

DANIEL: I'm working for my strengths. Mm-hmm. But I wasn't back then.

MATT: Yeah.

DANIEL: I didn't know the language. So yes, I built character to a point. Um, yeah. Well, you built,

MATT: you built competency as well. I built

DANIEL: competency. I learned to turn up, I learned to. Um, have compassion for people I wouldn't necessarily have had the empathy for.

DANIEL: Mm-hmm. Because that's not high my theme, so I think I'm more rounded. So I, I do believe in your twenties, let's say thirties, it's probably good to do a whole lot of stuff that doesn't fit your strengths because it does improve your roundedness. I can see the value in that.

MATT: Mm.

DANIEL: But, um. Gee, it's not fun though.

DANIEL: And, and, and you don't thrive. And I'm not, yeah. And this is where I challenge you. I'm not challenge me convinced, I'm no longer convinced that the way to grow in character is to make yourself miserable. Like I, I actually think you can grow in character by also aligning your role with your strength.

MATT: Yeah, that's right.

MATT: That's right. But let's, let's distinguish, shall we, between I guess like almost permanent, solid state misery, and then to some degree, like short term necessary misery as a means to an end. [00:24:00] So I think there are gonna be situations, for example, and I, I can't remember who this quote was like attributed to, but he said, look, if you want to grow, then what you should do, like one way to know that you're actually growing as a person is by finding yourself in a room pretty constantly where you don't feel like you belong, and then you stay there and you do the thing until you feel like you belong.

MATT: So you spend x amount of time in the bathrooms catching your breath at the start, but eventually. You still feel like relatively uncomfortable, but you are not nearly spending as much time again, having to check out and compose yourself. So, um, the point being that I think there'd be that short term misery of whatever it is, and this like, you know, the first time that perhaps like you, you take on like a new team sport where you, you dunno, anyone, or the first time that you turn on like at a language class and you feel like you're goose, right?

MATT: There's some misery that's involved, there's some pain. But if you endure and persevere, then with that comes a feeling of competence. And I'd say like. Um, emboldened confidence as well. So the misery [00:25:00] is only temporary. It's not about like being a, like a masochist at all. It's about I'm gonna need to experience some pain, a short term suffering, this greater endeavor.

MATT: And I'd say been thinking about this a bit. I'd say that I think I am seriously a big believer in strengths. I think particularly they're really good when it comes to, to specific roles. And I'd say usually that's gonna be a professional role. So like what you do for money. I think when you're talking about, and this could be the wrong word, please.

MATT: Um, forgive me if I've, if I misapplied it, if you're talking about anthropology, like what it means to be a human. Mm-hmm. I like the idea of, um, this guy. Brett McKay called it like the Mr. T ideal, the Mr T ideal. So we're not talking about specific roles, we're talking about like what it means to be like a, kind of like a good human.

MATT: And the Mr. T idea is that there's gonna be something that you know a lot about. You are gonna be like a subject matter expert, and this is probably gonna be aligned with your strengths. That's the vertical in the T. So you go deep.

DANIEL: I just, I can't get past Mr. T. I know you suffer the fall. [00:26:00] Yeah. You pit the full, you pit the, the catch, right?

DANIEL: Yeah.

MATT: Yeah. But hit me out. Right? So, so the vertical is where you go deep. So this is where you're gonna spend like a lot of your time. So for you right now, it's gonna be, you know so much about productivity. Yeah. So you've gone really light deep with that. You're ex pastor. So again, in terms of your theology and spirituality, you gone pretty deep with that.

MATT: Yeah, so you'll have a few things in life that you go deep in, in that vertical sphere, but this guy also says you want the horizontal as well, so you wanna know and be competent. Um, about, and feel competent about a whole range of things to some degree. Like you want to be like a pretty good jacket, all trade to

DANIEL: specialize versus generalize, and you need both.

MATT: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. 'cause if you end up, again, as a person, not so much in a role, but as a person who's only like really known for x. Then there's a good chance you are approaching. I think we can still use this work, can't we? Like being a savant, as in you are so good at this, like this one thing, but it's, it's almost become, it's almost come at the cost of everything else.

DANIEL: Well, I mean, if we take it to a less extreme example, I mean, I've definitely known people who are really, [00:27:00] really good at their role. They're really good at their job. They actually have almost like unlike me who had like quite a few years in roles where I didn't feel like I fit my strength. So I'm going back to Korea.

