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What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up

June 28, 2010 by 14 Comments

When we were little kids we had all kind of ideas of what we wanted to be but very few of us ended up being that person.  Some wanted to be a fireman, doctor, nurse, teacher why, because those were the people we came in contact with.   The truth is we should have looked at what we enjoyed doing to as children and pursued that.

Is it too late to do now?  Of course not but you need to be focused in the process.  It will take a little reflection and memory searching to find out what you enjoyed.  An easy way to speed up the process is to ask people who are old enough to remember what you enjoyed.  That person might have been an uncle, parent, or grandparent, make sure it is someone who spent a lot of time with you growing up.

Tap into that knowledge and use it to your best advantage.  After you discover what you enjoyed apply it to your current life and think of how that would apply.  One of the things that helped me in this process was the book Strength Finders 2.0.  Reading this book and taking the test in the back will reveal your top 5 strengths.  You want to make sure that you purchase the book new, because the test in the back of the book is only good to use once. With this information you can take an objective look at your life and discover how you can apply your strengths.

Working from a position of strength makes you more productive and confidant.  You feel empowered when you are using your strengths.  Do not spend time on your weaknesses.  You may have to develop a process to manage them but do not spend time trying to improve them.  You will get more leverage by spending time focused of developing your strengths.

I would be happy to help you in your strength finding journey.  I recommend that you purchase the book and give me a call after you have taken the test.  Send me an e mail or a message on my contact form to tell me what your top 5 strengths are.  I would be happy to work with you.

Filed Under: Business, Leadership, Your Talents Tagged With: , , , , ,

Leadership in Toastmasters

June 13, 2010 by 2 Comments

Looking for an opportunity to become a leader?  Consider joining a Toastmasters Club.  Toastmasters is an International Organization that helps members become better communicators and leaders.   To be honest, I believe Toastmasters is the best kept secret for anyone who is  determined to improve themselves, willing to work and not afraid to leave their comfort zone.

I joined Toastmasters because I was deathly afraid of speaking in public and it was something I had to do more of as a Director of an Admissions Office in a level one trauma center.  I will discuss my accomplishments in Toastmasters in a future posts.  But I do want to talk to you about leadership.  In a Toastmasters club there are 7 leadership positions (Club Officers) and it is their job to help the club member reach their goals.

The individual member goals help the club become a distinguished club. There are several levels of being distinguished, from distinguished to select distinguished and president distinguished.  I am currently an Area Governor in my Toastmaster District and responsible for 5 clubs.  I work with the club officers to help them become distinguished.  If a club meets all 10 goals they will be president distinguished.

Last year I presented a workshop which focused on Toastmaster Club development at the Spring Conference in both New York and New Jersey.   Below is an excerpt from that presentation which focuses on the Distinguished Club Program (DCP).  There are a number of acronyms in Toastmasters.

So many times the idea of club development is a boring topic to present in a workshop so I decided to spice it up by being a Michael Jackson Impersonator (This was before Michael’s untimely death).   I preformed a different Michael Jackson song parity for each segment of my club development workshop.  Humor is one of my talents and I love to make people smile.  I hope you liked the video and if you are not a member of Toastmasters consider joining a club near you.

Filed Under: Leadership, Speaking, Toastmasters, Video, Your Talents Tagged With: , , , ,

Chairing A Conference

June 10, 2010 by 4 Comments

Last year I chaired an Anti-Racism Conference for the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey.  The Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey has more than 158 parishes and covers the area south of Newark to Cape May, New Jersey.  How I came about this position is really funny.  I happened not to attend a diocesan committee meeting and was selected as the conference chair.

Tip # 1 – Be sure to attend all committee meetings

I had been a committee member on the previous anti-racism conference team and had experience as the inaugural fall conference chair for the newly formed Toastmasters District 83.  One of the challenges was coordinating group meetings because the location that we met previously was not going to be available.  The rising gas prices and logistical issue prompted me to come up with alternative solutions.

Solution # 1 – Establish a free Teleconference line for the committee

Solution # 2 – Meeting time will not exceed an hour

Solution # 3 – Record conference call so people who missed the meeting could hear it

Solution # 4 – Built and internet membership site to post the recorded meetings

These solutions introduced the committee members to technology that they had not used previously.  This allowed the meetings to be more efficient and productive.    In fact this process worked so well that they have adopted this process and currently use it for meeting.

I presented the results of being an anti-racism conference chair at my local Toastmasters club as part of a high performance leadership project (HPL).   High Performance Leadership is a module project in Toastmasters in which you establish a committee, a vision, a leadership project to work through and give speeches along the way.  In the video I am presenting the results of my HPL and hope you enjoy it.

