“The world will ask you who you are, and if you don’t know, the world will tell you.” (Carl Jung)
What is your talent stack?
Google defines a “talent stack” as a collection of diverse skills that an individual develops, where the combined strength of these skills, even if not individually exceptional, creates a unique and valuable skillset, allowing them to stand out in their field; essentially, it’s the idea of combining multiple “ordinary” talents to form a powerful whole, a concept popularized by Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams who used his own combination of drawing, writing, and business skills as an example.
The idea is to synergistically combine the skills. Most skills can be combined in a manner in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Your aim is to be better than average at a few different things:
- What is a skill you can make a living from?
- Where do you rank in the top 20%?
You want a different skill stack than the masses. If everyone can tell stories, write copy and market online… you do not have a skill stack, you have the bare minimum to get in the door. If everyone in your industry can do a thing, you doing it as well is not a skill stack… it is a prerequisite.
Diversification is key: The more disparate the skills in your skill stack, the better your chance of success. Your uniqueness is what allows you to stand out and make it more difficult for people to compete with you.
According to Aristotle: “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
Mark Twain said; “There are two important days in your life, the day you were born, and the day you found out why.”
95% of us consider ourselves to be self-aware. Yet in reality, only a mere 10-15% of us actually are.
Self-awareness is the first step in emotional intelligence.
Knowledge of Self enables us to be more empathetic, to better understand what is going on with our people, to create greater and more cohesive teams, etc.
If you are an entrepreneur, you are in the business of leveraging people. Yet most companies garner only 20% of their employee’s capability. If you call yourself an entrepreneur, maybe try optimizing their skills and leverage their talents:
How many entrepreneurs have wasted tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars on bad hires? By simply not putting people in the right situation, by not creating the right kind of teamwork?
Dan Sullivan says; “If you are lying awake, frustrated, angry and scared at 2:00 in the morning, it has to do with not having the right people in the right places.”
What is more powerful than leveraging your own strengths? This begins with self-awareness.
Self-awareness ranks as the most prominent predictor of overall success, according to Green Peak Partners and Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. They examined 72 senior executives and came to the conclusion that when you possess a high degree of self-knowledge, you are better able to hire subordinates who complement your skill set.
You are more flexible, agile and able to adapt to changes. You are able to translate your leadership into positive outcomes for your business. You are better able to gauge the impact of your own contributions to success while recognizing the value that others bring to the table. You are masterful at handling criticism and feedback, then integrating it, rather than becoming defensive and in denial. You have the ability to remain open-minded. All this leads to a more engaged and enthusiastic workforce, more meaningful connections with individual team members, increased clarity around decision making and judgment, and a stronger sense of empathy.
I encourage you to dig as deep as you can into the understanding of human nature and your own psychology. In many ways, your central focus should be on discovering, knowing, developing and exploiting your strengths. Just knowing how to articulate your assets and attributes can be powerful.
To this extent, one of the best things you can do right now, is to figure out, then focus on, the top three things you are paid to do.
Personality profiling tests can be useful tools in various settings. However, they also have limitations. Here are a few pros and cons:
Pros
✅ Self-awareness & Personal Growth: Helps individuals understand their strengths, weaknesses, and behavior patterns.
✅ Improved Hiring & Team Building: Assists employers in selecting candidates who fit specific roles and workplace cultures.
✅ Enhanced Communication: Helps people interact more effectively by understanding different personality types.
✅ Career Guidance: Provides insights into suitable career paths based on personality traits.
✅ Conflict Resolution: Can help resolve misunderstandings by identifying differences in communication and work styles.
Cons
❌ Oversimplification: People are complex, and tests often categorize individuals into rigid types, ignoring nuances.
❌ Inaccuracy & Bias: Many tests (e.g., MBTI) lack scientific validity and can be inconsistent over time.
❌ Self-Reporting Issues: Responses may be influenced by mood, social desirability, or lack of self-awareness.
❌ Limited Predictive Power: Personality tests may not accurately predict job performance or future behavior.
❌ Potential for Misuse: Employers may rely too heavily on tests, overlooking skills and experience.
The reason we rely on a method for sizing people up:
We tend to believe that people are wired with defining characteristics that will shine through no matter the circumstances or task in front of us.
Knowing someone’s traits grants us the ability to predict how they will perform on the job.
The problem is: When it comes to predicting the behavior of individuals (as opposed to predicting the average behavior of a group of people), traits actually do a poor job. In fact:
Correlations between personality traits and behaviors that should be related, such as aggression and getting into fights, or extroversion and going to parties, are rarely stronger than 0.30. Just how weak is this?
According to the mathematics of correlation, it means that your personality traits explained 9% of your behavior.
There are similarly weak correlations between trait-based personality scores and academic achievement, professional accomplishment, and romantic success.
Trait-based or Situational?
The great debate is between trait psychologists and situation psychologists.
Trait psychologists argue that our behavior is determined by well-defined personality traits such as introversion and extroversion.
Situational psychologists claim the environment drives our personality far more than personality traits. They believed that culture and immediate circumstances determine how we behave, arguing, for example, that violent movies are more likely to make people aggressive regardless of innate tendencies.
In the 1980’s, the trait psychologists emerged as the undisputed victors. While the situation psychologists were able to predict, on average, how most people would behave in a situation, they could never predict how any particular individual was going to behave.
In contrast, the trait theorist did a better job of predicting the behavior of any given individual. On average at least, they also produce something far more useful to business personality tests.
Today, there are 2500 different kinds of trait-based personality tests. Here are a few of my favorites:
LIST OF ASSESSMENT TESTS:
- Stephen R. Covey. To see how effective you are – where your strengths lie and how you can improve – take the Personal Effectiveness Quotient.
- Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan:
- Jordan Peterson
- Kolbe:
- DISC:
- Emergenetics:
- Leading Energy:
- 16 Personalities:
- Four Tendencies:
- Chet Holmes:
- Enneagram:
- How to Fascinate:
- Clifton Strengths Finder:
- Mavenship:
- Driving force, your top need:
- Three types of entrepreneur:
- Big 5 Personality Test:
- Ray Dalio’s PrinciplesYou:
- Love Languages, how to gift appreciatively:
- Human Design:
- For Start-ups:
- Entrepreneurial Profile
- Rocket Fuel (type of entrepreneur):
- Career Test:
- Print® Unconscious Motivators:
- Find your WHY, your purpose in life:
- Culture index and predictive index
If you speak the language of Who not How and happen to be a dyslexic Quick Start multiplier we should collaborate…