DANIEL: Yeah. I'm sure you can broaden this to all of your life. Yeah. They really, really thrived and never had any problems. Mm-hmm. Pain. Mm-hmm. And then something terrible happened. Yes. And they had no coping mechanisms. Yeah. And actually you, you saw the lack of depth and breadth and character come out. Yeah.

DANIEL: 'cause they simply didn't have a language or habits to deal with. Yeah. Suffering. Mm-hmm. So look in that sense, yes. I. Agree that character and breadth is important. I mean, maybe we are talking a slightly different language 'cause strength is predominantly about career. Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah. And about team and about knowing who you are

MATT: as opposed to like, 'cause I mean like e even these terms, um, that have been quoted, things like excellence, um, and human development, like they are.

MATT: They're loaded terms, right? It's like, what do we mean by human development? What do we mean by excellence?

DANIEL: Well, it's true, like Yeah, true. Yeah. It comes from a, in many ways, an American [00:28:00] consumptive worldview that excellence is to thrive, to increase. To go further Measured. To go further. Yeah. Either financially or in another areas.

DANIEL: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And we had an interview with Dr. Julia Vidal where she talked about, you know, she thought her life was going one way and going up constantly. Yeah. Which would be the success narrative. Yeah. And then her husband died and she realized that actually now there's a different type of success.

DANIEL: Yeah. Or a different type of growth. Yeah. In suffering. I do see, I still think that you can approach suffering and problems and hardship and loss through your strength lens. Yes. In fact, that's the only way you'll ever succeed because the reality is I'll never be able to approach my suffering or my successes like Matt.

MATT: Hmm,

DANIEL: yeah. Or anyone el or my wife Kylie, or you know anyone I know. I can't be a different person. I can only be the way I'm wired. Actually, we're gonna talk about how to approach even your problem areas through your strengths as opposed to trying to just constantly look at your weaknesses and improve your roundedness.

DANIEL: Yeah.

MATT: So like that makes sense to me. So just to be clear [00:29:00] from where I think where I'm currently landing, the idea of strengths makes a whole sense to me in the sense of specific roles, usually like your professional calling. Complete sense. Like, so leverage that as much as you can. And it makes sense to me to draw on strengths when it comes to overcoming problems.

MATT: I guess where, um, the, the caveats that I'm trying to articulate is that I think if strengths are eventually simplified slash dumbed down, which I don't think you are advocating, but you could see that people could almost twist it. So if it's simply like doing what I'm good at and what I like. And what's fun, and don't ask me to do anything else, don't ask me to operate outside.

MATT: So if it's not fun and if I'm not good at it, then I'm not gonna do it. Then I have probably like an issue with that, particularly when it comes to being applied to a person as a whole.

DANIEL: Yeah, absolutely. And you're not saying that. And even the workplace setting, we would say, you know, this is called strength finder, not excuse finder.

DANIEL: Yeah. It's good. You can't say, I don't have a strength of turning up to work sober. You know? And you can't say, I don't have a strength of doing the data when I have to do my data. Yeah. But the point [00:30:00] isn't to say that you avoid all difficulty. Mm-hmm. Because actually jobs are jobs, right? Yeah. Yeah. But we're gonna talk about three strategies to actually even tackle your tough mm-hmm.

DANIEL: Areas of work through a strengths lens. Mm-hmm. Um, look, I think it might be helpful to wrap up with this quote from Marcus Buckingham, who wrote First Break All the Rules. Mm-hmm. Uh, and he says that the radical idea at the core of the strength movement is that excellence is not the opposite of failure.

DANIEL: And that as such, you'll learn little about excellence from studying failure. Failure and success are not opposites. They're merely different. So they must be studied separately. So what he is trying to say is the study of what works of innovation, of excellence, of strengths is not better necessarily, or, or, um, it doesn't make the study of risks and loss and brokenness redundant.

DANIEL: You can still improve things by mitigating risks. Looking at. Like risk analysis, phone, doing the five wires, all that stuff. But they're totally different spheres of research and learning. And you can't [00:31:00] get excellence by fixing weaknesses. You can only get excellence by focusing on strengths. And the majority of us in the majority of organizations, and probably the majority of people, spend way too much time focusing on what doesn't work.

DANIEL: And we need to spend more time focusing on what does. So Matt, let's pause for a moment. You know, you and I have debated and reflected on different aspects of this, but I think it's good for our listeners to pause and think about what they think. So yeah, what connected with you from what Matt said, from what I said, uh, how do you see your strengths and what value do you put on focusing on your strengths?

