The WHY behind WHAT you do.

The Working Genius is a powerful self awareness tool that can transform both your personal and your work life. 

In today’s podcast, I focus on the underlying motivations behind each Working Genius, they WHY behind WHAT each genius craves or desires, and what things “crush them”. 

Everyone, regardless of their genius, craves to be seen, understood, and wanted.

 When you understand what specific things you crave and what crushes you, you can not only better identify your geniuses but also use that information to have more agency in your life - to work more productively, improve work and personal relationships, and avoid burnout.

Understanding what motivations are behind each genius is vital to be able to use this information to improve your life and your relationships. 

The motivations of the 6 types are:

• Wonder - craves being considered; crushed when dismissed.
• Invention - craves freedom; crushed by constraints or when others jump in too soon.
• Discernment - craves being trusted; crushed when told to “prove it”.
• Galvanizing - craves reaction; crushed by apathy.
• Enabling - craves appreciation; crushed by being overlooked.
• Tenacity - craves clarity; crushed by ambiguity.

Links 

• The Working Genius

 Let's connect.

I am cheering for you!

Transcript

0:09

Welcome to the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I'm life coach Kelly Tibbitts and each week I'll be here to encourage and equip you with the tools you need to grow in self-awareness and invest your best energy in your dreams and your purpose. I believe self-awareness changes everything. Let's get started. Hey friends, this week on the podcast we're pivoting To self-awareness changes Everything series. One of the things that I think I bring as a coach to the people who work with me is the ability to notice the nuance. To notice where your working genius is showing up in a way that serves you and where you might want to notice that maybe you're running out of energy and you're leaning into the unhealthy side of whatever behaviors might describe to you. Most people live unexamined lives. Because of that, we do the same things on repeat, because we have the same thought on repeat, creating the same feeling. What working with a life coach can do for all of us is help us notice what we're thinking, decide if we want that thought on repeat, because it's creating a feeling that is either moving us towards or away from a result that we want in our life. The reason that tools like the Working Genius help us is that it helps us understand ourselves. And with grace and with love, knowing that we're a hundred percent valuable, we get to then decide nothing that we ever do or say can change that fact. That's who you are, a hundred percent valuable, made in the image of God, fully loved, fully known, and seen by your creator. When we have our own back, nothing in life can take away that confidence. But at the same time, we have to put on these personalities to walk through earth. We're a soul having a spiritual experience and a physical body. And so these behaviors are very much what it is to have a human experience. But when I can understand why I am thinking and feeling and doing life that way, not only do I have grace for myself, I also get the authority, the agency, to decide what I want to keep on repeat. As I'm talking through the working genius today, I'm going to share what each of these working geniuses crave and what crushes them. When you're with somebody and you realize, Hey, I'm just trying to be authentic by speaking the way you're speaking- is everyone receiving it the way that you intended? At the same time, I'm going to notice the nuance of what knowing your core fear and core desire of your Enneagram number could really help you understand in these different conversations. The working Genius was created by Pat Lencioni of the Table Group. He has been working with leaders across the world for just decades, and came to this understanding during COVID where he said, why do I keep doing these things? Because he was open and self-aware and nonjudgmental, he was able to create a framework that has served him, the whole team that works with him, their families, and the communities that they serve. He says this, everyone, regardless of their working genius, craves to be seen, understood, and wanted. At our core, that is what is true of us as humans. So if that's true and you desire, like I desire to be somebody who brings light and love into the world, then let's understand each other a little bit better. So the widget is a way to have a omic device to describe the six stages of getting work done, wonder, invention, discernment, galvanizing enablement, tenacity. So if you have the gift of wonder, you ask really great questions. It comes easy for you to respond and notice what could be different. How could we do it differently? What you crave is consideration. Think back to the teams you've served on when you brought your great questions to the team, not necessarily having any ideas or the ability to discern those ideas. You just were really excellent at noticing the questions. How, why, when, where do