Self-Awareness Coaching + Emotional Intelligence Coaching + Trusted Advisor Coaching = >$1M in new Sales (Kelly Approved)

Kelly is on a Roll!

Kelly (name changed) is a Cybersecurity, IT Risk Management, GDPR Consultant. She introduced herself to me after I gave a presentation on a stage in front of a large audience of her colleagues several years ago.

Kelly came to me for Coaching

• To find the clarity that showed her what she was uniquely gifted to do professionally.
• To gain a strategy for getting in front of the right employers to interview for the best jobs.
• To gain a strategy for Resume Writing and LinkedIn profile optimization.
• To learn how to present herself with clarity and confidence when she interviewed.
• To build Self-Confidence and to escape opportunity-limiting comfort zones she’d created in her head.
• To close the deal with an offer when she found herself in front of the right employer.
• To deliver the best version of herself in the workplace.
• To learn how to leverage her unique strengths to become the best boss her team members have ever had.
• To learn how to fine-tune her emotional intelligence skills with the goal of building deep, meaningful, trusting relationships with superiors, colleagues, peers, subordinates, and customers.
• To learn to build the relationships that positioned her to earn the right to lead her consulting firm into what is becoming more than a $1M piece of the ongoing advisory services business. Sue isn’t a sales or business development titled professional.

How Kelly is Getting Things Accomplished

By carrying herself with authentic, honest, accurate self-confidence and by crushing fear-based limiting beliefs, Sue has catapulted her career to new heights. As her employer discovers that Sue is naturally gifted to lead, guide, mentor, grow and inspire others, they’ll give her more people to develop. She’ll be promoted soon, and she’ll undoubtedly be earning more money based on her recent breakthrough accomplishments.

Jeff Snyder’s, CliftonStrengths Coaching, Emotional Intelligence Coaching, Trusted Advisor Coaching, Career Coaching Blog, 719.686.8810

Taking Action…Why It’s So Hard for Some People to Do

Taking Action…Why It’s So Hard for Some People to Do

• He says, “I’m stuck in my career.”  The career coach, who is built with Visionary and Strategic abilities, knows precisely how to get his prospective client un-stuck.  Sadly, the prospective client doesn’t take action.

• He needs to lose weight. His life literally depends on it.  Why is it so difficult to leave one’s comfort zone of over-eating and not exercising to do better? He has such a hard time acting to do what he knows he needs to do. He’s been reprimanded and held back in his career because he comes across too harshly to his peers and subordinates. He knows he has a problem, but rather than taking action to identify and address the problem with someone who specializes in solving such problems, he continues repeating the same behavior.  Why is it so difficult for this person to leave their comfort zone that includes bad behavior to pursue behavior that others will appreciate?

• She wants to get in better shape.  She doesn’t like to exercise alone and she knows that if she tries, her get-up-and-go and motivation won’t last long.  Rather than finding a way to connect with someone to exercise with her to create accountability, she keeps putting the idea on the backburner and fails to act.

StrengthsFinder™

The Clifton StrengthsFinder™ measures 34 traits that each one of us possesses.  The StrengthsFinder trait that leads to taking action is called Activator®. A person who is gifted with this trait “can make things happen by turning thoughts into action.” This is the person you want to call on when you need to get a project out of paralysis of analysis mode and get it moving forward.

If you have trouble getting things started in your professional life or in your work life, chances are that your Activator® trait as measured by the Clifton StrengthsFinder™ may not be high.

Take Action

Why not find out where your Activator® sits amongst your 34 traits?  Once you know, you’ll develop clarity around why getting started might be difficult for you.  A strengths coach can help you to build a strategy to compensate for your lack of Activator® if that’s who you are.

Out of 34 traits that make up the Clifton StrengthsFinder™, Activator comes in at number 29 out of 34 in terms of frequency of landing in a person’s Top 5 traits. 

What this means is that only 11% of people who have taken a StrengthsFinder™ find Activator® showing up in their top traits. If you possess this trait high in your traits list, you have something special.

