DE Talk | Naming, Claiming, & Aiming Your Strengths in 2021

Season 2 • Episode 5

Studies suggest that people spend around eighty percent of their time focused on fixing weaknesses, and only twenty percent of their time trying to build upon strengths in most workplaces. However, we achieve excellence most often when using our strengths—enter the CliftonStrengths assessment. In this episode, Jen Polcer chats with JoDee Curtis from Purple Ink LLC to discuss how CliftonStrengths can transform workplaces from weakness-fixing to strengths-based cultures and use those strengths as a roadmap to becoming our best selves.

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About DE Talk

For DirectEmployers, it’s all about valuable connections and meaningful conversations. This monthly podcast features honest and open dialogue between powerhouse industry experts on a variety of HR topics ranging from OFCCP compliance advice to emerging recruitment marketing trends, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and insightful solutions that help infuse new life into your HR strategies.

Hosted by Candee Chambers, Executive Director of DirectEmployers Association.

Guest Host

Episode Guest

Episode Transcript

Candee Chambers:

Welcome to the DE Talk Podcast. Tune in for dialogue between HR Experts to ump up our HR strategies. Don’t worry we’ll mix in a few laughs as we know you need it.

Jen Polcer:

Hey there, I’m Jen Polcer and you’re listening to another episode of the DE Podcast. Some studies suggest that in most workplaces people spend around 80% of their time focused on fixing weaknesses and only 20% of their time trying to build upon strengths. But as we continue to learn more about how people and organizations are wired to perform at their best, the recommendation is that we should be trying to reverse this equation and focus far more of our energy and efforts on doing what we each do best. Enter the StrengthFinders assessment, which focuses on identifying your strengths and playing to those strengths to achieve your greatest potential in the workplace. Let’s face it 2020 was the year the world basically took a pause. But we’re in 2021 and this offers us the ability to reset and start with a new mindset. Focus on both professional and personal development for the coming year.

Today, I am happy to welcome JoDee Curtis from Purple Ink to the DE podcast to discuss how to identify and harness your strengths using CliftonStrengths, assessment tool. JoDee is the founder of Purple Ink and the Ink Pad. She’s also author of JoyPowered: Intentionally Creating An Inspired Workplace and she is co-author of the JoyPowered family and the JoyPowered team. JoDee has a passion for helping organizations and individuals discover their talent and do more of what they do well. And will soon debut her course in our DE Academy. So welcome to the DE Podcast, JoDee.

JoDee Curtis:

Thank you. Thanks for having me on today.

Jen Polcer:

Great. Well, let’s go ahead and jump in. So, I mean I have seen you speak on multiple occasions and we’ve chatted quite a bit, but for our listeners who may not be familiar with you and your work, can you share a little bit about your background and what led you to create Purple Ink?

JoDee Curtis:

Yes. So interestingly as an HR consultant now I actually started my career as a CPA. So I worked as an auditor for my first nine years out of college and ended up working in public accounting for 21 years. But over that time, I gradually kept volunteering and signing up to take on HR responsibilities. As I started doing training first from a technical accounting perspective. And now I do it from a leader perspective. I also did recruiting early in my career, which I do now as well. So 21 years in public accounting, I did have a real passion for professional services and that movement and that professionalism of that. So decided to jump out on my own in 2010 and do my own thing. And so this 2020 is our 10-year anniversary of serving clients in all areas of HR, from leader sets development, to career coaching and outplacement to compliance, consulting, and outsourcing. So it’s been an awesome 10 years.

Jen Polcer:

Congratulations on the 10 years! And I think it’s funny hearing that you say that because I believe a lot of people end up falling into HR versus seeking it out. And we’ll probably learn a little bit more about that in the podcast here when we talk about our strength and such. But it’s often to have you here. You’ve got a wealth of knowledge and such a great background. So let’s talk a little bit more about employee training programs. You mentioned loving training. I myself too have a passion for training and I believe they can provide so much longterm value. Which programs do you feel are the most impactful?