you feel like the people at the table around you were considerate? Were receiving those questions. Or did you get crushed because people around you dismissed you? Isn't this so powerful? When we know that light and life exist in our words, we need to be so conscious of the things we say, whether we say them literally with our words, or sometimes just with our face, with our intentions. So think about this. The next time you're at a table, if you have the genius of wonder. What would it mean for you to not dismiss yourself, to show up fully and aligned and know that you are bringing the greatest value to a team? If they know in advance the question they're answering, they are so much better, right? They're so much better at coming to the solution that they need at. After wonder comes the idea invention. Do you love the whiteboard, the colorful markers, the coming up with any possibility? If you had the gift of invention. What you long for is the freedom to invent, not somebody sitting beside you and discerning before you even finish, but just the ideating brings you great joy. And you might notice that constraint limiting makes you feel crushed. So if you are the leader and at your table as somebody with invention, are you giving them the time and the space to invent? Before we jump to discernment, I know that's a struggle of mine because discernment is one of my geniuses. So I want to skip over the invention part and head right over to discernment. And so now I know what honors the people at my table is to give those with this ability to invent the freedom they need and to not be jumping into soon because it crushes them. After we have wonder and invention, we have discernment. All the ideas are on the whiteboard. Now we need to notice what is possible, what is maybe for later, what we're going to decide to delegate or defer. When you have the gift of discernment, it's in your gut. You just know there may not be the logical paper that explains it. There may not be a group of people with a resounding yes, but you know that you know that, you know. And so what you crave is trust. Trust of the people around you to know that you have this gift of discernment and that your words and your thoughts can be trusted. I know this has been my genius my whole life. I remember back when I was a children's pastor, which was never really seen on any of the teams that I worked on as the same authority as other levels. Of leadership in the church, but I was incredibly discerning. I could notice without maybe the explanation on paper, certain things, trends, things that I saw on repeat. And I remember sharing it once with a leader. That leader came up to my husband and said, Kelly thinks she's noticing this. What do you think? My husband did not work at a church. It was not where he put any of his energy. But when he said things, especially in the church setting, people would listen to him. That day he said I would trust Kelly. And I've always really appreciated that because he trusted and knew that I had this ability with discernment. What crushes people with discernment is the thought or the phrase prove it. Well, how can I prove that I see this transition that is in my gut? Do I have to wait until there's a paper on it? Do I have to wait until somebody else says it? I can remember feeling crushed by those thoughts. If you're in leadership, knowing these six stages, looking for people around the table, honoring their gifts is such a gift to your team. Right. To be the kind of generous and authentic and healthy leader that can hold space for different people's gifts because we need all six gifts. Following discernment is enablement, and this is my number one. We want to have a smooth landing. We want to think of the big W idea, invent some ideas, discern it, galvanize it, move it down- the galvanizer and the enablement are here in the middle. And I would jump from D to E just like I'm doing in this podcast. Before we get to enablement, we do need to go to galvanizing. So WIDG, right? Don't skip over to E like I just did. The discerner is going to notice. And want you to trust their discernment. The galvanizer is going to come in and say, okay, we've decided this. Let's go. The galvanizer can galvanize themself. They can move you and other people in the direction we need to go. Now, what's interesting to notice if you're the galvanizer is you're going to move people whether you agree with what the team wants or not. Have you served with somebody like this who thinks they are. Able to move people in a direction, even if that wasn't the decision. Be aware of that. What do they need? They're craving reaction. They're craving the energy that comes from decision and from movement. What crushes them is apathy when people stop caring, because part of what makes a galvanizer or galvanizer is movement. And when we stop doing anything, it's so frustrating and hard for them to be on that team. Okay, so we've done the WIDG. Now we get to go over to the E, which excites me, the enablement, the looking at every single person in the eye and saying, you were made on purpose for a purpose. Let me help you discover and remember the gifts in your