Filed Under: Business, Leadership, Speaking, Team Work, Toastmasters Tagged With: , , , ,

Be Flexible Explore and Develop Your Creativity

June 8, 2010 by 4 Comments

For some people the thought of being flexible give them angina.  If you are normally not open to being flexible please indulge me for a few minutes.    The reason that you get chest pain or feel uneasy at the thought of doing something different is probably out of fear.  Do you know the fear of the unknown impacts the majority of us, but it is how we react to it that makes all the difference in the world.

So let me ask you, when was the last time you did something that was totally new to you?  For example explore a place you had never been before?  If you said not in a long time or you cannot even remember then I would like to extend an invitation to you to do so as soon as possible.  Why?

Being willing to explore opens up your mind to new things and provides the opportunity for you to develop your creativity.  When you experience new things it causes your brain to think in a different way, especially if you are not use to exploring.  When we were children we explored all the time.  That was the way we learned.  As we get older a number of us became more sedentary and set in our ways.  The routine becomes the norm and we stop exploring.

Exploring is fun. There are wonders to discover if you are willing to be a little adventurous.  Don’t you want to have some fun? Have you ever seen an indoor beach with lounge chairs suspended above the Atlantic Ocean?  Well if not take a look at this video.  You will discover that and more.  Join me on a little exploration journey.

Now that you have seen this video I hope that you will be willing to become more flexible, take a risk and start exploring again.  You never know what you may discover.

Filed Under: Branding, First Impression, Leadership Tagged With: , , ,

Fishing For Your Talents

June 6, 2010 by 10 Comments

Finding your talents can be a kin to going fishing.  Not familiar with fishing, let me share what is involved.  You must be willing to take the following 5 steps:

  1. Make the choice to go fishing
  2. Check the weather report and be prepared
  3. Make sure you choose the right bait
  4. Get ready to spend the time needed
  5. Be prepared to catch the fish

Let’s review this list as it relates to finding your talents.

  1. You must be willing to take the journey to find your talents. This means you are willing to take the next 4 steps in the process.  If you are not, you will not be successful in the process.
  2. What is your mindset?  Are you open to the possibility that you have hidden talents? Are you willing to take assessments, and be coached to help you find your talents?
  3. It’s homework time.  Are you willing to do the research with the people who know you best, family, coworkers, your spouse or significant other to find synergy?
  4. Take the time to reflect?  Look at all of the data that you have compiled from assessments, coaching, homework and reflection and get the help you need to interpret it.   Having someone to help you in this part of the process is a key aspect to being successful.
  5. Flexibility and open mindedness are keys to embracing your newly defined talents.  How open are you to change?  Your talents may reveal that you would be better served taking a different approach to your work and the things that you do.  This will allow you to be more productive.


To emphasize this process I made a video.  I would like to encourage you to take the fishing trip to find your talents and I guarantee you will not return home empty handed.

Filed Under: Video, Your Talents Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A Talent Based Work Environment

June 5, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Imagine a job where everyone was doing the job that they were best suited to do. A workplace where there was intentional collaborative team development was the norm not the exception. Each team member enjoys their job, has fun doing it and genuinely embraces their talents in their work.

Do you think this sound like the future? Well it could be happening in your organization, business, office or department today. There are a few requirements to achieving this success. The first requirement is to have an open mind. If you are open to the belief that this is truly possible then you have take the first step. Step two, do you have buy in from management. If management is not on board this will not work, they need to be willing to change their mindset about who can perform what tasks. Next step is for everyone to identify and embrace their talents. This can be done through a series of workshops and trainings that will allow attendees to interact and develop a true team environment centered on their individual and collective talents.

If this sounds exciting and you would like to learn more feel free to complete my contact form and let’s have a conversation.

Filed Under: Relationship, Your Talents Tagged With: , ,

A Talent Revolution

June 4, 2010 by 6 Comments

I found a great video that supports the views that I believe and speak of in my presentations. We have poor use of our talents. Many of us do not believe that we have talents at all. This is a great misnomer.
Tell me what type of work you would prefer to do, work that is a chore or work that you enjoy. Do you believe you can actually enjoy the work you do daily? I know, for a number of people this is unbelievable, only because they have never tired it.

If you were doing a job which spoke to you, the real you inside, you would enjoy it and not even consider the fact that it was work. Consider something that you enjoy so much that you lost track of time and you wish you had more hours in the day to do what you are doing. This is when you are working from a position of using your talents.