DANIEL: Just take some. Silence.[00:32:00] 

DANIEL: So hopefully that time of reflection was helpful. It's helped Matt and I gather our thoughts. Again. Look, the aim of this podcast is to help you. Pick an area of your life and make one small shift, one small habit at a time, and we really believe that one of the ways you can do that is by [00:33:00] working out what works.

DANIEL: Looking at your strengths and learning to either amplify. Partner or bend to either move forward in this kind of exponential way or to overcome what we might call weaknesses. So we'll be fairly brief on this, but let's talk about three strategies to either amplify. Partner or bend your strengths to achieve outcomes rather than just trying to fix what's broken.

MATT: Yeah. So Amplify, this is an idea from Chip and Dan Heath, who we've already referenced once this episode. Well, we

DANIEL: only referenced Dan now we're bringing in his brother. Yeah, his

MATT: brother. True, true, true. So this is from like their classic from probably why five or six. No, probably like 10 years ago now.

MATT: Switch.

DANIEL: Yeah. I love that book

MATT: actually. Yeah, it's a great book. Like that was, that was like life changing, like, and I don't say that very often. So this idea is called Find the Bright Spots when it comes to Amplify. So find the bright spots. So they argue that our default is, we say what's not working, how can we fix it?

MATT: So we've already talked about that, right? They say, no, no, no, that's the wrong question. The question that you actually wanna be [00:34:00] asking is what's working. And how we can, how can we do more of that? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So great question. So for our purposes, we are gonna be suggesting whatever your domain is or your area, the one thing or the one area that you want to address.

MATT: Even though you think a lot of the time it's not working out for you, realistically, there're gonna be exceptions to that. So find the exceptions. Think about, reflect on when in this particular area has it actually worked out for me? That's the first thing. And then try to identify what made it so, what made it work.

MATT: And you're looking for things that are sustainable, repeatable, and realistic. So again. In the exception when this thing actually worked out for me, what elements, what parts of the puzzle, what ingredients were in the mix that I can take and replicate and do more of? Yeah, so I'm gonna be trying to amplify the bright spots, the times that it worked.

DANIEL: This definitely backs the research that we talked about with Marcus sparking because there's benefits in looking at what doesn't work and trying to fix it. But actually if you can find out what worked, even if it's an outlying [00:35:00] situation, and then repeat it and repeat it and build on it, well, you know, it works.

DANIEL: Yeah. And you know you have the capacity to do it. Yeah. 'cause you've done it once. Yeah. Yeah. Even if it's not regularly. Yes. And therefore it makes it a lot easier to kind of multiply it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, that's good. I, I coached, um, some elite kind of, um, sports people. Mm-hmm. And we did strengths and like that, that had multiple losing streaks in a row, you know, high level sport.

DANIEL: And I asked one of the players, well. Like, what do you do when you lose? And they said, well, basically I'm really great at communicating with my team players when we're winning. But when we start losing, I start thinking about all the things that are going wrong. And I go internal. You, you're being watched by like 50,000 people, so I can understand why that would work.

DANIEL: But, and, and I stopped communicating essentially. Mm-hmm. And, and I said to him, well, can you think of a bright spot? Can you think of a time when you lost, but you didn't act that way? And he said, actually, there was one game. He gave a specific game. Yeah. He said, I don't know what happened. We were losing and I didn't go into my head.

DANIEL: Mm. And I kept communicating and [00:36:00] encouraging the guys. Yeah. Even though we lost. And I said, is that, I said, I said to him, if you repeated that behavior on a regular basis when you're losing Mm. Or when the chips are down, would that be positive for the team and for the performance of the team? He said, absolutely.

DANIEL: Yeah. That's So now we found a bright spot. Mm. Because like, well, I'm not making up a new idea and I'm not fixing something that's wrong. Mm-hmm. I'm trying to reproduce something that I have done. Yeah. That did work. And I need to practice that in and out of context. In order to use my strengths to solve my weaknesses.

DANIEL: Mm-hmm. Um, now that's maybe an, an unusual example 'cause it's sport and doesn't relate to a soul. But I think that relates to marriages, that relates to, you know, health, it relates to finances. Like it relates to everything. Yeah.

MATT: Yeah. That's great. Look, and I, I probably, um, really strongly argue that, just again, assuming.

MATT: That bright spots are there to find, is a good thing to do already 'cause it's so easy for us, particularly in an area where you feel stuck to get to uh, fall back on generalizations. This always happens. He or she never does this. So it's easy to kind of assume there are no [00:37:00] exceptions when this says No, no, no.