If you’re not an Activator® but you need to get an effort moving forward, find someone who has high Activator® and/or consider hiring a personal coach who is gifted with Activator® to help you get moving in a positive direction.

Jeff Snyder’s, Jeff Snyder Coaching Blog, Strengths Coaching, 719.686.8810

How to Turn Your Weaknesses into Strengths…That’s Not Right

This video title just landed in my Inbox. It didn’t sit well with me.

I coach Strengths every day. My clients are passionate people who are already good at what they do. Often, the people I work with don’t like comfort zones. By learning their Strengths, they learn how to step outside their comfort zone to stretch and to grow.

My clients come to me because they want to fine-tune what they do to produce a great performance. They’re interested in being maximized and they can’t wait to learn more about themselves.

STRENGTHS COACHING

In the realm of Strengths Coaching, we start off with an assessment that has been taken over 16,000,000 times around the world to identify a person’s unique traits.  We all possess the 34 traits that are identified through this assessment. What makes each us 100% unique is the order in which our traits line up.

The order in which one’s traits line up determines how they have potential to deliver a great performance. Everybody can deliver a great performance of some kind.

“Everyone has hidden talents and abilities that, once discovered, can be turned into superpowers.  Jeff is uniquely talented at identifying a person’s greatest abilities, then maximizing those abilities to produce true strengths.”

— Chief Information Security Officer

STRENGTHS MATURITY

The traits that show up near the top of one’s assessment report are the traits that can be turned into Strengths. Decades of research shows that when people are given the opportunity to do what they have potential to be great at, the impact on the individual, team, or organization can be powerful.

Some of the benefits include Personal Clarity, Self-Confidence, Direction, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Engagement with one’s work, Stronger Relationships and more.

DON’T FOCUS ON WEAKNESSES

The idea here is to identify one’s natural talents. From there, we can work to mature a person’s top talents into full-blown Strengths. Strengths have no cap on them in terms of just how great they can become.

I don’t ignore weaknesses. In fact, I help my clients to identify their weaknesses. Then, I help my clients to build a strategy around their Weaknesses so their weaknesses don’t derail the pursuit of maximizing their Strengths.

There is no value whatsoever to be gained in trying to turn a weakness into a Strength.  There is tremendous value in maximizing one’s Strengths.

When you’re ready to find Clarity around what your natural Strengths are, call me.

“Stand out from the crowd and get the job!  Jeff will teach you how to discover your greatest strengths, and then market yourself to your next employer. ”

— Chief Information Security Officer

Jeff Snyder’s, Jeff Snyder Coaching Blog, 719.686.8810

TOP 10 Business Skills for 2020

CREDIT: Future of Jobs Report, World Economic Forum

Top 10 skills required in 2020 according to the World Economic Forum report

All of the top 2020 skills listed above can be measured with the combination of the Clifton StrengthsFinder and the EQi-2.0 Emotional Quotient Inventory.

Your Unique Strengths

In the hands of an experienced Strengths Coach, the results of the Clifton StrengthsFinder™ can be interpreted to show a coaching client exactly and precisely how they are internally wired.  The 34 traits represented in the Clifton StrengthsFinder™ are broken down into Strategic Thinking Traits, Influencing Traits, Relationship Building Traits and Executing Traits. How a person's traits uniquely line up determine whether they'd be a better Engineer or a better Engineering Manager, a better Accountant or a better Chief Financial Officer and so on.

Notice in the chart above for example that People Management, Coordinating with Others (Collaboration) and Emotional Intelligence are all people-oriented topics.  People skills or Soft skills are, have been and will continue to be highly valuable skills moving into the future.

Emotional Intelligence

The EQi-2.0 Emotional Quotient® Inventory is an assessment used to measure a person's Emotional Intelligence.  This assessment can only be purchased and interpreted by someone who has invested in training and certification through the assessment's owner.

Through this assessment, a Certified Emotional Intelligence Coach can show their client where their Emotional Intelligence stands relative to other people who do similar work. The good news is that the 15 different emotional intelligence skills measured by the EQi-2.0® can be improved upon when working with an experienced coach.