JoDee Curtis:

Yeah, so of course I think CliftonStrengths is one of those that’s more impactful and we’ll talk more about that one, but otherwise I think training can be the most impacted when it really connects with you. And when you’re able to implement it right away and having the opportunity to use the information. And so many times in my own career and with our clients, I hear that, “Oh, the training today was awesome and I love it.” And then they go back to work exactly the way they’ve always said, that people are. We get right back into our old habits and we don’t implement or have a chance to follow up or to even to be held accountable for anything that we’ve learned in training.

So anytime when we can have that followup or accountability, I don’t think it matters what the training is. It’s something that changes our behavior.

Jen Polcer:

I wholeheartedly agree. That’s so true. And I think back to years and years of attending, not only training, but conferences or events and you’re so fired up for about 24, 48 hours and then yep, exactly falling back into the swing of things. So, well, then-

JoDee Curtis:

I do it myself. So I know.

Jen Polcer:

So I’m excited to talk about this CliftonStrengths and I mean, I have to admit, I totally geek out over assessments that allow you to become more self-aware and grow. And this was a new one for me. So I recently took it as well. And I’m in that super fired up stage. I just got my CliftonStrengths I’m ready to make a difference. So let’s dive in and let’s talk about what exactly the constraints the assessment is. So first of all, is it the same thing as StrengthFinders?

JoDee Curtis:

Yeah. So little confusion around that, but they did just recently rebrand about midway through 2020. So lot of books out there, their core book is called StrengthFinders 2.0. So the assessment hasn’t changed. The theory hasn’t changed. Just the name is now CliftonStrengths. Donald Clifton was the founder of the Strengths movement. So they’re paying him homage by inserting his name into the title.

Jen Polcer:

Oh, I see. Okay. That makes a lot more sense. And, as it should, I think that’s an important element of this piece of education. Why do you think, or why did you do know the Gallup Organization create this particular assessment?

JoDee Curtis:

Yes. So Donald Clifton actually worked at Gallup. So although he was the founder of it, it’s the Gallup Organization as a whole that created it. And interestingly, they were doing a study on excellence and they were looking at teams and individuals to define when did people or teams most achieved excellence? Most often or most frequently or in the best way possible? So what they discovered was that excellence was achieved when people were using their strengths. At that time, sort of think of the strengths as what do I do best and how can I do more of it?

So when people were doing what they did best more often they were more likely to achieve excellence. So it wasn’t an assessment that was created to…it wasn’t created to be a personality assessment, it wasn’t created as, oh, this is a fun tool, but an actual way of discovering then, okay, if we achieve excellence most often, when we’re using our strengths, how can we better define what our strengths are? And so the assessment came out about process.

Jen Polcer:

I see, it’s quite fascinating. It’s such a simple concept that we haven’t tapped into. So it really has been a big eye-opener for me. Tell me a little bit more about the concept of the naming, claiming, and aiming your strengths. The fun little rhyme there.

JoDee Curtis:

It’s the core process of understanding your strengths. Number one is naming them, which is really taking the assessment. Discovering what are your strengths? Now I always tell people, technically, you don’t really have to take the CliftonStrengths assessment to discover your strengths. Right? I think we all with some deep thought could probably come up with five things that we were best at. But yet most of us too, I think, tend to think of our strengths in terms of skillsets. Like I might say, well, I’m good at accounting or I’m good at recruiting, or I’m good at communicating with other people. But the assessment really dives in deeper than that to say, what drives me? What drives me to be good at recruiting? What drives me to be good at communicating? And those are a little more deeper thought, that we have to dig into an order to name those. So for $20 you can just go online and use the assessment and they’ll help you name those strengths.

The second step then is claiming them. So that’s where then you say, okay, it’s easy to look at your top five strengths and think, okay, I’ve named them, I get them, these are me. But how do we really claim them? How do we really think of examples of how have I used the strengths in the past? Even though maybe I hadn’t articulated it as my strength before now that I’ve named it, how might I go back and think about where did I use the strength in the past to help me succeed?

And I think for most people, again, that’s a pretty easy process as well. It’s pretty easy to go backwards and say, “One of my strengths is positivity.” And I think it’s pretty easy for me to go back and name some specific conversations, some action, some training or speaking I’ve done where my positivity was a part of it.