MATT: There are always exceptions, even in the part, the area of life where you feel most stuck, find them and then replicate.

DANIEL: Yeah, absolutely. So that's the first one? Mm-hmm. Okay. So find the bright spot and then amplify them. By trying to do more of it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a fantastic way to use strengths to get unstuck.

DANIEL: Uh, the second one is to partner with others. And this is a pretty simple idea, but you know, let's say in, in the paradigm of the Clifton strength set, a weakness is only a weakness if it's actively tripping you up in the pursuit of what you need to do. So, for example, it's not a weakness mm-hmm. That I can't find my way from A to B because I have Siri, and now I can just follow my map.

DANIEL: Before I did that, before I had that it was a weakness. You know, it's not a weakness that I can't speak Italian fluently because I don't live in Italy. Mm-hmm. I mean, there's all these things I can't do. So it's only a weakness if it's actively getting in the way of your life or you are impacting other relationships.

DANIEL: Mm-hmm. The benefit of partnering is if you find yourself in one of those areas where you've got a weakness where. A deficit [00:38:00] or, or a shadow area is actually tripping you up or others. Well then sometimes the solution isn't to fix yourself, it's to find someone who can compensate and look. An example with my bad driving, and we'll go back to that, my wife is awesome at directions.

DANIEL: She's fantastic. She's good at paying attention to details, and so I just. Lean on her. This is be probably before actually with the technology. Yeah, sure. So, I mean, you know, 20, 20 years ago we drove from Edin. We bought, bought a car in Edinburgh, in Scotland and drove through, you know, France, which is on the other side of the road to what I normally drive.

DANIEL: Hmm. Went through, you know, Switzerland, um, all the way down through Spain, up through, um, Portugal, and then drove home again, slept in a car most away. It was one of those awesome experiences. I'm so bad at directions that I did the driving. She did the directing with an old fashioned map. Yeah, that's good.

DANIEL: And it wasn't a weakness because I partnered.

MATT: You guys should sign up for Target. I like that approach. 'cause I think it probably helps kind of push back on some unhealthy eye. Idealism. Yeah. Which is, I've gotta be like the [00:39:00] Renaissance person in every single area of life and or I've gotta prepare for the future.

MATT: 'cause you know, I just know that eventually, uh, the robots are coming in and they're gonna knock out serious. So I better like get back to spending a lot of time with maps. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah,

DANIEL: exactly. And look, in workplaces, it's incredibly applicable. You know, there's an activity where you can get a bunch of sticky notes and if you as a team can write down, okay, what's one thing I would do even if I wasn't paid?

DANIEL: Yeah. You know, in the sense of it energizes me, gives me life, you know? Yeah. Um, for me, I love teaching, I love creating content.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

DANIEL: Of course I need to be paid eventually, but I just would do it if I didn't have to be paid, you know? And so you write the things down that would fit in that camp, and then you write down what are the things that you absolutely hate that you would probably even pay someone to do if you had the, had the money in terms of your role.

DANIEL: Yeah. Right. And then as a team, you put those sticky notes up. Mm-hmm. And you know what usually happens? Someone says, I love doing budgeting. And the other person says, I hate it. And the other person says, I love public speaking. And the other person says, I hate it. Yeah. And it's like, well, why not swap [00:40:00] Yeah.

DANIEL: Roles? Mm-hmm. That's a cool exercise. Well swap tasks. Yeah. Because if you can both do what you love and it's innate and it's in your strength set. Yeah. You both get the compound interest, you get the benefits of doing that. Yet at the same time you solve each other's problems by partnering. Now that may not work in a big organization with lots of bureaucracy, but certainly a small business.

DANIEL: Yeah. Or a small organization. That's a winner. Yeah. Winner strategy to making sure people work from their strengths.

MATT: Yeah. Um, Dan, look, maths isn't one of my strengths, but I'm pretty sure I've kept up. And you said there were three, and I think we've worked through two strategies. So I'm guessing we're up to what you call bending.

MATT: Bending. Yeah. It's

DANIEL: my made up term. But, uh, look, I think if you can't partner. Or, you know, outsource, uh, which is, you know, a form of partnership. Uh, if you can't amplify your individual strengths, 'cause they're just not there. Another great strategy is to bend, which means sometimes you can use a strength in a way which is a bit unconventional or out of the box.