The business wants, needs and expects job candidates who have a blend of Strategic Thinking skills and Emotional Intelligence skills to name just a few.  It takes time to fine-tune and polish the traits found in the Clifton StrengthsFinder™ into Strengths.  It also takes time to fine-tune and polish the skills found in the EQi-2.0 assessment.  

Those who invest themselves to learn about their natural Strengths and those who invest in themselves to improve their current level of Emotional Intelligence are the individuals who will earn the best jobs of the future.

Jeff Snyder Coaching

There’s Great Value in Understanding One's Personal Strengths

I’m referring to Strengths as described in the Clifton StrengthsFinderⓒ assessment. One of my strengths coaching clients is a technology sales professional.  I’ll refer to this client as Bob.

In addition to learning about himself, his own Strengths and how he could fine-tune his Strengths, an interesting realization came to Bob this week. This is what he shared:

“I fully expected to learn quite a bit about myself but what I didn’t see coming was how much I’ve learned about everyone else around me.  I now find myself in meetings and conversations where I’m able to get a much quicker handle on other people, who they are, and what’s making them tick.  In many cases I’m able to make an assessment of who I’m dealing with and adjust my expectations accordingly.  It’s actually reducing my frustration level and in some cases has helped me make better connections with clients and peers while giving me a better understanding of why I may not be making the progress I’d anticipated.  In certain situations and I’ve been able to make some adjustments.”

I look for results everywhere with my coaching clients.  The results Bob is reporting is his new-found ability to understand people more quickly because he now understands his own unique wiring and he is beginning to see the unique wiring of everyone around him.

By understanding the wiring of people around him, Bob is now able to tailor his communication to each unique individual he approaches in his audience.

How much more effective might you be if you intimately understood your own unique wiring and you learned to understand the unique wiring of people around you at work, at home and at play?

Jeff Snyder’s Jeff Snyder Coaching Blog, 719.686.8810

"Working with you has been an Eye Opener"

Jeff, Why Are You Writing About Strengths?

This is a very legitimate question brought to me by someone who reads my blogs.  I love questions because questions enable me to write blogs that I know at least one person cares about!

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to exercise my public speaker muscles at the CISO Forum of ISSA in Las Vegas.  My best guess is that there were 60-70 people in the audience.  I asked for a show of hands from those who had taken a Clifton StrengthsFinder. 

Approximately 45 of the hands went up.  I asked a follow-on question.  For those who had their hands up, I asked how many people had been coached after they took a Clifton StrengthsFinder.  I was surprised when only 5-10 hands at the most stayed up.

It has been said that Information is Power.  In the case of the Clifton StrengthsFinder, information is nothing more than a report.  There's no power in the information until it meets up with action.

Understanding has to be added to knowledge in order to get to Power.  My coaching clients go through a process of learning about their unique Strengths so they can ultimately embrace their Strengths

Once they decide to embrace their unique strengths, I can then show my clients how to Leverage their Unique Strengths.  This is when Power comes from Information.

That’s why I’m investing time to write about all 34 Themes that make up the Clifton StrengthsFinder report. 

This assessment has been taken over 13,000,000 around the globe. It is powerful but only when one embraces their unique results and learns to leverage their results. This is why I provide Strengths Coaching.

Jeff Snyder Coaching

Warning! Your Results Are About To Change

Jeff Snyder Coaching

You Are Built to Be Great at Something…Find out What Your Something Is

The more opportunities I get to introduce my coaching clients to their natural Strengths as their Strengths Coach, the more I’m convinced that everyone is capable of producing some kind of greatness.

Whether you aspire to be a great nurse, a great doctor, a great auto mechanic, a great teacher, a great CISO or great at something else, everyone has potential to be great at something. The key is to learn about your natural Strengths, to embrace your natural Strengths and then to apply your unique Strengths to activities where you’ll be capable of delivering a Great performance. 

This is the journey I’m fortunate to take my coaching clients on when they hire me for Strengths Coaching.     

A Great performance will be satisfying to you and appreciated by those around you who get to benefit from your performance.  It’s a winning situation for everyone involved.