But the tricky part is the aiming. So that’s when we say, “Okay, I know my strengths, I understand how they connect to what I’ve done and how they’ve helped me get where I am today.” But the real question is how will I aim my strength tomorrow? How will I aim it next week? How will I aim at next year to really help me achieve excellence? So that’s where it comes back and ties around to thinking about our excellence. And that’s not always so easy. So I think my positivity is an easy one for people to understand. So I’ll stick with that example. When I think, how will I use my positivity tomorrow? If I really think about, okay, what do I have going on tomorrow? Do I have some difficult conversations? Am I training a group that is not excited about the training?

Maybe they’re being forced to be there and how will I use my positivity in those situations to make a bigger impact on the group? Which will allow me to achieve success and excellence, but also to help the conversation or help that training be more fruitful for the people I’m communicating with. So we have to be intentional. A lot of people say to, well, if positivity is a strength it must be natural for you, so why would you have to be intentional about it? It seems like you’d be positive anyway. Well, that’s true to some extent, but if you think about an athlete, pick Peyton Manning, right? He was obviously very skilled as a quarterback, but do you think he didn’t practice?

He still had to be intentional about practicing to make himself better. So he might’ve been a natural football player in middle school or high school, but that naturalness is not going to get him to the collegiate or the professional level without some discipline and some coaching and hours and hours and hours of practice around it. So we can do that, follow that same philosophy with our own strength.

Jen Polcer:

That’s amazing. And I’m thinking back now to where I’m at, I’ve done my naming and I’m starting to do a little bit of the claiming just while you’re talking here. And I realized the big challenge ahead is it’s going to be the aiming and it’s interesting too, to think how different a course of action or life might’ve taken us, had we known these strengths earlier and really tapped in on them. I often wonder if a lot of these younger prodigy of such… When someone recognizes that strength and then just hones in on it that’s such an advantage over the rest of us that may be, sitting there trying to work on all of our weaknesses, which is typically what we think we need to be doing.

So it’s really, this is great stuff. So after taking the assessment, I learned that my top strength, my five are: input, harmony, empathy, relator and developer. And I’ve been diving in a little bit more some of it made a lot of sense and some of it I had to laugh. I’ll just give a little short example for the input one, I’m very much an organization, I’ve got post-it notes, I’ve got color coded everything, and checklists. I mean, that is my jam. I mean, if I could do anything, I would be living and working in office max and the container store. But I’m also really data-driven. And so just yesterday, I was out with my fiance, we’re going to go cross country skiing. And we’ve got our new puppy with us and we’re getting all of our gear on it this and this and that.

And I’m fumbling around with my watch and he’s just standing there rolling his eyes. And he’s like, and he tells the puppy, “Oh mommy, and her data, she’s got to start the exercise app.” And I said, “Well, it’s one of my strengths honey, I need this data, I need this input so that I know we’re making progress.”

JoDee Curtis:

I love it.

Jen Polcer:

But it’s funny. Now I can own it as before I probably would have barked back. And now I’m like, this is my jam. Let me ride this. This is my strength. What are yours? Tell me a little bit about that.

JoDee Curtis:

Yeah. So mine are maximizer, arranger, positivity, futuristic and strategic. So interestingly there are 34 different strengths that Gallup has named. Once again, they didn’t set out to say the magic number is 34. There’s thousands of different talents out there. We could name different talents that people have all day. And what they did is combined them into different, which really they call signature themes. So the theme is a combination of different talents and then our signature themes become once we practice them and hone them and aim them, become our signature strengths.

Jen Polcer:

Okay. That’s awesome. And I know this on your email, you include your five strengths on your email signature.

JoDee Curtis:

I do. And our whole team at Purple Ink says that it’s a way for us to sort of put it out there. To share our strengths with others. And to own it in saying, “This is who I am.” It’s also a good reminder for us when I get an email from someone else on my team to just glance at their strengths again. Even though I know most all of our team members, anytime I can have those in front of me is a good reminder for me to hone into those.

I always think too, since one of my positivity, if I’m sending an email that might not come across real positive, I’m like, “Hey, wait a minute. I’m putting it out there that I’m a positive person.” So it holds me accountable for that.

