Professional keynote & seminar speaker using the wisdom & persona of Forrest Gump to inspire individuals and companies to self motivate and control own destiny.
This weekend I cleaned my chimney.
I knew it needed cleaning for the past few weeks.
Starting a fire was becoming more and more difficult.
The air vent had to be opened to the maximum just to keep a fire burning.
When the fire-box door was opened, smoke would billow into the room.
It was plenty clear that the chimney needed to be cleaned.
So, why the dread and the postponement for a few weeks?
Last week I spoke at a K–12 school in Northwestern Montana. I was asked to address the issue of bullying.
Is bullying worse today than it was forty to fifty years ago when I attended K–12 school? I don’t know.
But I do know that society and schooling have changed.
Today, we are much more aware of issues such as bullying.
Stories of Gumption is a regular column that profiles individuals who admirably demonstrate Gumption as we define it. These are the stories of real people who exhibit gumption in overcoming personal challenges, and validate the spirit of Gumption during their journey. Let’s take inspiration from those who seize 100% personal responsibility and show us how to live a life that exhibits Gump-like character traits worthy of applause!
This past weekend, I had the pleasure to speak to 1200+ of Montana’s finest students representing more than eighty high schools across the state. The annual conference of the Business Professionals of America (BPA) Montana Association met in Billings March 10-12, 2013.
BPA is a national organization with 43,000 members in over 2,300 chapters in 23 states. Their tagline is: “Today’s Students. Tomorrow’s Business Professionals.” The mission of Business Professionals of America is to contribute to the preparation of a world-class workforce through the advancement of leadership, citizenship, academic, and technological skills.
Last week during a presentation to the Missoula Businesswomen’s Network (MBN), I told the story of how I came to be connected with MBN. Two and a half years ago, I met Lois. Then almost one year ago, Lois introduced me to Karen. I then met DeDe through the Lois/Karen connection. DeDe invited me to speak at the February MBN luncheon.
Retrospectively, there is always a clear trail that takes you to where you currently are. With hindsight, the trail is easy to see. The connections are obvious – it’s like following a breadcrumb trail.
But at each intermediate step, it’s impossible to know where you’ll end up. You just have to trust the process.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could simply learn to trust the trail?
Wouldn’t it be better if each breadcrumb along the way was savored – with the knowledge that it’s taking you where you need to go?
Are you following the breadcrumb trail?
Trusting and enjoying are relatively easy in hindsight.
The challenge is to trust and enjoy the present.
Knowing your own strengths is potentially life-changing.
Strengths are the things you like to do.
Strengths are the things you naturally do well.
Strengths are the things you subconsciously continue to develop – with ease.
By definition, your strengths don’t need fixing or improving.
During our formal education and within society generally, a huge emphasis has been spent on trying to fix or improve.
By definition, the things that need fixing or improving are our weaknesses.
Our weaknesses need to be fixed or improved.
Do you see the disconnect?
Dear Reader. Hopefully you’ll see the irony of this post appearing a few days late. All the pieces were in place for my Responsibility post to appear as originally scheduled last Thursday. Despite good intentions, it did not happen. I take responsibility. Drop-the-ball is as drop-the-ball does.
Tom Rath’s book Strengths Finder 2.0 revealed my top five strengths. My number five strength is responsibility. Wow! It’s a good thing – I’ve based my career on Gumption, or personal responsibility. It’s a relief to learn I’m practicing what I preach – LOL!
People with the responsibility theme, or strength, take psychological ownership for all that they commit to do – large or small. They feel emotionally bound to follow through to completion. When they can’t deliver, they try to make it up to the person to whom they’ve committed.
Responsibility people feel that apologies aren’t good enough. They believe that excuses and rationalizations are unacceptable. They can’t live with themselves until restitution has been made.
Ouch! Knowing this about myself makes me want to be careful for the commitments I make … and explains a lot about myself.
Tom Rath’s book Strengths Finder 2.0 revealed my top five strengths. My number four strength is connectedness. Simply put, people with the connectedness strength believe that things happen for a reason. I am certain of this.
Connectedness people believe that individuals are part of something larger than themselves. We are all individuals with free will, but we are connected to a larger spirit or life force. I, too, believe this with my heart and soul.
Of my top five strengths, connectedness was the most surprising strength. Here’s why.
Tom Rath’s book Strengths Finder 2.0 revealed my top five strengths. My number three strength is strategic. Strategic people create alternative ways to proceed. They quickly spot relevant patterns and issues when faced with a given scenario.
Just like I am a futurist, I also believe I’m a strategic. I see strategic and futurist in myself as a nice complement. The futurist side is creative – my right brain. The strategic side is logical – my left brain.
From Rath’s book, the strategic person follows this simple three-step process over and over:
From Tom Rath’s book Strengths Finder 2.0, I learned that an activator is someone impatient for action. Activators frequently ask, “When can we start?” Activators know that only action is real. Only action makes things happen. Only action leads to performance.
I was surprised when I learned that Activator is my number one strength. Why? Because I’ve felt there hasn’t been enough action in the past few years. As I’ve transitioned from entertainer to speaker, I often felt there were long periods where things weren’t moving … or certainly not moving fast enough.
The book continues … Activators are impatient. Once a decision is made, activators cannot not act.
406.396.4611 | steve@speakinggump.com 
Forrest Gump is a fictitious character created in the book Forrest Gump, Winston Groom (1986) and the movie Forrest Gump, Paramount Pictures (1994). Steve Weber has been a Tribute Artist portraying Forrest Gump since 1996. Although Steve Weber has worked for the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. under license as Forrest Gump since 1996, nothing herein is intended to imply sponsorship or affiliation with either Paramount Pictures or Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.