One of my current coaching clients has everything he needs in terms of top Strengths to become a great manager and ultimately a great leader.  Like most people, he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. Sure, he has had experiences that he has enjoyed and experiences that he has tolerated.  However, until yesterday, he didn’t know exactly why he enjoyed certain activities and tolerated other activities.  Now he knows and now he’s in a position to make clearer decisions.

What makes this rising star stand out from the crowd is that despite not knowing what he doesn’t know, he has stepped out of his comfort zone to find out what he doesn’t know.  This is what most people will not do. Light bulbs lit up in yesterday’s Strengths Coaching conversation as John began to learn what needs to work with in terms of his natural strengths. 

Once John learns about his Strengths, he can then choose whether or not to embrace his strengths.  If he chooses to embrace his Strengths (and I’m confident that he will), he is then in a position to learn how to leverage his Strengths into a Great performance.

Gallup research for the past 15 years suggests that +-70% of the U.S. Workforce is disengaged in their yearly surveys.  That leaves only +-30% of the U.S.  Workforce that qualifies as engaged when they go to work.

If you’re ready to find Engagement in your work, Satisfaction in your work and you’re ready to discover how you too can produce a Great performance, call me at 719.686.8810.

Jeff Snyder Coaching

The Value of Learning, Embracing and Leveraging Your Unique Personal Strengths

My top strength as defined by the Clifton StrengthsFinder is called Futuristic. 

“People exceptionally talented in the Futuristic theme are inspired by the future and what could be.  They energize others with their visions of the future”

Traits of Futuristic People

People who have this strength can see down the road. They could be accurately referred to as a Visionary.  They are able to preview, predict and forecast.

If you have this strength, may I suggest that it is super-important that you find out what you have?

Example of My Futuristic in Action

As a Futuristic person, I have always been an early adopter.  On LinkedIn for example, I didn’t wait until everyone around me created an account.  I created my LinkedIn account in 2004 and I’m now hovering around 30,000 direct connections and I've done a significant amount of business because of LinkedIn.  That’s an example of what a Futuristic person does in action.

My Latest Futuristic Project

Recently, I acquired a newly released software product that enables me to build mobile apps.  Over the weekend, I build my first Android Mobile App called Jeff Snyder Coaching.  It sits in the Google Play store.  I’ll build the IOS version of this App this weekend.

Futuristic Excitement!

Being the Futuristic person that I am, I got excited about my new creation; so excited in fact that I built a sample mobile app for a local Realtor friend. I could see down the road in the sense that I could see the competitive advantages a mobile app could bring to my friend’s real estate agency.  I sent the sample app to my friend last night and received this message this morning.

“I received your email on the app. I would really need to think about that and now is a bad time since I'm really turning off for the month of December as much as possible. I did ask my real estate friend in the springs what she thought.”

Long story short, my friend didn’t get it and my friend’s friend didn’t get it either. My first reaction was my old reaction.  The reaction I would have had in the past before I understood my Futuristic gift.  I suppressed my first reaction and turned on my reality testing to come up with a healthier reaction.

People Don't Think Alike

My reality is that I can see down the road and as a marketing educated and marketing minded person, I can see advantages for my real estate friend.  Her reality on the other hand does not include my Futuristic abilities.  Rather than asking me how a mobile app could benefit her business, she turned to a friend who didn’t have my Futuristic strength either. 

There are several lessons here:

1. Since I know my strengths, I was quickly able to recognize what had gone wrong in this situation and I have already changed my strategy because of what I’ve recognized.
2. I’ve know this for a while but today’s experience made it crystal clear that as human beings, we do not all think the same way.  Where I see competitive advantage, my friend sees her list of Christmas activities.  Neither one of us is wrong.  We simply aren’t seeing the same things.
3. If you have the Futuristic strength near the top of your strengths list, you really should learn what it means.  If you don't, you'll spend your entire life living in the future when those around you are living in either the present or the past.  In other words, your audience will seldom get you.
4. When you learn, embrace and discover how to leverage your personal strengths (yours are different than mine), you can make much more clear and powerful decisions.

Jeff Snyder Coaching