June 2, 2025 • 11 mins
Welcome to the middle of 2025! This is a solo episode where you'll hear me being a fangirl over a framework that is based on 60 years worth of research into positive and strength based psychology.
We have 6 months left to make the most of 2025 and I think it's a beautiful opportunity for us all to be reflecting on our career, relationships and lives.
Reflecting on these things with our strengths in mind will give you greater clarity on how you can make the most impact and have the most fun in this lifetime.
What is this framework?
It started with a simple question…
Six decades ago, Psychologist, Don Clifton, noticed that all of the books published on psychology were focussed on what was wrong with people.
So he started asking “what would happen if we studied what was right with people?”
Fast forward to today and Don’s pioneering research into the world of positive and strengths psychology has been turned into a comprehensive online assessment tool called CliftonStrengths.
This online assessment has allowed over 34 million people to understand their unique talents and transform the way they approach their career, relationships and teams.
If you’re ready to discover your own unique talents and how leverage them to improve your personal and professional life - this workshop is for you.
Say hi to Ash on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashcam____/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hello and welcome back to Reset and welcome to the middle of
2025. Wild, right?
I don't know about you, but I find that there's a few key
moments in the year that are just the perfect opportunity to
hit pause, reset if you will, and take a bit of a deep dive
into what am I doing with my life.
(00:26):
So today I want to talk about a framework that I am actually a
little obsessed with. It's a tool that has been based
on over 60 years worth of research into positive and
strength space psychology, and it is now being transformed into
an assessment that's been used by 31 million people across the
(00:47):
world. I have used this framework
personally a few years ago when I was leaving London, shaking up
my career, shaking up my life and I just fell in love with it.
And so since then I have become fully certified and able to use
it and help others to discover their strengths.
I'm talking about Clifton Strengths.
(01:08):
It's a framework that I've used with clients, on retreats, with
corporate teams, in standalone workshops, 1 to one sessions
with people from all around the world.
It's a profiling tool that helpsus to understand how we
naturally think, feel and behaveacross all areas of our life.
If you work in a corporate role,you might actually be familiar
with it because I know that 90% of Fortune 500 companies use it
(01:31):
with their leadership teams. So going back 60 years ago,
there was a psychologist in the US and his name was Don Clifton.
And while it sounds like common sense to do this today, he
noticed that back then all the books published in psychology
were actually focused on lookingat what was wrong with people.
(01:51):
So he was really innovative at the time and started to ask his
colleagues, hey guys, what wouldhappen if we studied what was
right? I've had psychologists do this
workshop with me and they have confirmed that even today when
they're at university, majority of things that they look at are
all around diagnosing what is wrong with people.
So this is a really refreshing approach and Fast forward to
(02:12):
today and Don's pioneering research into the world of
positive and strength space psychology has enhanced the life
of over 31 million people, whichI'm sure when he set out on this
journey, he had no idea the ripple effects that it would
have. But it's helped me and so many
of my clients to just really transform the way that we
approach our careers, our relationships and our life.
(02:34):
I'm sure if I asked you right now to sit down and write a list
of all the things that you're terrible at and then all the
things that you're naturally great at, it would be so much
easier to write the list of things that are our weaknesses
or what we're terrible at. But when it comes to our
strengths, especially here in Australia where we live in such
a tall poppy kind of culture, itcan be really difficult to look
(02:57):
at. Well, what am I naturally great
at? So some fun facts that I want to
share with you. During Don's research, he
studied over 1.7 million people from 48 different countries.
That is huge back then. Like if you think about how hard
that would be to coordinate thattoday when we have the Internet
and modern day technology, let alone 60 years ago.
(03:19):
So to get the funding and coordinate the teams and the
manpower to do that is kind of blows my mind, even in today's
world. Since then, it's been
transformed into an online assessment, and 31 million
people across 50 different countries have completed their
Clifton strength. So the data is really robust.
During the research, they found that they could bucket people
(03:40):
into sort of this list of 34 strengths.
