Teleseminar training will help guide you to run your business & life from your strengths...

During the final 2 weeks of December, I typically review my goals for the upcoming year. I enjoy the feeling of cheerful expectancy (as Earl Nightingale used to say) I have this time of year. Our President elect has many goals to set and achieve as do we all. How does he or any other leader go about it?

Well, I have a hunch that Obama gets the best coaching there is and his process is likely very similar to what I am sharing with you now. I got it about 3 years ago when I started to capture, clarify and confirm the daily activities that made me feel strong (my strengths) and the activities that made me feel weak (my weaknesses). Your Strengths are your daily activities (the Whats of your day) that "make you feel strong" according to Cambridge-educated researcher and author, Marcus Buckingham who wrote "Go Put Your Strengths to Work." In an ideal world, you repeatedly want to focus on strengthening your strengths and outsourcing your weaknesses. Wow! What an eye-opener that was and it still is.

I encourage you to do the same. This ultra simple act of identifying your strengths and weaknesses can create extraordinary changes in your life and the lives of others who rely on you each day. It is what you do that consumes your time. Your efficiency of how you do things and your internal motivation behind why you do those things are not nearly as important to your success as what you do.

Grab a few dozen 3×5 index cards and stack them in two piles. Name one stack as your "Strengths Pile" and name the other as your "Weaknesses Pile." Whenever you do an activity that makes you feel strong, just capture, clarify and confirm it because it's highly likely that the what you just did was one of your strengths. On the other hand, if you engage in an activity that makes you feel weak, make certain you capture, clarify confirm what that activity is because it's highly likely it's one of your weaknesses.

The 3 C's:

Capture- Recognize and write it down.

Clarify- Does it make me feel strong or weak?

Confirm- Acknowledge with definite assurance.

As my friend and coach, Dan Sullivan says, "If you spend too much time working on your weaknesses, all you'll end up with is a lot of strong weaknesses." In 2009 like Obama and other leaders, I'll focus to strengthen my core strengths and outsource other time-consuming activities to my team, vendors, strategic alliance partners or colleagues.

There are dozens of assessment tools online, but the fastest, easiest and most reliable way to uncover your Strengths and Weaknesses is to take Marcus Buckingham's advice and capture, clarify and confirm. Do it in writing because the palest ink is better than even a world-class memory. And above all, do what it takes to resist the temptation to strengthen your weaknesses.