When I was a kid, maybe 2nd or 3rd grade — I brought home my report card. I don’t remember what the grades were, but in the notes section, the one at the bottom, there were these checkboxes that the teacher could check — and for me, she checked one that I still think about to this day:
“Shows Potential.”
I can not tell you the number of times I have thought about that checked box. I asked my parents what “potential” meant, and in my little 8 year old mind, however I interpreted what they said, at its core, what it meant was that I was not good enough. That I had the ability to be good enough, but I was not displaying that ability. That I could do well if I tried, but that I was not. Twisted I know.
Well fast forward 20 years, I had started a business with two partners, and we were not doing NEARLY as well as I wanted us to be doing. I wanted to be rich, and with a new baby at home, and Amber home from work - the only income of our household mine — unfortunately we were not rich. We were not even close to it, we were poor and we were sliding into credit card debt faster than I was willing to admit.
Well, around that time I took a test, a personality test called KOLBE — it cost money, which I was not thrilled about — but the results that it gave me spoke to that 8 year old voice inside my head - the one that was telling me I wasn’t good enough.
On the Kolbe, one of the results it kicks out is on your level of what it calls “follow-through” as well as your level of what it calls “quick start.”
quickstart — yes — follow thru — not so much.
Personality tests are so funny because they only reveal what you often times already know about yourself.
The reason that this one so deeply affected me, though, is that, like most tests, they very plainly state that there is no right or wrong type or result — my entire life, I had been believing that lie that I needed to score nines or tens in each of the categories to been truly fulfilling my potential. That, simply, is a lie. I have strengths and weaknesses, like every single human being.
I can lean in to my strengths, and I can work with others to overcome my weaknesses.
If you are not great at starting, but great at finishing — or not great at research, but great at execution, or not the quickest to adapt, but amazing at following a schedule — you are amazing. You are a rad individual and you are offering so many wonderful things to the world. We need you to be you!