And what happens when you do theonline assessment is it ranks
you from 1 to 34. And it doesn't mean that you
can't do any of the sort of strengths on the list, but it
just means that you're naturallygoing to feel your best if
you're operating kind of within your top five to 10 strengths.
(04:01):
And sort of a metaphor that I like is fish can't climb trees.
And So what we look at is if youhad a fish and you told it the
goal was to climb a tree, it's going to go through its life
just constantly feeling like a failure.
If you change nothing about thatfish, but you change its
environment and put it in the ocean, tell it that the goal is
to swim, it can do it effortlessly for as long as you
(04:23):
like. So what I love about Clifton
Strengths is it helps us to celebrate who we are as
individuals. And then it can kind of point
out to us the types of work environments that we're going to
thrive best in, the types of relationships that we're going
to thrive best in. And then maybe the ones that we
should avoid because they're going to drain our energy and
make us learn more into our weaknesses.
Some other fun facts that I loveis the chance of meeting someone
(04:46):
with the same top five strengthsin the exact same order, a one
in 33.39 million. Yes, that that blows my mind as
well. Something else that I love to
remind people of is that based on this research, because the
Clifton Strengths team now run by Gallup have been able to
(05:07):
track the 31 million people thathave done their strengths,
they're able to test things likeengagement levels and how do we
work with teams and modify teamsso that people are able to be
put into new positions and actually work to their
strengths. And they've found that people
that are in jobs that they're able to use their strengths,
they're actually 6 times more engaged and happy in the work
(05:28):
that they do. So I love using this framework
for people that are looking at, do I shake up my career?
What do I want to do more of? What do I want to do less of?
And if you can find a role that lets you work to your strengths,
then you're almost guaranteed toboost your fulfillment by 6
times. So while you can explore your
strengths on an individual level, I find that it can be
(05:48):
really beneficial to do it as a group.
So whether that is a corporate team or a group workshop.
And the reason I love this is because it starts to highlight
that just because you think, feel, and behave a certain way
doesn't mean the people around you are the same.
And by doing your strengths as agroup, it starts to highlight
that there's a few benefits in particular for leadership teams.
(06:10):
And so if you're a leader, I know that you care about your
team so much. You also care about smashing
your business goals. This is just such a beautiful
way to fast track an understanding of like, OK, what
are my team members on individual levels need to
thrive? What kind of environment?
Do they need clear goals? Do they need daily catch ups
(06:30):
with me? Do they need time to be
innovative and strategic? Do they need time to go and
review the data before coming upwith a decision?
It also helps you to just strategically allocate the
tasks, so if you've got a project coming up, rather than
just defaulting and giving stuffto people that they've always
done in the past, you can clearly understand.
Like, OK, well if I want my teammembers all to be able to work
(06:52):
to their strengths, am I currently allocating tasks in
the best way or are people doingthings just because I've told
them to? Having a shared language for the
team also really helps to just enhance team collaboration and
empathy. I know some companies put their
strengths as a list of descriptors in their e-mail
signatures. And so even if you're dealing
(07:13):
with someone sort of for the first time, once you become
familiar with the language of Clifton Strengths, you instantly
get an insight into what that person is like.
Are they going to be someone that thrives off analytical
strengths and need time to review the data before getting
back to you? Are they someone that has
futuristic and ideation strengths and therefore are best
placed onto projects that are talking about the future?
(07:36):
During the workshops, we also unpack how leaning into a
strength too much can make it a liability and ways to mitigate
this. For example, one of my top
strengths is ideation, which is amazing if we're coming up with
new ideas. I've also got futuristic, which
means I love thinking about the future, and one of the strengths
called Maximizer, which means you give me a small idea and I'm
(07:58):
just so quick to take it and turn it into something huge.
But where all of that can work against me is if I'm so quick to
run forward all the time, I can drop the ball and miss things
that we've already started. I'm also not the best when it
comes at looking backwards and looking at data from the past.
I find it really interesting. Every female that does my
(08:19):
workshop afterwards, pretty much100% of them are saying to me,
Oh my God, I need my partner to do this workshop.
