Worked with a client this week who grew up in a culture with a very rigid educational structure (one of those places where if you fail a certain exam in school, you're life is nearly ruined in society's view). He just did not have interest in math or science, but external pressure made him think that he had to perform well in those areas, or something was wrong with him. This contributed to a debilitating perfectionism that affected his ability to work on subjects that he actually enjoyed and excelled at.

This got me thinking more about the subject of focusing on strengths as opposed to weaknesses. So many clients are successful people who define a large part of themselves by their weaknesses or their "failures". I wonder if in the work we do we may be contributing in some way to this negative self-definition, if we focus mainly on solving their problems by trying to improve their weaknesses.

There is a school of thought which believes that it's more efficient to focus on strengths instead of trying to fix weaknesses. This is a reasonable view and might make sense from the perspective of the 80/20 rule, but for whatever reason, the idea of being a rah-rah cheerleader for someone just isn't as appealing as the idea of helping them search and destroy the source of their problems. So, how does one get an objective view of their strengths and weaknesses?

StrengthsFinder is a popular book and online personality test that's all about this "focus on strengths" approach. StrengthsFinder results are interesting, but one of the weaknesses of the test is that it doesn't identify weaknesses, just your top 5 strengths/talents. I guess that is keeping in line with the whole idea, but I'd prefer to know what weaknesses exist, if only to be more conscious and wary of them.

For example, here are my top 5 strengths/talents according to StrengthsFinder:

INPUT - People who are especially talented in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.

FUTURISTIC - People who are especially talented in the Futuristic theme are inspired by the future and what could be.

STRATEGIC - People who are especially talented in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.

IDEATION - People who are especially talented in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.

INTELLECTION - People who are especially talented in the Intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions.

What I find interesting is what kinds of talents are missing from the above list: talents related to concrete activity, implementing and carrying out routine details, and interdependent cooperation with other people*. It's possible that those are just beneath the top 5 ranking, but if you compare this to my Myers-Briggs personality profile of INTP, there are certainly some common themes.

I don't know if tests like these (especially some of the free online Myers-Briggs tests) have any real scientific basis, but they sure seem accurate to me based on other people I have known who have taken them. It'd be interesting to find out if the hypnosis profession attracted certain types of profiles more than others, and how those profiles affected people's approach to the work.

It'd be fascinating if more clients were to come in after having taken these tests and had their results available for review during pre-interview. I have already had a couple of clients walk in with Myers-Briggs profiles in hand, but I wonder if using this kind of profiling could taint the hypnotic work by adding an analytical overlay.

*I guess independent people are just not well-developed enough, according to Stephen Covey, LOL. But "thinking win-win" and being a "good team player" are not necessarily related; sometimes the team is just plain wrong, and the idea that an independent individual cannot operate in win-win relationships with others, or understand others, is silly. But that would not fit in with the underlying "Is This Good For the Company?" message that makes Covey so popular in the corporate world (7 Habits still being a great book of course). That same message that is sometimes prevalent in entire cultures, hobbling many people in the same way as the client I mention at this beginning of this post.