Reflected Best Self

About a month ago, I had to do an assignment for school called the Reflected Best Self. I had to poll a number of people in my life, from friends to family to coworkers, and ask them to tell me about a time when I was "at my best." They were supposed to provide a general category of something I do well, i.e. "you have good time management skills," and then a specific example. I then compiled the feedback into themes, and wrote a paper which essentially presented a portrait of myself at my best, and then talked about how this reflects ways I could improve as a leader, specific career situations where I would thrive, and so on.

It sounds like a totally soft, bogus assignment, but it has actually been proven to help even senior executives both in structuring their jobs and figuring out generally the kind of work they should be doing.

Collecting feedback was really interesting, and it was fun listening to the anecdotes people told and hearing what the people closest to me liked best about me. It was, of course, a nice ego boost as well, as people essentially sent me emails about why I'm awesome. And even though everyone already knows that I'm wonderful and great, here is some info that I collected about what makes me great.

I am HONEST.
While I am well aware that I am brutally honest, I was surprised that so many people seemed to appreciate this quality about me since I often tell people things they don't want to hear. But when people said I can be relied upon for "a good kick in the head when needed," and that "you always offer your unadulterated opinion and it's usually the right one," it only reinforced the fact that I will never ever stop telling people what I think. Because everyone needs the voice of honesty sometimes.

I am a good COMMUNICATOR.
The comments here ranged from the quality of my writing (to those of you who wrote that my blog is well-written - thanks! But due to the circumstances of last semester I'm keeping blog and school separate so I couldn't use your feedback) to the fact that I respond to emails in a timely way, to the fact that I am "able to command attention in a room of hundreds of people." Again, since blogging, emailing and public speaking are all things I love to do...no big surprises. But I was still really floored to see these things mentioned as they are all important to me.

I am FUN and SILLY.
The stories that came along with this one were amazing. I was reminded of a time when my wifer and I walked 60 blocks during the MTA transit strike just to get margaritas, how I was "integral" to the fun my friends and I had on the cruise we went on 3 years ago (AKA I was a sloppy, drunken mess who had 2 guys licking vodka off my pants, thanks again for that feedback but I also opted to leave that out of the paper), and how I always find joy in small things, like ice cream and pictures of cute puppies.

I won't go into the other feedback I received because there was a LOT of it, but when I grouped it into categories the others one I had were: Dedication, Intelligence, Level-headed, Multi-tasking, Leadership, Reliable, Selfless, Team Player. So, needless to say, I was really overcome with "aww"s at all the wonderful things people had to say about me.

This exercise was also an interesting lesson in seeing who comes through and who doesn't when asked for a favor. Some people responded to my request for feedback right away. Some people responded right after my second request. Some people responded after I submitted my paper. I appreciate all of these, even the late ones. Some people, despite my 2 emails asking for information, never even acknowledged that I asked for anything. Since I can say with 100% certainty that I would have done this thoroughly and thoughtfully had someone else asked me to help out, this really showed me who gives a crap and who doesn't, and I definitely have a mental note as to who I won't be going out of my way to do favors for in the future.

If anyone for whatever reason wants to conduct their own Reflected Best Self assessment, shoot me an email and I'll send you the instructions. Definitely an introspective assignment worth the time and effort.