Jen Polcer:

That’s great. I really like that. I think that’s a great idea. I’m excited to bring this more to life within DirectEmployers. So tell me do you think, is this an assessment for your work as we talked about work or for your personal life, or what’s your take on that?

JoDee Curtis:

Yeah, so I think it’s about our whole life. Technically Gallup did created their initial work and study around was around work teams. So that was their initial thought is about how people can achieve excellence in their work. But then they actually created a whole division of Gallop around this that worked with faith and your spiritual life, and then became really about, this is about all of our lives.

We can use it at work, we can use it in our faith. We can use it as a part of our personal life. And I love the story you just shared about you and your fiance, just in a casual, simple conversation about how we can understand each other better by talking and using our strengths. I feel like for me, that I became a much better mother when I understood the strengths of my kids. My kids all took it when they were in their teenage years. And I just wish I had known them even earlier. But understanding the strength of my kids, was such a powerful moment for me and my husband as well. And not only then did we have frequent conversations at the dinner table around our strengths, which I know might sound a little boring until our listeners start to use and implement theirs.

But I actually had such a proud mother moment just a month or so ago when my youngest son, who’s now 22 years old and getting ready to finish up college. But he called me and asked if I could get his girlfriend a code so that he could understand her strengths. And I was just like, yes that made an impact on him! He wanted to know that about her. And he went and shared his dreams with her too. So it definitely is all encompassing parts of our lives.

Jen Polcer:

I couldn’t agree more. And once I finished it, the first thing I did was turn to Dave and said, “You’ve got to do this. I need to know what’s going on with you and his work.” And it’s funny, you mentioned that as a parent, I could see definitely wanting to tap in on those strengths. And even it’s just such a natural thing as a person, I don’t have children, but like I mentioned, we just got this new puppy and it’s a rescue.

And I had to do the doggy DNA, I just needed to know. And Dave had several rescue dogs he’s never been inclined to do it. But after reading more about how you train a puppy and a dog, so much of it is about what type of breed they are, because it’s different. And so finding that she’s like a mix of 10 different breeds, almost 10%, I’m tapping into, okay, well, what does this breed do well and how can I help her do that better? I mean, it’s so interesting how it’s in all these things, but I’d never really thought about doing that with my own self. Well, that’s the developer in me. I tend to want to bring out the best in everybody else and see them even do well. And how can I help them do that?

So I guess that’s why that strength is there for me too. Goodness. All right. Well, I’m getting off track here, so let’s get back to the point here. And I couldn’t help, but think when I took the assessment. So 177 questions takes about half hour. And they say to take it rather quickly, go with your first instinct. But when I’m thinking back, if I would have taken this in my 20s or in your case talking about your kids taking in their teenage years, do you think if someone had taken a several years ago, should they take it again? What is that time burn? Because I’m now in my 40s and I’m certainly looking at the world much differently than I did in my 20s. What are your thoughts on that?

JoDee Curtis:

Yeah, so there’s actually a lot of Gallup research around this topic and I’ll jump quickly to another thought that researchers have said for years that our personalities are really defined by the age of four. And although this is not a personality assessment per se, I think the same concept really applies. And I know it’s a hard concept to get or to grasp. That we think like, “Oh, I’m totally different than I was in college. I’m totally different now that I’m a mom, now that I’m a leader or now that I have my own business or whatever it might be for people.” We think we’re different but our core really does stay the same. So Gallup’s advice is to not take it again. And it’s best not take it once you’ve had any training on that at all, because subconsciously we start to answer questions differently once we understand the philosophy around it a little bit more.

Now I have to admit, I didn’t know that myself for a while. So I personally have taken up more than once, and I have talked to hundreds of people who have taken it more than once, and 90% of the time this is what I hear and I just reflect on my own personal situation. So the second time I took it and I got a whole 34 of my strengths. So you can pay $20 to get your top five. You can pay another $42 to get the next 29 all in order. Well, once I had all 34 strengths, then I knew that it appeared that my top five had changed. That the two of them had changed. But in reality, my top seven are the same. So I think your question was a good one that, would we, in fact, answer all 177 questions exactly the same way?

