“Safely delivering my child into the world (against all odds) is by far my greatest achievement in life! I am so happy to have him healthy and grateful that he is doing so well. He is my little miracle.”– Lisa Sasso
chievement means different things to different people, but we can all agree that when you truly achieve something that you have worked on for a long time there is a certain sense of satisfaction that goes along with the achievement.
Recently, I completed the StrengthsFinder(R) Assessment (SFA) to identify my top 5 Strengths. I was not surprised that “Achiever” was in my top 5 most important Strengths. (I will talk about my other strengths in the future – April is focused on Achiever)
Too often people waste time trying to improve on a weakness. However, the way to go is to focus time and energy on capitalizing on your strengths. Channel your energies on the things that you do naturally. This will get you further in life. It is called building on your strengths. Many books are dedicated to doing just this. In fact, you can take the SFA (a 150 question timed quiz) and find out your top 5 Strengths for just $15 or you can buy the SFA book. I don’t sell this or supply either of these, but I use and believe in them.
Knowing your 5 Strengths can really help you to focus. By completing an SFA it will show what things you do better than others, and how your top 5 skills together form a certain label (mine is the Optimizer) that is unique and it is important to understand what that truly means.
My 5 top Strengths (out of 34) are: Positivity, Communication, Activator, Achiever, & Maximizer
Achiever-
- Inexhaustibility energy to accomplish more each and every day
- Excited when faced with mountains to scale, horizons to reach
- Continually Create physical and/or virtual lists of tasks to complete
- Driven to do more-because there is always more to do!
- May need to schedule downtime to avoid burnout
- Naturally Driven * These bullets are the Courtesy of CoreClarity, Inc.
Anyone that has attended my goal-setting workshop, been a client, is a family member or friend, all know and understand how goal-focused I am. I help people to achieve their personal and professional goals with balance and also by truly living their values. My work comes naturally to me and I share my strength for achievement with all that I come in contact with.
It is important to note that I apply (my #1 skill) positivity to absolutely everything. That positivity strength has helped me to achieve so many things in life, especially when other people said that these things couldn’t happen. Below are my top 4 achievements in life.
- Safely delivered my child into the world when my baby was given 50% survival odds to make it to birth. However, that also meant that there was a 50% chance that he/she would survive.-That is an example of positivity.
- Successfully built a Medical Device start-up without VC money or start-up experience. $0-28M in the first 5 yrs. Many people believed it wouldn’t be successful. I believed it would. I was a Positive Visionary.
- Earned 2 degrees in 4 years my BBA & BA & then my MBA in 2 yrs with honors while working full time at CR Bard.
- Lastly, staying married to my High School sweetheart- through High School, College, our MBAs (together), starting and collectively building Radi Medical Systems, Inc. for 6 yrs) and much more. This summer John and I will celebrate 24 years of marriage and 32 years as a couple. I am quite proud of this achievement as well as my son’s birth. I do not take either of them for granted.
We all achieve special things in our life.
- What are you most proud of?
- What are your greatest achievements in life (personal and professional)?
Take time to write them down, read them over and most importantly celebrate those achievements. Those are things that make you special. No one else in the world will have those experiences and no one else in the world can take them away.
With gratitude and best wishes,
Lisa Sasso, Executive Coach & Motivational Speaker
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