soul. And at the end of the day, the enablement craves appreciation. Those of us with enablement, we're looking for appreciation. We tend to find it very easy to appreciate others to notice their gifts, to celebrate them. Every time I was in charge of a team, I always wanted to send cards and gifts and make sure I took the time to thank them. In my soul, I was craving appreciation. What changed my life is for me to notice I already have it. You know, as a follower of Jesus Christ, I believe that God made me in the image of God loves me fully. And when I stand in that aligned energy, I am not looking for people outside myself to appreciate me and to love me. I have my own back. What crushes those of us with the gift of enablement is being overlooked because the W and the eifs are not always seen as geniuses. And then we know there's something special here, but no one else is noticing it. It feels not appreciated, and instead of letting our light shine, it gets a dimmer and dimmer. So don't overlook yourself. If this is the first time you've heard that enablement is a gift, I want you to know it truly is Teams cannot move forward unless there's somebody there who is passionate about moving the project and the people forward. Human Resources was created because humans are the most important resource of any organization. W-I-D-G-E-T, tenacity, the gift of getting things done. The person at the end who says, we're not going to walk away, I'm going to use my disruptive energy to stop us from pivoting to anything else and finishing what we said we wanted to finish. And tenacity craves clarity. Do we want this done by this date, at this price point? When we can do that for the people who have the gift of tenacity, they're going to feel heard. They're going to feel seen. They're going to be able to know what to do and what not to do. And if you have the gift of tenacity, you know what it's like to be on a team where there's ambiguity. Ambiguity is what crushes the soul of someone with tenacity. I don't know. We can finish it whenever. It doesn't really matter. The gift of the D and the G and the T is you have disruptive energy. You can push and move and get things going, but when you have the gift of tenacity. It hasn't been honored, it hasn't been seen, it hasn't been appreciated. You might find yourself just picking up the pieces and doing it on your own because you can clarify what needs to be done. There's no ambiguity. Ambiguity of who's going to do it when. So do you see how these six gifts need to be named? Noticed how when we have a team around us that different people are using their gifts, people are alive, they're vibrant because every single human was made on purpose for a purpose. There is some reason you are here today and the team around you can help you move that forward. We were not meant to do life alone, but without self-awareness, we don't notice and honor. And highlight the gift that we are, and I promise you, if you can grow in self-awareness, you can have your own back, you can stand in your confidence, everything changes. I lived most of my life very, very unaware of why I thought or felt or did anything. I was compliant. I was a people pleaser as codependent. And because of life coaching and because of teachers and books and conferences, I've become a different person. I find my energy by finding my aligned path, and that's what I want for each of us, and that's why I've created my live a vibrant life coaching program. I know that there are so many coaches out there who are amazing, but their price point is past where many of us can afford, but I've created something that's so affordable, you'll have a group of people around you who say, I see you. I'm going to help you grow in what's important to you. I'm going to help you remember your dreams and your purpose, and develop those mutually flourishing relationships that allow all of us to go further faster. If you'd like to learn more, you can head over to kellytibbitts.com. I'm also on Facebook or Instagram. Send me a DM. I hope that you leave today knowing you are a genius! When you grow in self-awareness, everything changes. To live a vibrant, aligned, healthy life means saying more of the yeses you want to. Saying more of the nos you want to say and trusting there's someone else out there who would love the opportunity that isn't a right fit for you at this time. It's okay to defer and to delegate because you are so incredibly important. Notice your energy. Decide how you want to invest it, and what's important to you. What's important to you is so important. And take the small practice steps daily that move you forward. And the results that are important to you. I'll be back next week and I'll talk to you. Thank you for joining the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together encourage you and will equip you with the tools you need to move into the vibrant life you desire. I'm here to help you live a brave, creative, purpose-filled life. And if you'd like to learn more. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook, Kelly tibbits life coach, or visit my website kelly tibbits.com. I look forward to connecting again soon.