DANIEL: To actually solve a problem that doesn't seem like that strength would [00:41:00] solve it. Okay. Uh, let's go back for personal examples. Okay. So, uh, my number one strength is strategy. Okay. I'm a strategic person. I'm very good at seeing options for how to make progress on different things and. I'm not particularly high in the relational themes, like the connection relating themes like empathy and inclusion, for example.

DANIEL: Empathy, should that a word? Yeah. I know. Can't, can't make money through empathy now, but, but in our relation, like, but empathy is super important. In a relationship and particularly important for my wife, 'cause empathy is right up there in her top five. Okay. And so therefore, I've struggled for years trying to be someone I'm not, meaning I can't outsource empathy to my wife, Hey, hey darling, I know you're feeling sad.

DANIEL: Let's just call our ba. You know? I genuinely want to love my wife and have her feel, you know, understood. Mm-hmm. To have. Her, her feel like I'm encouraging her, but I'm just, I just don't have it innately in me. I can act empathetically, but I don't [00:42:00] feel what a person feels. So I thought, well, look, I, I can't make myself more empathetic.

DANIEL: I've had, I have tried to round off the areas, which I have to round off by being a somewhat empathetic person, but, um, I thought, how could I use my strengths to be empathetic and. Obviously my number one strength is strategy. So I thought, well, let's do a strategic focused way of being empathetic. One of the things Kylie likes is text messages, you know, and not practical ones, but hey, I think you're beautiful.

DANIEL: You know, you're an amazing person. You know, stuff that I really believe. I'm just not very good at that type of language, so I put a task in my to-do list once a week to say, text something nice to my wife. Now I do that because I care about her and I wanna be empathetic. Yeah. And she actually loves the text.

DANIEL: And after about, I dunno, a month, she said, it's your to-do list, isn't it? And I'm like, yeah, she knows. I said, is that okay? She said, I love it. Yeah. 'cause it does make her feel loved. Yeah. Yeah. I'm practicing [00:43:00] love in the way that I can, given my strength set, she feels like I'm understanding her and, and acknowledging her as a person.

DANIEL: And I'm doing it by bending a strategic theme into a relational theme.

MATT: That's a, that's a cracker example. I mean. Part of me actually wonders whether, again, so you start off by leveraging that strength, so bending it, so to speak, which is great, and that kind of like, that helps compensate for the deficiency, for want of a better term.

MATT: But I, I also wonder whether, even like just that, and this is like a general principle, not just this, this example, but if to some degree, even like bending a strength will lead to the slight. Increase in a deficit area, if that makes sense. So I'd probably argue like your empathy actually is, it's not, it's not like growing exponentially, right?

MATT: Oh, I, I'm definitely working my empathy muscles,

DANIEL: which is a character development. Yeah. That's run the right emojis and you have to think about the right, yeah, that's right. In fact, what I would say is, because I've done it week after week for a long time. Yeah. I don't need my to-do list now to remind me.

DANIEL: Mm-hmm. You know, I was walking today, I got a text from my [00:44:00] wife on the bus. She had a bad day and I texted something, which you would probably say was empathetic. Yeah. So in that sense, yes, I have grown in my weaknesses. Mm. But it wasn't by trying to fix right myself through my weaknesses, it was by bending into an area of strength.

DANIEL: Yeah. And we can do this all the time. I really encourage people if they're stuck and if they can't find a way forward. Don't try to find a way forward from your weaknesses. Don't say, I don't have this. How do I build it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd encourage you to say, what do I have and how can I use those themes or strengths to help me solve the problems that I don't have?

DANIEL: Yeah. You're more likely to be successful. You hit that fun zone and you, you. Get that exponential growth rather than trying to force yourself to be who you're not. Mm. And that just never works. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's good. So that's bending. I like that.

DANIEL: All right, Matt. Let's get practical, meaning we want our listeners to get practical and do something that actually helps 'em. This is the [00:45:00] last episode. We're gonna focus on strengths, yeah. For this season, but we really want people to take away something from this and use these strategies to help them get unstuck.

DANIEL: I. So what should our listeners do between now and next week?

MATT: We'd be suggesting to people that they spend some time journaling, right? And we'd be suggesting that they journal specifically on what is working right now in the domain that they've identified that they wanna address. So not just like, not like a, a kinda like generic gratitude journal, although that's good.

MATT: Or, you know, focusing on the bright spots in life as a whole. But specifically again, look at. The area of life, the domain, the capital that you were trying to get unstuck in and journal daily on what you see has been the bright spots within that. So what's working? What can be, again, replicated. Repeated what's realistic, what's sustainable.

