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Not long ago, a friend of mine – let’s call him Tom – asked me to look over an email exchange he'd had with one of his suppliers. You see, Tom owns a retail business, and he had recently produced a marketing campaign that his supplier felt was an attack on his products.

There is an old Chinese proverb from Lao Tzu that says “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” My version would read “Give a man most vocational inventories and it will tell him to become a forest ranger. Give him the Your Talent Advantage assessments and it will reveal the natural skills that a job must have for him to be occupationally fulfilled.”

Just before Thanksgiving last year my son and his wife announced at a family dinner that she was expecting. Sometime this summer my wife and I will become grandparents!

We knew that they had been focused on starting a family, and my wife and I were both anticipating an announcement. But anticipation didn’t take anything away from the magic of the announcement.

I love Thanksgiving.  It’s my favorite holiday.  What can be better than being with friends and family watching football, sharing a wonderful meal, playing games, singing, and dancing?  From the time I was a young girl I’ve always pictured Thanksgiving as the scene from A Christmas Carol with the Fessiwigs hosting the perfect holiday gathering with joy and great food shared by all.  In my heart, at Thanksgiving, I’m Mrs. Fessiwig.

Ever wonder why your work tires you out so easily, or why you have no excitement for the career you have chosen?

Are there certain tasks that initially felt like an exciting challenge but now feel like drudgery?

Do you feel trapped in the work you do with no sense of accomplishment or meaning?

In the recent Spotlight U program, Nancy Marmolejo and I introduced the concept of Spotlight Style. As internet marketers, we draw people to our offerings by shining a spotlight on ourselves, our personality and our unique gifts and talents. The way we do this is by utilizing our Spotlight Style. The key to effectively promoting ourselves and our businesses is to build on natural skills – and that’s where Spotlight Style comes in.

We all know that different people see the world differently. Sometimes we find those differences appealing. At other times, the differences between ourselves and others are an irritating source of conflict. But rarely, in either case, do we take the time to understand just what it is that accounts for the fundamental diversity of human perspectives.  Psychological style theories were designed to help us make sense of this diversity by grouping people by commonalities according to their habits, behaviors, and priorities. This, in turn, can help us to increase our appreciation for the differences between ourselves and others and decrease the amount of conflict we experience as a result of these differences. 

Google the term “happiness studies” and you'll find a wealth of information on everything from the strength of our social networks to the number of parks within walking distance of our homes. But the simple fact is, most of us don't spend the better part of our days communing with friends or ambling through the neighborhood, however much we'd like to. We spend our days at work.

Often, when people talk about introverts and extraverts, they think in terms of whether people enjoy social interactions. In fact, the true definitions of introversion and extraversion have to do with where a person finds meaning – and for this reason, knowing which you are can help you make life decisions that leave you happier and more fulfilled. 

"These people are just making it so difficult" said my friend. We met for coffee last week just to catch up and as she was telling me about some challenges she was facing at work. "Everyone wants a voice, everyone wants to be involved, everyone wants to be "in the know" so we have meeting after meeting and nothing seems to get done".