Strength Finders Test - The results are in!

I am having a moment where I feel like sharing a few things about myself. Some of you may have heard of a company called Gallup. They are well known for their "personality tests" that many huge companies like to give during an interview process or to current employees. Many company's decsions to hire someone may derive from this particular test. It is a well designed test that makes it impossible for you to try to manipulate the results. You all know what I'm talking about to, who hasn't read a teeny bopper magazine and taken one of the tests that you try so hard to make the final answer exactly what you wanted to hear. Anyway, I took the Gallup Strength Finders test and it gave me my top 5 personality traits. Some I am proud of and some I am not. All of the traits they give you have a postive side and they tell you how they can be negative too. The one thing I have always disliked about myself ended up being my number one personality trait. YIKES!!!! Before I share my traits with you, I am going to suggest the book and test (you have to buy the book to be able to take the test) as a great Christmas present. It was a lot of fun to take and find out more about myself. Okay, here they are.

#1 - WOO
#2 - Relator
#3 - Belief
#4 - Adaptability
#5 - Empathy

I took this test over a year ago (almost 2 years ago) and found my results as I was cleaning out my bedside table today. It's funny because I don't feel like I have been very empathetic lately (#5). The description says that you can know the right words to say and the right tone to say them in. I feel like that couldn't be further from the truth these last few months. I feel like I've been really hard on the people around me and taken on the "just get over it" attitude. It's amazing how stress can change you. Also, because I know that WOO is my number one quality I have actually started in the last year staying away from striking up a conversation with everyone I meet. Anyway, here are the descriptions of each trait:

Woo
Woo stands for winning others over. You enjoy the challenge of meeting new people and getting them to like you. Strangers are rarely intimidating to you. On the contrary, strangers can be energizing. You are drawn to them. You want to learn their names, ask them questions, and find some area of common interest so that you can strike up a conversation and build rapport. Some people shy away from starting up conversations because they worry about running out of things to say. You don't. Not only are you rarely at a loss for words; you actually enjoy initiating with strangers because you derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection. Once that connection is made, you are quite happy to wrap it up and move on. There are new people to meet, new rooms to work, new crowds to mingle in. In your world there are no strangers, only friends you haven't met yet-lots of them.

Relator
Relator describes your attitude toward your relationships. In simple terms, the Relator theme pulls you toward people you already know. You do not necessarily shy away from meeting new people-in fact, you may have other themes that cause you to enjoy the thrill of turning strangers into friends-but you do derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around your close friends. You are comfortable with intimacy. Once the initial connection has been made, you deliberately encourage a deepening of the
relationship. You want to understand their feelings, their goals, their fears, and their dreams; and you want them to understand yours. You know that this kind of closeness implies a certain amount of risk-you might be taken advantage of-but you are willing to accept that risk. For you a relationship has value only if it is genuine. And the only way to know that is to entrust yourself to the other person. The more you share with
each other, the more you risk together. The more you risk together, the more each of you proves your caring is genuine. These are your steps toward real friendship, and you take them willingly.

Belief
If you possess a strong Belief theme, you have certain core values that are enduring. These values vary from one person to another, but ordinarily your Belief theme causes you to be family-oriented, altruistic, even spiritual, and to value responsibility and high ethics-both in yourself and others. These core values affect your behavior in many ways. They give your life meaning and satisfaction; in your view, success is more than money and prestige. They provide you with direction, guiding you through the temptations and
distractions of life toward a consistent set of priorities. This consistency is the foundation for all your relationships. Your friends call you dependable. "I know where you stand," they say. Your Belief makes you easy to trust. It also demands that you find work that meshes with your values. Your work must be meaningful; it must matter to you. And guided by your Belief theme it will matter only if it gives you a chance to live out your values.

Adaptability
You live in the moment. You don't see the future as a fixed destination. Instead, you see it as a place that you create out of the choices that you make right now. And so you discover your future one choice at a time. This doesn't mean that you don't have plans. You probably do. But this theme of Adaptability does enable you to respond willingly to the demands of the moment even if they pull you away from your plans. Unlike some, you don't resent sudden requests or unforeseen detours. You expect them. They are
inevitable. Indeed, on some level you actually look forward to them. You are, at heart, a very flexible person who can stay productive when the demands of work are pulling you in many different directions at once.

Empathy
You can sense the emotions of those around you. You can feel what they are feeling as though their feelings are your own. Intuitively, you are able to see the world through their eyes and share their perspective. You do not necessarily agree with each person's perspective. You do not necessarily feel pity for each person's predicament-this would be sympathy, not Empathy. You do not necessarily condone the choices each person makes, but you do understand. This instinctive ability to understand is powerful. You hear the unvoiced questions. You anticipate the need. Where others grapple for words, you seem to find the right words and the right tone. You help people find the right phrases to express their feelings-to themselves as well as to others. You help them give voice to their emotional life. For all these reasons other people are drawn to you.