DANIEL: Okay. So let's say you're stuck in a career, just as an example. Mm-hmm. It, it's causing you pain. You're bored, you wanna retire on the job, you can't get out.

MATT: Yeah.

DANIEL: So, you know, whatever domain you've chosen. Yeah. Get out of, you know, paper and pen, like, [00:46:00] you know, ideally do old school and actually start to think deeply about when is a time when I've done something that would actually be worth repeating.

DANIEL: Yeah. To help me move in this situation. Yeah. And then once you've identified, you know, that bright spot, you can either amplify it or you can say, well actually I'd be better off to partner you. You might think of an area when you partnered. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And that worked. Or you might actually think, oh, I actually bent in this situation.

DANIEL: Hmm. Yeah. And I didn't know that's what I was doing. But the point is to identify those things through journaling and find what works. Yeah. Don't just focus on what doesn't work. That's right.

MATT: And if nothing else, I, I think this would be good in terms of motivation and encouragement. 'cause it's gonna kind of force people to have to identify.

MATT: Exceptions. Mm. In what could seem to be an otherwise really bleak situation. This is gonna help, again, shine a light on, well, actually it's not, I mean, it's not great. Don't look, so we wanna be realistic about it, but it's not always not great. Mm. Yeah. But

DANIEL: I remember we go back to our bad is strongly good.

DANIEL: I mean, when I'm in a bad mood, you know? Mm-hmm. When I'm in a dark place, I might try to journal and think about what works and [00:47:00] what's good in my life and what. What has possibility, but that dark mood just stays there. You know, I think the beauty about journaling and, and maybe even journaling over time, sometimes I just write that same thing down day after day, or I think about the same thing day after day until I start to feel it.

MATT: Yeah.

DANIEL: Um, so we're not saying it's gonna be easy. No. But focus on what's good, what's right, what's possible. Focus on your strengths and what's right about you and others, and keep meditating on that. I think you'll find that something shifts and you can actually find yourself getting unstuck by harnessing your strengths.

DANIEL: Um, but if people need prompts, what might they do to find them?

MATT: Well, they can lean on us. Helpful, like little old us 'cause we've actually got a great download and the link will be below in the show notes. Click on that. And that has some awesome kind of like, again, some, some, some questions just to kind of get you started.

MATT: 'cause again, the default's gonna be probably what's not working. How do I fix it? No, no, no. I need some external. Questions to help move me towards the exceptions. And so that's what we've provided. Yeah,

DANIEL: that sounds good. And by now you've probably actually downloaded the [00:48:00] handout anyway. We only have one handout for the entire season.

DANIEL: It's at spacemaker au slash S3. Everything's in that one download. So if people are interested in working with, uh, us at Space Makers to help you understand your strengths individually or as a team, uh, I'd love you to contact us if as an individual, you want individual coaching. Clifton strengths, go to spacemaker au slash strengths, and if you're a manager, if you have a team and wanna look at how to shape a strength-based culture to help your team understand their strengths, to do strength-based feedback or strength-based performance management or strength-based roles, basically to help you exponentially increase the performance of your team.

DANIEL: Well then go to web, our website, spacemaker au, look up the training tab and there is information about how to contact us. Matt, next week we are moving to the I in the shift framework.

MATT: Yeah, that's right. Imagine multiple pathways.

DANIEL: Yeah, absolutely. So we're gonna talk about way power. We're gonna talk about Schneider's Hope theory and how that can help you.

DANIEL: It's gonna be a [00:49:00] great episode. Mm-hmm. And you

MATT: don't think too many people are already familiar with Schneider's Hope Theory?

DANIEL: Schneider's Hope Theory. No, of course. It's just gonna be you. You're gonna be so smart at a party next time. Hopefully it's not old Hat. Yeah. But until next time, make space. See ya.

VOICEOVER: The space makers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.

DANIEL: A warm thanks to our sponsor, banjos Bakery Cafes who are expanding across Australia and looking for new franchisees. If you are hardworking and business savvy, visit franchise.banjos.com au and save 10% on franchise fees by mentioning space makers.

VOICEOVER: If you feel busy, overloaded and struggling to keep up, the Spacemaker Dojo is here to help.

VOICEOVER: This online community is for busy professionals like you. Dedicated to making space together for less than $75 a month, you can access our best selling courses like Email Ninja and Priority Samurai. Join live Zoom training sessions and share your learning with others. Dive into the Dojo to regain control of your time and make space in a supportive [00:50:00] accountable community.

VOICEOVER: Visit space au slash dojo to find out more. Until next time, make space.