Donna Lichaw: evaluation

Transcript context

…The flip side of kryptonite is a superpower. And I definitely want to spend time here. I'm a big believer in this, you are too, of just how important it is to lean into your strengths and identify what you're better at than most people and use that as your way of getting ahead versus trying to, say, just remove these kryptonite/things you're not good. For me, it was really a big deal. I actually worked with a coach while I was working. And this was in the biggest step changes for me is just realizing I'll never be amazing at X, Y, Z, but it turns out I'm really good at these things, and so let me just use those things to achieve the things I'm trying to do. As one example, I'm never going to be an amazing public speaker. I hate that stuff. Even though I do this podcast, it's not my strength. And it turns out I much prefer writing and sitting there and thinking, and that's what led to this newsletter. I started doing the thing that was pulling me and was easier for me and ends up being really successful because that's another way of achieving the same thing, it turns out. Here's the question. Why is it so important to think about your superpowers? How do you identify your superpowers? And just how do you think about this area? On the one hand, there's so many studies that show that when we play to our strengths, we're much more effective than when we try to fix what's broken. It's a waste of energy to fix what's broken for the most part. But when you can amplify your strengths and figure out how to use them productively so that you can fulfill your purpose, meet your goals, do what you need to do in life and bring others along with you, it's just that you're such a bigger impact that way. I'm going to give you an example. And it's funny that we're here talking about this because a while back, I remember we first met over email. I was thinking of resurrecting my newsletter. And I hate writing. And I've written two books; I hate writing. But more than hating writing, I hate email. I hate sending emails, reading emails. I really struggle with it. But yet I have this newsletter that people love and people were begging me to send more of over the years. And at the time, I was like, "Oh, maybe I'll dusted off." And I remember emailing you about this and asking if we could have a call because I had questions about newsletters. And your answer was, "No, no, no, no, no. No calls." I don't know if it was that. I don't know if it was that.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.