The BIGG Successs Show
Your Personal SWOT Analysis (Part I)
Discover your strengths and weaknesses to plan your future. Listen & read here.
Welcome to our 41st Big Success Show! Today we'll begin a two-part series and talk about your personal SWAT analysis. The Big Success Show with George and Mary Lynn. Remember, Mary Lynn, a long time ago. Seems like forever. At least a month ago. We talked about visualizing your dream life, and we told you to answer the question of neither time nor money were an issue. How would you spend your time and your money? And then we went from there to living your dream life with purpose and a discussion of core values. Well, now we're ready to come back and kind of take up where we left off and we're going to specifically talk about a SWAT analysis. Yep, we're taking it to the next level. And first of all, let's talk about what SWAT is. Well, I'll show you. Hey, now. Hi, SWAT back. SWAT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. And it's been used for years with companies, but more recently, people have started to use it to analyze themselves as well. And there really is a lot to this. So what we're going to do is break it down into two pieces. So we're going to talk about the SWAT today. Strengths and the Weaknesses. Right, and then the Ought tomorrow. Right, the Opportunities and the Threats. And, you know, we started all this by removing all the constraints. We took out time, we took out money, we took out those constraints you put on yourselves. We asked you to dream freely with no limitations. That's right, no external constraints, time nor money, and no internal constraints, not letting yourself think, "I can't do this." Right, like the childhood dreams of being an astronaut, and then you discover that I'm not good in math and science, so I can't be that. But before we weren't worrying about that. Right, and now we want to bring you back. Oh, it was fun while it lasted. Well we want to bring you back to reality because obviously we do have limitations. Time is a limitation, that's the biggest one. Money's a limitation, and we need to recognize these. Makes me think of the example, Mary Lynn, of Einstein. And when we think of Einstein, we think, "Geez, there's a pretty sharp guy, right?" Genius. Yeah, exactly. Well, here's something that's been learned about Einstein. The part of his brain that had to do with math and spatial intelligence was incredibly large. The part that had to do with linguistics was quite small. So, you know, I've been told I have special intelligence. Is that right? Yeah, I think they're talking something different though, but anyway. Spacey intelligence. But, you know, like most children, for example, they began talking anywhere from age one to two. Einstein didn't even talk until he was three. I mean, heck, we were just visiting our young friend Ellie, not too long ago. She's not even two yet, and she was talking about multitasking. It's definitely. Yeah. Yes, Einstein was not a cunning linguist. He failed a language exam when he was sixteen, and it was no one that he was just a terrible lecturer. So the lesson to be learned from Einstein is that you should be thankful for your weaknesses because they may be the source of your strengths. Yeah, and so let's talk now about strengths and weaknesses. First, let's talk about strengths. So I think the best way to do this is to just ask yourself this question. What is it that comes easy to you that others find hard? It's hard to believe this, but that's a difficult question, you know, because it's so easy for us to overlook what we ourselves find easy. Absolutely, right, Mary Lynn? And, you know, I don't think I fully appreciated that until recently. I think it's because what comes easy to us, we kind of tend to take for granted. So ask yourself the question, and if you're having difficulty, go to your friends and to your family because they're going to give you an honest opinion. They may point out strengths to you that you're overlooking. Yeah, and the good thing is you're getting an objective opinion. So getting outside of yourself actually is very helpful. Not to mention it'll be interesting to hear what they have to say. That's the strengths. Now we want to move on to weaknesses. And the thing is, what we do with weaknesses is we just flip the question. We're not too original here at being successful. But I mean, the thing is, if you think about it, if we just do the reverse, what do you find difficult to do that others seem to find easy? And answer that question. Everything we said before, if you're having trouble with it, ask your friends, ask your family, and tell them you generally do want their input. Coming up, we're going to share our strengths and weaknesses and what we're going to do with this information that we've just discovered. So Mary Lynn, we're going to start off with our strengths. What would you say is your strength? Well, I would say my strength has to do with production, specifically audio production. I thought you were going to say reproduction. That's a different kind of a shoe. But yeah, production, audio production. I mean, I could do that in my sleep. I've been doing it for years and I love it. Well, it's funny. I sit and watch you do it and you're just going so fast and you're definitely in your zone and it obviously does come easy to you. What do you find easy? What's your strength? I think finance is something that comes easy for me. The whole world of money and just understanding how money works and all of its intricacies and the essence of what's going on underneath the scenes and all that kind of stuff. I love it and always seems to be something I can pick up quickly. Yes, and your students always comment on how they love your class at the U of I. Well, so now we've got to go to the other side. What's your weakness? For me, numbers. I've always been in a creative field when it comes to career and that's because a weakness of mine is numbers and math and that's just always been the case for me. So you could use an Einstein? Yes. And how about you? What's your weakness? I have a visual aid. So I'm rumbling it because I know we're not visual. Yes. But there's a picture here of a guy sitting in his desk at MIT. Yes. And it's a bookshelf and a desk just piled full of papers. Yes, it's terrible. Well, what my weakness I'd say is order. It seems like, you know, I'm looking at him thinking, okay, I can relate. I can relate, yes. Because I'm looking at your desk and yes, you can. So you can get a written summary of today's show on our blog at big success.com. We've got links to our previous shows that we mentioned here on the show today. And then also along the lines of what we're talking about today, we've got that free goal setting workbook that you can get when you sign up for the Big Success Weekly newsletter. And we're going to get to where we're going with all of the strength and weakness information here in just a second. But first, George, let's get our big quote for the day. Our big quote today comes from the poet and author Joyce C. Locke, who said simply, "Build up on strengths and weaknesses will gradually take care of themselves." You know, only the strong survive. But if you know your weaknesses and utilize your strengths, you'll not only survive, you'll thrive. There is a reason why Einstein didn't sign up to get on the speaker circuit, right? I guess you're right. Well, next show, we're going to continue on this thread. We'll talk about "ot." Yeah, it was the swook today. We'll talk about opportunities and threats, and we'll tell you how to put the pieces, the visualizing your dream life, living your dream life with purpose, and now your SWOT analysis. We'll talk about how to put all of that together. And until then, here's to your big success. The Big Success Show at B.I.G.G.S. Success.com [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]