And it's, it's fun. So Alex and I have both done our
strengths. Of course, I made him do his.
But it's been really interestingbecause sometimes when I'm
leaning into one of my strengths, like we were talking
about ideation or futuristic, itcauses me to light up, but it
(08:43):
creates stress in him. So Alex's top strengths are
positivity and achiever. And what that means is if I come
up with a a crazy idea and I might just say it as a throwaway
line straight away, he has to dive into like, OK, well, how
can I make it happen? If it's going to be great for
us? What are all the steps involved?
(09:03):
And he then goes away and is working on that and he'll come
back and he'll talk to me about it was like, oh, I'm already 10
ideas into the future. Having this shared language
between couples is also so powerful.
If you want to learn a little bit more about Clifton's
strengths, I've got some highlights on my Insta stories
that help explain the top 34 strengths, and I'll just read
(09:24):
out some of the different ones now.
So we've got things like achiever, adaptability,
communication, competition, context, focus, futuristic
intellection, learner positivity, you get the idea.
But if you jump on my Instagram,I've got some videos there in
the highlights of what the strengths reports actually look
like, what it looks like to do aworkshop with me, and some of
(09:46):
the questions that understandingyour strengths can help you to
answer. I feel like bringing it back to
the fact that we are halfway through 2025 and so many of us
are using it as an opportunity to reassess our careers, our
relationships, and what we want to focus on for the next 6
months. I think it can be so powerful to
have this guidebook that is basically just like a map of how
(10:08):
we show up in the world. I also find it so interesting
once you learn your strengths, you'll start to spot the fact
that they were showing up in your childhood, in your
schooling and right throughout life.
There are a number of different ways you can learn your
strengths. They don't all have to be
through Clifton Strengths. There's some other profiling
tools online. You can also do it by asking
(10:28):
your colleagues and your friendsbecause it's often easier to
spot the strengths in others than it is for ourselves.
But if you are someone like me and you just want to fast track
that process and skip the journaling, skip the meditation
and just go straight to the science, then I would absolutely
love to see you at a Clifton Strengths workshop in the
future. I always post about the upcoming
(10:49):
workshops on my Instagram, but if you would like to run one for
a corporate team, just send me Adm and I'm sure we can make
that happen. So enjoy this beautiful mid year
timeout to reset, reflect and think about what you want to
focus on for the rest of this year.
Because I'm very much a cup halffull person and it's easy to say
half the year is gone. But what we can flip that to is
(11:12):
we still have half the year left.
And when you lean in and get really intentional about your
life, you can do so much within six months.
Have fun.
Hello and welcome back to Reset and welcome to the middle of
2025. Wild, right?
I don't know about you, but I find that there's a few key
moments in the year that are just the perfect opportunity to
hit pause, reset if you will, and take a bit of a deep dive
into what am I doing with my life.
(00:26):
So today I want to talk about a framework that I am actually a
little obsessed with. It's a tool that has been based
on over 60 years worth of research into positive and
strength space psychology, and it is now being transformed into
an assessment that's been used by 31 million people across the
(00:47):
world. I have used this framework
personally a few years ago when I was leaving London, shaking up
my career, shaking up my life and I just fell in love with it.
And so since then I have become fully certified and able to use
it and help others to discover their strengths.
I'm talking about Clifton Strengths.
(01:08):
It's a framework that I've used with clients, on retreats, with
corporate teams, in standalone workshops, 1 to one sessions
with people from all around the world.
It's a profiling tool that helpsus to understand how we
naturally think, feel and behaveacross all areas of our life.
If you work in a corporate role,you might actually be familiar
with it because I know that 90% of Fortune 500 companies use it
(01:31):
with their leadership teams. So going back 60 years ago,
there was a psychologist in the US and his name was Don Clifton.
And while it sounds like common sense to do this today, he
noticed that back then all the books published in psychology
were actually focused on lookingat what was wrong with people.
(01:51):
So he was really innovative at the time and started to ask his
colleagues, hey guys, what wouldhappen if we studied what was
right? I've had psychologists do this
workshop with me and they have confirmed that even today when
they're at university, majority of things that they look at are
all around diagnosing what is wrong with people.
