What leaders have in common is that each really knows their strengths, has developed their strengths, and can call on the right strength at the right time.

Your weaknesses will never develop, while your strengths will develop infinitely.

From this point of view, to avoid your strengths and to focus on your weaknesses isn't a sign of diligent humility. It is almost irresponsible. By contrast the most responsible, the most challenging, and, in the sense of being true to yourself, the most honorable thing to do is face up to the strength potential inherent in your talents and then find ways to realize it.

Each of these strategies-get a little better at it, design a support system, use one of your strongest themes to overwhelm your weakness, find a partner, and just stop doing it-can help you as you strive to build your life around your strengths.

. . . our lives are shaped by our interactions with others. Whether we have a long conversation with a friend or simply place an order at a restaurant, every interaction makes a difference.

Relationships help us to define who we are and what we can become. Most of us can trace our successes to pivotal relationships.

At an early age, you started hearing it: It's a virtue to be "well-rounded." ... They might as well have said : Become as dull as you possibly can be.