Sir Ken Robinson talks about having a revolution in education to provide an opportunity to develop creative thinkers and value the talents that people have. To stay competitive in the global market we need to develop more talent focused organization, businesses and institutions of education. What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Filed Under: Video, Your Talents Tagged With: , , , ,

Talent Education

June 3, 2010 by 5 Comments

When we were in school we were told to follow the rules. We were all taught the same thing the same way. There was no thought given to what we all know to be true today, people have learning preferences. In fact people can look at the same problem and find different solutions. Our educational system did not reward creativity, but rewarded the ability to return one specific result to a problem as the correct answer. Our talents are connected to our creativity. Most teachers that I had in school did not encourage creative thinking.

It started as early as preschool. I was thrown out of preschool for talking too much. I was told that I would be the valedictorian of my class. I had learned my graduation speech and we were going to put on a play for our parents. My preschool teacher, Ms. Dusseldorf, suspended me because I repeat the other children’s line in the play when they did not remember them. She called my mother who took me home and spanked me (this was before there were child protective services). Needless to say I was a good little boy, never speaking out of turn from that point forward.

Kevin Thompson Pre School Graduation

On graduation day I approached the stage to say the valedictorian speech. I was told by my teacher that she choose someone else to deliver the speech since I had been suspended from class. I was hurt, dejected and returned to my seat. I watched the little boy go up to the stage to say the speech. He stood there looked out at the crowd and broke out in tears. Ms. Dusseldorf rushed him off the stage and asked me to come up deliver the speech. Speaking in public is one of my talents. But I did not rediscover it as a talent until 6 years ago. Now I am a professional speaker.

Pre-School Graduation Certificate

I share this story with you because your talent may be waiting to be discovered just like mine. Just think what progress could be made in our educational institutions if we considered valuing and developing people’s talents. Have you had a similar experience? Please feel free to share your comments below.

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Talents Waiting To Be Discovered

June 2, 2010 by 10 Comments

You have hidden talents just waiting to be discovered. The bad thing is that your friends, family and coworkers cannot help you find these hidden talents. Why? You have yet to discover them yourself so you have not displayed them. I recommend that you challenge yourself to discover these talents by doing something that you have never done before.

Allow me to share a story to illustrate this point. I went to the National Speakers Association National Conference in Orlando in the summer of 2005. This was my first time attending this conference and I went with a couple of friends/coworkers Rosie and Ray Horner. There was an opportunity to be a part of an improvisation group to put on a show on stage before the conference started. I told Rosie I was going to enter the group and she joined me. Rosie having been a professional speaker for a number of years told me that I had no idea of the caliber of speaker I would be meeting. I smiled and thought to myself it was not a big deal. I could do this. After all I did this improv thing watching the TV show “Who’s Line is it Anyway”. And I felt that I was just as good as those guys. (The thing I would like to point out to you is that I have never done improv before)

What made me believe that I could do improv? It was this feeling inside. I was comfortable, confidant, and it just felt natural when I played along with the TV show. To me it was a game and it was fun. I had no concept that well know and accomplished speakers who would be in the audience. If I did I probably would have been scared out of their mind.

To make a long story short, I was in every other improve skit and when it came time to challenge the master I did. I excelled in every skit I was in and held my own with the master Stevie Ray. It was a time I will never forget. But I would have never found out I could do it if I had not challenged myself. Now this is a talent that I use when I present on the stage to association and businesses.

If it worked for me it will work for you. Stretch yourself, challenge yourself, try something new that you think you would enjoy and you might find a hidden talent. Please share your thoughts about discovering a hidden talent in the comments below.

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Your Hidden Natural Talents That Others See

June 1, 2010 by 10 Comments

You have talents that you might not be aware of, hidden from your view. In fact I believe there are two types of hidden talents, the first set are those known to others and not you. These are the things people come to you for because they know you can do them with ease. In fact the look to you for help in the area that you have talent, this can be things like, negotiating a deal, organizing a party, and communicating a complicated idea in easy to understand language. These are thing that are simple for you to do in fact you do not give a second thought to doing it. And that is the point. You don’t think about it but others do. They see you master these tasks and marvel at the way you do it. That is why I say the talent is hidden to you and known to others. Think about those things that others come to you for. I bet you can name them. Feel free to ask your friend and colleagues and write down what they say your talents are. Write them down on a piece of paper and look at them. What do they have in common? The one thing I guarantee that they have in common is that you enjoy using them. Please share with me in the comments what your talents are and how you enjoy using them.

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