So this is a really refreshing approach and Fast forward to
(02:12):
today and Don's pioneering research into the world of
positive and strength space psychology has enhanced the life
of over 31 million people, whichI'm sure when he set out on this
journey, he had no idea the ripple effects that it would
have. But it's helped me and so many
of my clients to just really transform the way that we
approach our careers, our relationships and our life.
(02:34):
I'm sure if I asked you right now to sit down and write a list
of all the things that you're terrible at and then all the
things that you're naturally great at, it would be so much
easier to write the list of things that are our weaknesses
or what we're terrible at. But when it comes to our
strengths, especially here in Australia where we live in such
a tall poppy kind of culture, itcan be really difficult to look
(02:57):
at. Well, what am I naturally great
at? So some fun facts that I want to
share with you. During Don's research, he
studied over 1.7 million people from 48 different countries.
That is huge back then. Like if you think about how hard
that would be to coordinate thattoday when we have the Internet
and modern day technology, let alone 60 years ago.
(03:19):
So to get the funding and coordinate the teams and the
manpower to do that is kind of blows my mind, even in today's
world. Since then, it's been
transformed into an online assessment, and 31 million
people across 50 different countries have completed their
Clifton strength. So the data is really robust.
During the research, they found that they could bucket people
(03:40):
into sort of this list of 34 strengths.
And what happens when you do theonline assessment is it ranks
you from 1 to 34. And it doesn't mean that you
can't do any of the sort of strengths on the list, but it
just means that you're naturallygoing to feel your best if
you're operating kind of within your top five to 10 strengths.
(04:01):
And sort of a metaphor that I like is fish can't climb trees.
And So what we look at is if youhad a fish and you told it the
goal was to climb a tree, it's going to go through its life
just constantly feeling like a failure.
If you change nothing about thatfish, but you change its
environment and put it in the ocean, tell it that the goal is
to swim, it can do it effortlessly for as long as you
(04:23):
like. So what I love about Clifton
Strengths is it helps us to celebrate who we are as
individuals. And then it can kind of point
out to us the types of work environments that we're going to
thrive best in, the types of relationships that we're going
to thrive best in. And then maybe the ones that we
should avoid because they're going to drain our energy and
make us learn more into our weaknesses.
Some other fun facts that I loveis the chance of meeting someone
(04:46):
with the same top five strengthsin the exact same order, a one
in 33.39 million. Yes, that that blows my mind as
well. Something else that I love to
remind people of is that based on this research, because the
Clifton Strengths team now run by Gallup have been able to
(05:07):
track the 31 million people thathave done their strengths,
they're able to test things likeengagement levels and how do we
work with teams and modify teamsso that people are able to be
put into new positions and actually work to their
strengths. And they've found that people
that are in jobs that they're able to use their strengths,
they're actually 6 times more engaged and happy in the work
(05:28):
that they do. So I love using this framework
for people that are looking at, do I shake up my career?
What do I want to do more of? What do I want to do less of?
And if you can find a role that lets you work to your strengths,
then you're almost guaranteed toboost your fulfillment by 6
times. So while you can explore your
strengths on an individual level, I find that it can be
(05:48):
really beneficial to do it as a group.
So whether that is a corporate team or a group workshop.
And the reason I love this is because it starts to highlight
that just because you think, feel, and behave a certain way
doesn't mean the people around you are the same.
And by doing your strengths as agroup, it starts to highlight
that there's a few benefits in particular for leadership teams.
(06:10):
And so if you're a leader, I know that you care about your
team so much. You also care about smashing
your business goals. This is just such a beautiful
way to fast track an understanding of like, OK, what
are my team members on individual levels need to
thrive? What kind of environment?
Do they need clear goals? Do they need daily catch ups
(06:30):
with me? Do they need time to be
innovative and strategic? Do they need time to go and
review the data before coming upwith a decision?
It also helps you to just strategically allocate the
tasks, so if you've got a project coming up, rather than
just defaulting and giving stuffto people that they've always
done in the past, you can clearly understand.
