By Mary Jean Billingsley
The water was coming in. Half asleep, I could hear the dryer in the basement. That meant my husband was drying towels. It had been raining for days, and water was coming into a corner of the basement. We had rolled up towels and put them on the floor to soak up the steady drip. When the towels were soaked we put them on the spin cycle of the washing machine. Then, into the dryer. The dry towels would be rolled up to replace the wet ones. As an Arranger I had made sure the towels were in place, just in case. We’re both Maximizers, and we went to work to figure out how to stop the water in the shortest time possible. My husband, who also has Strategic, created a kind of trough from a plastic sheet taped to the wall to direct the trickle of water into a square bucket that fit against the wall but not quite into the corner.
It worked! The water coming through the basement wall was diverted right into the bucket. This meant less frequent trips to spin, dry and roll towels. As an Arranger, I also looked around and immediately could see boxes that needed to be moved and other stuff in the path of the water. I started moving them to a shelf. Knowing our strengths helped us to work together in a collaborative way to solve the problem. Instinctively, we acted together to solve this challenge. Just like in class projects or work teams on the job.
Water is powerful and will find its way through the smallest opening, bubbling up because it can’t be held back. Strengths are powerful, too. They work the same way. They are a core part of us and will bubble up to show us what we are capable of accomplishing. Discover this for yourself. Take time to find out what your strengths are with the StrengthsFinder in the Career Development Center. Use them and they will result in creating a positive energy that can make you feel more like yourself. Your true self. Your powerful self.
“The thing that is really hard and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
Anna Quindlen