The Work Revolution: Freedom and Excellence for All

Strengths, Talents, Passions

Doing easily what others find difficult is talent.

—Henri-Fréderic Amiel, The Private Journal of Henri Fréderic Amiel, 1935

There are many terms and definitions for strengths. Here are four to consider:

• Tom Rath, with the Gallup Organization, defines talent as “a natural way of thinking, feeling, or behaving” that, combined with practice and skills, forms strengths or the “the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance.”1
• Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman define character strengths as virtuous traitlike habitual patterns that are relatively stable over time.2
• Marcus Buckingham takes a more practical approach in StandOut: The Groundbreaking New Strengths Assessment from the Leader of the Strengths Revolution, defining strengths as what you do in your most powerful moments and how you can make an immediate impact at work.3
• Mihalyi Csikszentmihaly, in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, explains that flow is complementary to strengths: It’s how you feel when you are fully engaged, through application of your strengths.4 Flow is the ideal place, where you are pushing yourself, but in alignment with your abilities.

I won’t add my own definition of strengths here; I prefer to defer to these, which I think are great. But functionally speaking, you’ll know you’ve hit on a personal strength when the work you are doing excites you, pushes you to extend yourself, and makes the time fly. Your strengths might be present in some ...