The Passion Triad: Claim Your Strengths

The Passion Triad is Kim’s framework for reigniting passion and purpose: Values plus Strengths plus Purpose. Each element builds on the others. And strengths are where we start.

Not because they are the most important. But because they are the most overlooked.

1. Strengths Are What Others Acknowledge in You

The fastest way to identify your strengths is to pay attention to what people consistently acknowledge you for across your life. Not in one context. Across your whole life.

What have multiple people in multiple situations told you that you are good at? What do people ask you for help with? What do you do that makes others say I could never do that, when it barely crossed your mind that it was difficult?

Write three down. Do not edit them. Do not make them more impressive. Just write what is actually true.

You were born on this planet to do something only you can do.

2. A Weakness Is Often a Strength Gone Wild

Before you write something off as a flaw, consider whether it might actually be a strength that has not been channeled correctly.

Stubbornness can be tenacity. Oversensitivity can be emotional intelligence. Talkativeness can be the ability to connect and communicate. Intensity can be passion and drive.

Look at the things you have been told are wrong with you. Is it possible that some of them are actually powers in a form that has not been properly directed yet? What would it look like to manage that trait rather than suppress it?

3. Attach Your Strengths to What You Are Building

Once you have identified your strengths, your job is to find the intersection between what you are naturally good at and what you are building or working toward.

When your strengths are engaged in your project, your work, your relationships, you are not just doing something. You are expressing something. And that expression is where the energy comes from.

Your passion project becomes significantly more compelling when you can see exactly which of your natural strengths it calls upon. Attach them deliberately. Make the connection explicit. Then watch how differently you show up.

I personally have been too big for my britches since I have had them.