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Finding Talents in Answers

I've been reading Marcus Buckingham's Now Discover Your Strengths book and preparing for a bible study on it in January.  One of the key points here is to find your innate talents, those things you're really good at, and grow them.

I'm in the middle of a chapter where he's talking about some ways to identify your talents.  From yearnings you've had all your life to rapid learning where some switch flips and you recognize your talent to satisfaction where you recognize your talent as something you are satisfied doing.  While purchasing the book gives you access to the strengths finder quiz to help you identify your talents and strengths, something clicked in my head to help recognize some of those yearnings and satisfactions, what answers do you gravitate toward?

A month or so ago I joined answers.yahoo.com and askville.amazon.com.  They are both sites where you and pose a question for the community to answer.  I personally prefer Yahoo Answers right now, since I find more questions I can answer and the one question I've just asked has received a few answers while no one on Askville has responded.  I also like that the questioner can tag an answer as the top answer, making it clear which one really answered the question well.

That being said, I think Askville is going to creep up in popularity and begin getting far more use.  They've just started allowing you to convert your Askville points into gift cards with Amazon.com.  So, in the long run, offering real cash will most likely beat out simply answering questions for points and prestige.  As I said to my office mate this morning, you can be a famous photographer by simply knowing a bunch of people, but it doesn't mean you'll ever be rich.

Anyway, as I surf around Answers and Askville, I keep getting drawn to certain questions.  I like answering the programming questions, but more than that I really like answering questions about relationships and personal trials.  These are the areas I just understand so well that the answers seem obvious, leading me to recognize some of the empathy and problem solving traits I've got.  Just thinking about this helps me recognize where my innate traits are leading me.

So, what answers do you find yourself recognizing as obvious?

Peace,
+Tom

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Dara said…
If you really like the programming questions, we sure could use your expertise over at FunAdvice. It's like the sites you mentioned, but more fun :)
January 12, 2008 at 3:44:00 AM EST
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