Of course not. Of course are not going to answer them all the same way. We might not remember how we answered them five minutes later, much less three, five, 10 years later. But it really it’s our top 10, maybe even up to 12 strengths that really define who we are. So we might have opportunities to work, or we might even be practicing some more often, whether it’s intentional or unintentional. So they might fall out of our top five of our best, but it’s very unlikely they’re going to fall out of our top 10 to 12. So what I encourage people to do, if they’re curious about taking it again, to see if they change is just to pay the $42 and go online and get their full 34. And that really will provide them with much more information than just taking it again.

Jen Polcer:

That makes total sense. And I could see that as well too things shift around, as you mentioned. I was first shocked when I saw them. Not shocked, but I’ve like, was thinking maybe a little bit different on some of them and that’s what I thought more about my 20s, where I was really climbing the corporate ladder and just working to the end of time trying to make things. And now I’m a little bit older and I’ve done a lot of that I want. So a lot of those questions that were geared towards the achiever I think is what I was thinking. But I think that would still be there. You mentioned, if I did the full one, so that’s a good point. And I mentioned too, I’ve been very fortunate to work for companies that have allowed me to take several. And this one, my goodness for 20 bucks I mean, even without being with an organization I would pay for it, I would highly recommend that investment on yourself. But how does this differ from assessments like DiSC or Myers-Briggs some of those other ones that are out there?

JoDee Curtis:

Yeah. I’m sort of an assessment junkie myself. I feel like all of those. I’m certified, not only in StrengthsFinders but I’m certified in DiSC, I’m certified in Predictive Index, I’ve done Myers-Briggs several times. So I think they’re all valuable and that they help us learn more about ourselves. But the real power I think comes when we can understand the style of those people around us. If we work on that team or our family or a partner or whoever that might be in our lives, it’s understanding more about ourselves and being able to articulate that to others and then understanding more about themselves as well.

But what I like best about CliftonStrengths is that it really provides us with a roadmap to say, what will I do with this information? And at a very simplest level is how will I aim my strengths tomorrow? How will I aim my strength next week? I have this meeting or training coming up tomorrow, I mentioned earlier, and I usually don’t try all five of them at the same time, but how could I use my positivity? How can I use my futuristic? How can I use my strategic? How can I incorporate some of my strengths in that particular activity so that I can achieve excellence? And if I’m achieving excellence. it’s likely the conversation is going to be better for everyone. The training will be more effective for everyone, if I’m doing it by achieving excellence.

So lot of the other ones are great information and can help with our conversations and interactions with others. But I don’t think they necessarily give us a roadmap on what to do with that information.

Jen Polcer:

That’s so spot on. When we were talking about doing this podcast, I dug out my last two DiSC assessments and my Myers-Briggs and you’re right. I mean, they do, I’m like, “Mm-hmm (affirmative) yeah, that’s me.” Okay. I get it. But there’s not much to move forward on other than just understanding and accepting who you are. And I think that this particularly I know with DirectEmployers, our operations team had taken that together. And there was a lot of ah-ha (affirmative) moments, not so much on ourselves, but on each other. And I think that’s really where I think the DiSK was very beneficial where we could take a step back and think, oh, okay, that’s how this person works and thrives in such and such.

So that makes sense there. But the CliftonStrengths is really like, I’m fired up to hone in on those. And, I know we talked about the top five, and you expanded about the 34, and I’ve been fortunate enough since I know the course that you all have built for DirectEmployers, it’s awesome. I am so excited to get it live and out there. And one of the things that you all talk about in the course is maybe a timeframe about when to do all 34, because that’s a lot of information, I mean, even just the top five to hone in, and I like the advice that was given in your course, and I don’t want to give any spoiler alerts because I’m excited for people to take the course. But what is your thought? Did you go in and do all 34 right away?

JoDee Curtis:

No, I didn’t. I knew my top five for about four years before I went back and got all 34. Gallup advice on that is, well, it’s interesting, Donald Clifton only wanted people to know that their top three strengths. Because he said, people couldn’t remember more than three, but the Gallup Organization really pushed him to say, “We got to give people more than this.” So he said, “Okay, let’s do five.” Because he felt like, again, that people were not going to focus on them if they couldn’t remember them. So he wanted to stick with a small number originally. So there’s technically no magic number on how long you have to wait to get all 34, but we recommend waiting at least six months, maybe even up to a year, to give yourself some time to focus on those top five and really figure out how you can aim them to at achieve excellence and then go back and get it.

