Welcome to this Tailgate Talk episode! There is no guest today; it’s just you and me, and we’re talking all about YOU! We’ll focus on your relationships with others and maximizing your strengths in this two-part episode. Next week, we’ll be joined by Alyssa Dare Nelson, a strengths coach and host of the Maximize Your Strengths podcast. Visit www.strengthsfinder.com to find out how to take the online assessment test to identify YOUR strengths.

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• The analogy of “the toolbox,” birthed from my own experience working in my little corner of my dad’s workshop, with child-sized tools and scraps of wood
• How each of us is given an individual “toolbox” in life, but many people don’t know what tools they have or how to use them
• The mark of a successful person is someone who KNOWS what’s in their toolbox and how to use it.
• The problem with school environments is that often we are put in places with no tools, with tools we don’t understand, or with tools we don’t know how to use.
• “Knowledge without action is useless.”
• Success means taking your toolbox knowledge of strengths and applying it for maximum result in all areas of life.
• We have to learn to apply strengths without OVERUSING them. (That’s our main focus for next week’s show!)
• The more SELF-AWARE that we are, the better we become at developing relationships with others.
• I’ll explain the self-awareness tool called the Johari Window—developed in 1955, using four “panes” to identify areas of strength and weakness.

On last week’s show, I asked for listener feedback about the future direction of the show and what you’d like to hear. I still want to hear from you, so let me know your thoughts. Thanks for listening!