If you’re looking for starting out the New Year with a new you, get to know who you really are by discovering your strengths. Here’s a free resource for you – The Strengths Edge Book – 25 people, including me, share how important it is to find out how you’re wired.

Since I left the corporate world, it’s been a very interesting journey. One of my take-aways from that life was that I discovered my strengths and found out how I was wired. If you’ve never explored your strengths, you really need to!

I’m standing here with my friend, Deb Ingino. Her passion is helping people discover their strengths through her company My Wired Style.

In our society we are told to focus on our weaknesses to try to improve them. Remember when you were in school and it was report card time? You might have gotten four A’s and one C. But guess where the focus was? I would guess on the C. Instead of receiving praise for the four A’s I would venture to guess that the question would have been, “What’s with the C?” And the additional comment would be, “You have to work on that.”

I used to think that something was wrong with me because I was always so restless. I found out that one of my strengths was to achieve and always go onto the next thing. I could never understand why I felt that way. Thanks to the assessment report that I completed, I was able to find out my strengths and how I was wired. It was empowering.

If you have children, what a great gift it would be to help them to find out how they are wired so that they can embrace all of their strengths and talents while they are young. Deb has programs for adults, businesses AND children.

As the Greek philosopher, Socrates said around 400 B.C., “Know thyself.” Or as Benjamin Franklin wrote in his 1750 Poor Richard’s Almanac - “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”

The advice is as good today and easier to come by than in Mr. Franklin’s day thanks to Deb’s Personality System Report.

The better we can understand ourselves, the better we will be at understanding others. We are all unique and bring our gifts and personalities to the world. Knowing our strengths helps us in the business world, with friends and with our families.