You don’t have to take it again. You just go back to GallupStrengthCenter.com and log in to your account and pay the difference to get your remaining length. But of course, what do you think is our natural tendency when we Gallup 34? Everyone wants to see what is at the bottom. Is actually the whole opposite of what StrengthFinders is trying to present. And that is focused on your strengths, not your number 34.

Jen Polcer:

That’s a great point. And I like hearing that because part of me thinks, here goes my input, I want to know all the data. Tell me everything. So I’m going to slow my roll there and just focus on these top five and see where that brings me over this next year. I think this is, if anything a great new year to focus in, on things that are positive. I think we all need to be doing that this year and what better way to do it than by starting with ourselves and hopefully getting those around us to take this assessment as well. And even if your strength, isn’t a developer I encourage everybody to push others along to do their strengths too. But let’s shift gears and talk a little bit about you’ve written books on JoyPowered, how does that connect with the strengths?

JoDee Curtis:

Yeah, so about five years ago, I decided I wanted to write a book. Which I never thought I would have the patience to do. At that point I was doing a lot of interviewing, I spent a lot of my career recruiting others, and I was fascinated that people were so unhappy in their work life and their roles and their careers.

And the more and more I talked to people, I just wanted to research that topic of why have you been in a role for 10 years and you’ve been miserable? Because I had found in my own career so much joy in what I did. Now that’s not to say my career was perfect, or that I discovered my joy every single day at work but I did when I got to different points in my career where I wasn’t finding my joy I moved on. And sometimes that was in an internal role. And sometimes that was leaving an organization and going somewhere else. So I have this fascination at the same time, I had become certified as the CliftonStrengths career coach. And putting the two together, I was thinking, how can I help people discover this joy for themselves?

So my number one, maximizer, means bringing out the best in others or processes. And I just really felt this call to say, “How can I help people discover this?” Although the title is JoyPowered: Intentionally Creating an Inspired Workspace, it’s not just for the leaders. It’s not just for business owners to say, “How can I do this for my people?” It’s for every individual to say, “How can I find this in my work?” Because I don’t think we can give other people joy. I don’t think I can create joy for you, Jen. But I do think that I can help to create a culture where people can discover their joy. And I believe that begins with helping people to utilize and discover their strengths.

Jen Polcer:

That’s so true. I was just thinking someone mentioned, this was a common thing people say, but if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. We’ve heard that before. Well, how do we do that? What is our need? But the taking that quote a step further, do what you’re good at. Do what makes your heart happy. And that’s where that JoyPowered comes in. So that’s awesome that you’ve brought that to the forefront as well.

JoDee Curtis:

And I think it’s so much easier, when people say, do what you love and you think oh, well I like playing the piano. So that means my career has to be as a piano player. Well, no, it can mean, I love bringing out the best in other people. So how can I have a career where I can bring out the best in other people? That’s a much easier process than turning your hobby of piano, playing into a full-time business, so many more opportunities to do that with our strengths.

Jen Polcer:

So true. Well, as I mentioned before, we are excited to have your course that you all have created around this assessment. We’ll be putting that in our DE Academy, which will be going live. That’s one other thing we’re looking forward to in 2021 here in a few months, so people will be able to not only log on and take CliftonStrengths, but I think the key is what you mentioned that aiming in that following up which is where your course ties in. But in the meantime, how can listeners find out maybe a little bit more about ClintonStrengths?

JoDee Curtis:

Yeah. So, yes, taking the course would be a good start, but also you can go to gallupstrengthscenter.com or even if you just Google StrengthFinders or CliftonStrengths, it always will take you to the Gallup Strength Center website, and you can read articles and research and information out there. And then you can also sign up to take the assessment as well. There are also probably 15, 20 different books out there that have been written by people with the Gallup Organization. StrengthFinders 2.0 is sort of a core one that you can get and read and learn more about that as well.