Like, OK, well if I want my teammembers all to be able to work
(06:52):
to their strengths, am I currently allocating tasks in
the best way or are people doingthings just because I've told
them to? Having a shared language for the
team also really helps to just enhance team collaboration and
empathy. I know some companies put their
strengths as a list of descriptors in their e-mail
signatures. And so even if you're dealing
(07:13):
with someone sort of for the first time, once you become
familiar with the language of Clifton Strengths, you instantly
get an insight into what that person is like.
Are they going to be someone that thrives off analytical
strengths and need time to review the data before getting
back to you? Are they someone that has
futuristic and ideation strengths and therefore are best
placed onto projects that are talking about the future?
(07:36):
During the workshops, we also unpack how leaning into a
strength too much can make it a liability and ways to mitigate
this. For example, one of my top
strengths is ideation, which is amazing if we're coming up with
new ideas. I've also got futuristic, which
means I love thinking about the future, and one of the strengths
called Maximizer, which means you give me a small idea and I'm
(07:58):
just so quick to take it and turn it into something huge.
But where all of that can work against me is if I'm so quick to
run forward all the time, I can drop the ball and miss things
that we've already started. I'm also not the best when it
comes at looking backwards and looking at data from the past.
I find it really interesting. Every female that does my
(08:19):
workshop afterwards, pretty much100% of them are saying to me,
Oh my God, I need my partner to do this workshop.
And it's, it's fun. So Alex and I have both done our
strengths. Of course, I made him do his.
But it's been really interestingbecause sometimes when I'm
leaning into one of my strengths, like we were talking
about ideation or futuristic, itcauses me to light up, but it
(08:43):
creates stress in him. So Alex's top strengths are
positivity and achiever. And what that means is if I come
up with a a crazy idea and I might just say it as a throwaway
line straight away, he has to dive into like, OK, well, how
can I make it happen? If it's going to be great for
us? What are all the steps involved?
(09:03):
And he then goes away and is working on that and he'll come
back and he'll talk to me about it was like, oh, I'm already 10
ideas into the future. Having this shared language
between couples is also so powerful.
If you want to learn a little bit more about Clifton's
strengths, I've got some highlights on my Insta stories
that help explain the top 34 strengths, and I'll just read
(09:24):
out some of the different ones now.
So we've got things like achiever, adaptability,
communication, competition, context, focus, futuristic
intellection, learner positivity, you get the idea.
But if you jump on my Instagram,I've got some videos there in
the highlights of what the strengths reports actually look
like, what it looks like to do aworkshop with me, and some of
(09:46):
the questions that understandingyour strengths can help you to
answer. I feel like bringing it back to
the fact that we are halfway through 2025 and so many of us
are using it as an opportunity to reassess our careers, our
relationships, and what we want to focus on for the next 6
months. I think it can be so powerful to
have this guidebook that is basically just like a map of how
(10:08):
we show up in the world. I also find it so interesting
once you learn your strengths, you'll start to spot the fact
that they were showing up in your childhood, in your
schooling and right throughout life.
There are a number of different ways you can learn your
strengths. They don't all have to be
through Clifton Strengths. There's some other profiling
tools online. You can also do it by asking
(10:28):
your colleagues and your friendsbecause it's often easier to
spot the strengths in others than it is for ourselves.
But if you are someone like me and you just want to fast track
that process and skip the journaling, skip the meditation
and just go straight to the science, then I would absolutely
love to see you at a Clifton Strengths workshop in the
future. I always post about the upcoming
(10:49):
workshops on my Instagram, but if you would like to run one for
a corporate team, just send me Adm and I'm sure we can make
that happen. So enjoy this beautiful mid year
timeout to reset, reflect and think about what you want to
focus on for the rest of this year.
Because I'm very much a cup halffull person and it's easy to say
half the year is gone. But what we can flip that to is
(11:12):
we still have half the year left.
And when you lean in and get really intentional about your
life, you can do so much within six months.
Have fun.
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