Wouldn’t it be nice to put on a superhero cape and fly through any challenge with grace, poise and ease? Once you accomplished that challenge, you could take the cape off and put it in your pocket for later use. Then, continue like you are superman who just pulled a bus full of little children from tipping over the edge and didn’t even break a sweat.
In contrast, maybe you are one of those people who put on their cape and instead of it flapping freely in the wind behind you, it spins around to the front of your body, acting like a wind anchor slowing you down. The cape begins whipping in your eyes and you can’t see what’s going on around you, but you muster all your strength and fumble forward banging and crashing into everything in your way. Like in the cartoons, maybe you end up with a finished product that doesn’t look anything like it is supposed to. The screen pans to you sitting next to your creation with your hair all over the place, scratches, mud and muck from head to toe, too exhausted to move. Then there is that unforgettable cartoon sounds that tells you that it was not a successful day.
Using your strengths is like putting on a cape that lets you fly though any challenge with grace, poise and ease and once you have single handily solved the challenge you still have the energy to take on the world. The really cool thing about using your strengths is not that you have one cape, but you have several capes. This allows you to be even more flexible and overcome any obstacle that is placed in your path.
Now unfortunately, life is not a cartoon and therefore we all have the second type of cape also. So how do you make sure you are grabbing the grace, poise and ease cape and not the dignity dasher cape? Well the secret is, you need to understand what your strengths are so you can pick only those capes. They can also be used like superpowers when you find yourself in the middle of a dignity dasher moment to pull yourself together and save the day!
In reality, we don’t come with a clear instruction manual on which capes are the grace, poise and ease capes and which are the dignity dasher capes. The Strengths Profile is that very instruction manual! By knowing your unique repertoire of capes, you can make sure that you are grabbing the cape that will allow you to overcome any challenge with ease.
Imagine how unstoppable you and your team would be if someone gave them that instruction manual instead of them pulling out their capes blindly and hoping for the best? In any situation you would know the exact right cape to wear, avoiding those dignity dashing moments and instead flying through life with grace, poise and ease.