Jen Polcer:

Awesome. That’s good. After taking your course here, I know there’s also an app that I just downloaded this morning so I can stay on course there too?

JoDee Curtis:

Yeah.

Jen Polcer:

All right. Well, this has been such a great conversation. Like I said, I just took the assessment. I’m extremely fired up. We’re so fortunate to be partnering with you to get this into our academy. And one of the things that we do on our podcast here, we like to keep it light, we’re talking often a lot about HR and compliance. So I think this has been a really good topic, especially for the new year. But we like to ask five questions of you, or whoever is our partner in the podcast. So if you don’t mind just telling me the first thing that comes to mind. All right?

JoDee Curtis:

Okay.

Jen Polcer:

All right. So if you were running for office, what would your campaign slogan be?

JoDee Curtis:

Let’s do this.

Jen Polcer:

Nice, I like it. And how about, are you a morning person or a night owl?

JoDee Curtis:

Total morning person.

Jen Polcer:

Very good. And if you’re willing to say, what is one of your weird quirks?

JoDee Curtis:

So it doesn’t sound so weird that I would say that I’m a reader until I tell you that I’ve actually read 107 books in 2020. So input is my number six. That’s my way of getting information is via reading.

Jen Polcer:

That’s awesome. That is a very admirable, I’ve got a goal every year to read more. And, one thing COVID is provided a chance to I switch more. You’ll only use Netflix for so long. I finally signed up for the Kindle Unlimited, and I’ve been really enjoying getting my input fixed as well via reading. So that’s awesome. What did one thing that either you would put, or maybe already is on your bucket list?

JoDee Curtis:

I want to go to the Olympics. And I actually had tickets to the Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta, and I ended up delivering a baby during the Olympics, which of course was even more beautiful, but I’ve always still wanted to go.

Jen Polcer:

And I was hearing lately, there’s going to be some new, fun Olympic sports, including a breakdancing. I believe may it may make the cut. A little, yeah. Rocking back to our ’80s I’m excited to see how that goes. That is some true talent. And Curtis what are you currently learning or reading up on that you’d like to share with us?

JoDee Curtis:

Yeah, well, so of course I’m reading about all kinds of things. But one thing in particular is actually I’m still always near and dear to CliftonStrengths, but I just took a new assessment from Patrick Lencioni called Your Genius, understanding your genius. So I’m learning more about that right now.

Jen Polcer:

Ooh, I’m already tapping into our next, DE Academy course then. So I’m going to put you on the hook for that one. Awesome.

JoDee Curtis:

Okay. I like it.

Jen Polcer:

Yeah. So, as a manager, I feel like this assessment, as we talked about, it’s a good tool for teams. It’s a good tool personally for your growth. We utilize, we set people up for success. Your team has created this course specifically for our academy and it helps individuals go beyond just receiving the assessment. But as I mentioned, in fact, maximizing on that information by teaching us how to utilize our strengths, to reach our full potential.

I’ve mentioned the DE Academy will go live in the spring of 2021. And I highly encourage all of our listeners to look into this course. In the meantime, or beyond if you’d like to contact JoDee and her team after the podcast, JoDee what’s the best way for our listeners to reach you?

JoDee Curtis:

Yeah, I think going to our website, which is https://www.purpleinkllc.com/ and then my pictures on that front page, and you can click on there and send me an email or also connect with me on LinkedIn, I’m J-O-D-E-E Curtis, C-U-R-T-I-S.

Jen Polcer:

And I was going to plug, I love the spelling of your name. I think that’s so cool! Sounds a little different and unique coming from a Jennifer, there’s these common names. Awesome. JoDee well, it’s been such a pleasure chatting with you today. Thank you so much for all of your insight and for creating this course for not only our Members, but the general public, we look forward to getting it live and keeping in touch.

JoDee Curtis:

Yeah. Thanks so much. What a pleasure.

Jen Polcer:

All right. Take care.

Candee Chambers:

Thank you for tuning in for another episode of the DE Talk Podcast. Stay connected with DirectEmployers on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and be sure to subscribe to the podcast to receive notifications of new episodes each month.